Microsoft vs apps that came with iMac - are they worth it

[TFL167]

I'm new to OSX and I'm so used to using Microsoft office. I was wondering if I should get office for for the Mac or just tough it out and use the apps that came with the iMac. I know there one advantage of using the apps that came with because they are free but are they worth it.
How does the mail app compare to outlook? Is it just as good or not. your experiences and options please

 

[Cisco_Kid]

I personally love Office, now can you do with out it, yes of course.. but it's a pain in the ass if you ask me.

Mail in my opinion on the Mac is far more efficient and easy to use than Outlook, but I'd say give both a whirl and pick whichever you like, in short I'd still purchase Office if I were you.

 

[simonsi]

Other free or nearly-free that you might want to consider:

Airmail - more stable Exchange connection than Mail if you are in a corporate Exchange environment IMHO (and very good UI)

OpenOffice - Word/Excel etc alternative, pretty stable and compatible, usually some advanced feature lag vs Office

 

[/V\acpower]

Well, if you are ready to give them a chance, a couple of weeks and most of all if you are ready to accept that they are not clones of the MS Office apps but different apps that are not meant to work in the exact same way, I think you will find they are very capable.

I mean, if you are going to get angry anytime something you are used to isn't in the same place or is not done the same way than in office, well it's already set : you will hate those apps.

Apple make apps that are generally easier to use and to learn than Microsoft (traditionally at least, and I think it applies to Windows vs OS X also), but if you already very familiar with the Microsoft apps, obviously, as user friendly they can be, it will always need some time to get used to. Know and accept that and you will be happy.

---

p.s. About "apps that came with iMac", just to be sure, you know you have a bunch of free apps from Apple that you can download on the Mac App Store when you buy a new Mac ? (Pages, Keynote and Numbers for example).

 

[jfalberti]

I run MS Office on several machines

So, I opted to subscribe to Office 365. This has several benefits:

Up to 5 local installs of the latest Office apps on any combination of Mac or PCs.

Up to 5 local installs of MS Office mobile apps on any mix of iOS or Android devices.

1 TB storage on OneDrive.

Automatically upgrade to the latest versions of Office as they are released.

At $100 a year, I think it's totally worth it.

 

[crjackson2134]

I have Office for Mac 2011 (Free download from college), but I use it very little. It's just there for compatibility reasons when the need arises.

Libre Office is really a decent set of tools for producing documents. It gets a workout on a regular basis.

When making uncomplicated documents, I use Pages/Numbers/Keynote. I enjoy using this because I can pick up my phone or iPad and have instant access. If Pages/Numbers would just add a few more features, and fix the occasional MS compatibility issues, I'd never use anything else.

 

[Sirious]

I'm new to OSX and I'm so used to using Microsoft office. I was wondering if I should get office for for the Mac or just tough it out and use the apps that came with the iMac. I know there one advantage of using the apps that came with because they are free but are they worth it.
How does the mail app compare to outlook? Is it just as good or not. your experiences and options please

I love my Mac but I can't get by without using Microsoft Office as my default desktop suite. It's one of the first things I install on a Mac.
I highly recommend that you get a copy of it for the Mac.

Pages, Keynote and Numbers (iWork) are great and have certainly gained a tonne of features over the years, but I also work from my Windows PC and it's nice to know that the document I created on the Mac will work seamlessly with my Windows PC.

There are iOS counterparts available for the iPad and iPhone too, so keep that in mind if you want to edit on the go. If you're up for it, go for Office 365 - which gives you the option to edit docs on any device and store them in OneDrive - similar to the way iCloud works with iWork.

Side rant: I hope Microsoft is working on creating a better design for Yosemite as the current version has Mavericks and earlier in mind and looks slightly out of place on Yosemite.

 

[sonicrobby]

Office is a must! The iWork suites don't seem to do it (for me at least). I'd say budget to get the 2011 office for Mac.

I don't know about the mail though. I personally never really used outlook, but I love the native mail app from apple.

 

[GerritV]

<snip>Pages, Keynote and Numbers (iWork) are great and have certainly gained a tonne of features over the years<snip>

... only to lose half a ton on their latest version.
My 2c on M$Office: Excel is simply the standard, Word is a user unfriendly monster, Powerpoint is worthless compared to Keynote, and Outlook is user unfriendly compared to Mail. In the end, I buried the iWork toys and went for M$Office on all of my devices. Which reminds me: OneNote is one cool app, and OneDrive simply works. YMMV

 

[Sirious]

... only to lose half a ton on their latest version.
My 2c on M$Office: Excel is simply the standard, Word is a user unfriendly monster, Powerpoint is worthless compared to Keynote, and Outlook is user unfriendly compared to Mail. In the end, I buried the iWork toys and went for M$Office on all of my devices. Which reminds me: OneNote is one cool app, and OneDrive simply works. YMMV

I consider myself as a power user so that "unfriendly monster" is actually my best friend

 

[NoBoMac]

I have Office for Mac 2011 [...] but I use it very little. It's just there for compatibility reasons when the need arises.

Ditto.

Libre Office is really a decent set of tools for producing documents. It gets a workout on a regular basis.

My go-to tool.

And has pretty good MS Office compatibility, better than Apple's tools. To be fair, not a macro, VBA user, so, never have to deal with that. Primarily a spreadsheet user, have had great success going between LibreOffice and Excel for iOS (latest MS update with included editing features) via Dropbox.

Beauty is, no vendor lock-in. And works cross-OS. If LibreOffice has a bug, can always install and use OpenOffice since they read/write the same file formats. Ditto NeoOffice for yet another option.

In the case of Apple's handling of Excel files, have had it try to change formulas on me (eg. time calculation that's valid in Excel, Apple thinks is wrong and adds extra items to formulas) changes sheet formatting (hiding cells outside of "active" cells [makes a table of everything, basically]).

As someone else said, if the slightest difference in how the tools works will drive you nuts, stick with MS. And or if need to have compatibility for sharing MS format files. If not sharing, doesn't matter: prints/save/ship PDFs from whatever tool works for you.

 

[dxmac99]

I installed the MS office 2011 for mac and I have to tell you I barely used it. And it is a pain in the neck that this software has to keep updating all the time. Just like windows 7.

I tried pages for writing some documents. I have to say at the beginning I am not a huge fan of it, but now since I've got used to it and I find it is pretty nice and enough for an average use.

 

[afsnyder]

I'm new to OSX and I'm so used to using Microsoft office. I was wondering if I should get office for for the Mac or just tough it out and use the apps that came with the iMac. I know there one advantage of using the apps that came with because they are free but are they worth it.
How does the mail app compare to outlook? Is it just as good or not. your experiences and options please

Depends... what are you needing it for? If it's for school, don't pay for Office.

 

[GerritV]

I consider myself as a power user so that "unfriendly monster" is actually my best friend

Best of luck (and don't get me wrong, I too have to use Word professionally - but I still find it a monster)