iworks or ms office 08 for mac?

kenrc51 · April 16, 2008 1:39AM

Hi i just purchased a 2.4 macbook and along with iwork. I am using this for school, not video editing or special effect stuff. I have always been a pc user untill today. I was wondering if iwork is almost the same at ms office? Im used to using mswords. Is the word processing on the iworks almost the same as the ms words? For example, can i write am essay with iworks with all the editing i need like the ms words?

I know i purchased the iworks but i have not open it yet. I want to know you guys feedback before i open it. I dont know weather to get the msoffice 08 for mac instead?

outsider · April 16, 2008 9:41AM

I think you will like it. Pages is very easy to use and has lot's of great templates and page layout tools. macworld has a good comparison between the 2 suites:

Pages & Word

Numbers & Excel

Keynote & PowerPoint

backtomac · April 16, 2008 9:50AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kenrc51

Hi i just purchased a 2.4 macbook and along with iwork. I am using this for school, not video editing or special effect stuff. I have always been a pc user untill today. I was wondering if iwork is almost the same at ms office? Im used to using mswords. Is the word processing on the iworks almost the same as the ms words? For example, can i write am essay with iworks with all the editing i need like the ms words?

I know i purchased the iworks but i have not open it yet. I want to know you guys feedback before i open it. I dont know weather to get the msoffice 08 for mac instead?

Can you submit your work (term papers, ect) in PDF format? If so I would get iWork. Its rare to find someone who like office 08.

kenrc51 · April 16, 2008 11:21AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by backtomac

Can you submit your work (term papers, ect) in PDF format? If so I would get iWork. Its rare to find someone who like office 08.

well i remember im a new mac user so i only know how to you use office 08. So file in iworks are all pdf? Can i open up the same file with office?

another question if i make a powerpoint presentation and save it on a flashdrive would the school pc open the file? Or do they need to have a mac?

mr. me · April 16, 2008 12:17PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kenrc51

well i remember im a new mac user so i only know how to you use office 08. So file in iworks are all pdf? Can i open up the same file with office?

You misunderstood. PDF is not the editable document format of iWorks '08. However, all MacOS X apps can print to PDF. This feature of MacOS X allows you to send any document from your Mac in a "universal" readable format. FWIW, iWork '08 can read Office files.

Quote:

Originally Posted by kenrc51

another question if i make a powerpoint presentation and save it on a flashdrive would the school pc open the file? Or do they need to have a mac?

This depends. If the PC has Office 07 or if it has Office 03 with the latest updates, then it should have no problems. The release of Office 07 has complicated matters for both MacOS X and Windows users. Some installations of Office 03 have been automatically updated for Office 07-compatibility. Others have not. You have to be really careful about formats when transferring files between installations of Office whether on Mac or Windows.

kenrc51 · April 16, 2008 8:51PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr. Me

You misunderstood. PDF is not the editable document format of iWorks '08. However, all MacOS X apps can print to PDF. This feature of MacOS X allows you to send any document from your Mac in a "universal" readable format. FWIW, iWork '08 can read Office files.

This depends. If the PC has Office 07 or if it has Office 03 with the latest updates, then it should have no problems. The release of Office 07 has complicated matters for both MacOS X and Windows users. Some installations of Office 03 have been automatically updated for Office 07-compatibility. Others have not. You have to be really careful about formats when transferring files between installations of Office whether on Mac or Windows.

thanks your your help

guinness · April 17, 2008 7:26PM

IWork 08 and Office 2008 are office suites at different ends of the spectrum - one's too basic, the other too slow IMO. I don't find either particularly good, maybe it's because I do use Excel quite often, and in that regard, both suites are terrible.

Office 2007 is still what I use - it makes me more productive, as it's hard to switch between the Ribbon in Word and Pages once you get used to it (and the Ribbon simplifies a lot of things for me), and Word has more features that I use. And you can save 2007 as PDF's with the plugin from MS. As far as the 2007 formats, I can't think of anything good about them, other than for MS to cloud/clutter the workspaces with files half the people can't open.

You can also setup the 2007 apps (and I'm sure 2008 too) to automatically save as 97-2003 formats instead of docx/xlsx/pptx.

I would say, try out the iWorks and Office trials before settling on anything, and I think 2004 is better than 2008, but YMMV.

backtomac · April 17, 2008 7:41PM

The OP should look at these tutorials.

It will give you an idea of what iWork is capable of doing and how easy/difficult it is to use.

abilstein · April 17, 2008 10:57PM

I really like iWork. I use it in a corporate environment and exchange docs with my colleagues every day. This wasn't really feasible until iWork '08 due to the inclusion of Numbers and the Change Tracking introduced in Pages. Nobody has ever asked if I'm using something besides Office (except when they're looking at my monitor of course).

The OS integration is very nice, the price is much better, and Keynote kicks ass over PowerPoint. I also prefer Pages over Word, but my needs are not great and if you're a Word maestro then it might lack some features that you expect, I can only speculate.

One caveat I have is that we have some complex Excel spreadsheets and Numbers can be slow to open them and doesn't always include some of the advanced interface features (comparing to a colleague using Windows and Office). That said, Numbers feels very good for a 1.0 product to me. If you are dealing with basic spreadsheets, you should have no problems.

The only other caveat is that you'll need to remember to export your files to their native MS Office counterparts in most cases, as that's what people will be expecting. For example, Pages saves as a .pages document by default - you have to choose File -> Export if you want to send the doc back to a Windows Office user.

I love love love the built in PDF printing. And the OS integration just works. And did I say that Keynote kicks ass?

History: I've used Mac Office 2004 fairly extensively and Mac Office 2008 only as a trial. And I've used Windows/Office since ~'95.

kenrc51 · April 21, 2008 1:39AM

I just used page for the first time the other day. I love it, it is easy to use. I figure out to export the file so i can view it with a pc. One question, i noticed that on the font option page does not have Times New Roman font. How do i get this font for page? Im use to using that font and would like to keep using it.

mr. me · April 21, 2008 8:00AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kenrc51

..., i noticed that on the font option page does not have Times New Roman font. How do i get this font for page? ....

Times New Roman is a low-rent alternative to Times. It ships as part of Microsoft Office. It is standard on Windows. It is a trivial matter to reformat your document in Office:win to use this font.

backtomac · April 21, 2008 9:49AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kenrc51

I just used page for the first time the other day. I love it, it is easy to use. I figure out to export the file so i can view it with a pc. One question, i noticed that on the font option page does not have Times New Roman font. How do i get this font for page? Im use to using that font and would like to keep using it.

Open fonts and look under 'classic'.

You'll see several fonts there that are similar to TNR.

kenrc51 · April 22, 2008 11:10AM

thanks for your help guys

iworks or ms office 08 for mac?

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