MS Office Vs. iWork

[Bern]

I use iWork exclusively, people who prattle on about Word being so much more powerful, like most everybody else, only use a fifth of what it does. Word is a bloated bit of virus attracting software that has tried to cater for all people. The result is a "powerful" application that nobody makes full use of.

I don't send or receive .doc files via email, that's what pdfs are for. Pages is an extremely useful and versatile application that can prepare and open documents without issue.

If you're really desperate then use Google's free Docs & Spreadsheet applications. The belief that you cannot live without Word because you've used it for so long is short sighted.

 

[72930]

Eh. NeoOffice is no replacement for MS Office, but it will work well enough until Office 2008 is released for OS X.

I find that Writer does everything I want

I am holding out for both a truly aquafied OpenOffice, and Office:Mac '08, and then I will make my decision

 

[IJ Reilly]

I e-mail work to school PCs, and "export to .doc" isn't perfect...

NeoOffice can't be much better. The Microsoft file formats still need to be reverse-engineered. But the real surprise to me is that you prefer Pages for note taking. If I've got any big gripe about Pages, it's the occasional typing lag.

 

[IJ Reilly]

I use iWork exclusively, people who prattle on about Word being so much more powerful, like most everybody else, only use a fifth of what it does. Word is a bloated bit of virus attracting software that has tried to cater for all people. The result is a "powerful" application that nobody makes full use of.

I don't send or receive .doc files via email, that's what pdfs are for. Pages is an extremely useful and versatile application that can prepare and open documents without issue.

If you're really desperate then use Google's free Docs & Spreadsheet applications. The belief that you cannot live without Word because you've used it for so long is short sighted.

No argument from me, except I'd lower the number of regularly-used Word features closer to 10%. In my experience, the vast majority of Word users (and this includes clerical people!) don't even know how to properly use Word's paragraph and text styles, which leads to horribly fouled-up and ugly documents. MS Word manages the almost impossible feat of being complicated and primitive all at the same time.

 

[decksnap]

Pages is not intended to be a substitute or competitor to Word. This is the first and most important thing to understand. Pages is better at what it does, and Word is better at what it does.

Keynote vs. Powerpoint is no contest. I admit that I own both, because I occasionally edit client's PPTs... but for in-house presentation building, Keynote is so far superior it's crazy. How could Microsoft take something so simple and make it so annoyingly difficult to make good looking presentations?

 

[IJ Reilly]

Pages is not intended to be a substitute or competitor to Word. This is the first and most important thing to understand. Pages is better at what it does, and Word is better at what it does.

I keep hearing this, but I've never heard the reasoning behind it really explained. I do all of my word processing in Pages. So in what way is it not a substitute for Word?

 

[aquajet]

So in what way is it not a substitute for Word?

I've only just begun using Pages over the last few months. The only thing Pages doesn't allow me to do is scream and curse at my computer screen in frustration.

Seriously though, you're right on. Word seems terribly complicated and primitive compared to Pages, for what I do. To me, only one could be considered better at what it does.

 

[josepho]

I e-mail work to school PCs, and "export to .doc" isn't perfect...

I have to do that to print out essays and what not. Rather than exporting to .doc in Pages, I print to PDF and email that... I've found that in almost all cases the formatting has been totally preserved. I have noticed a couple of irregularities once or twice, but nothing to warrant worrying about.

 

[Edandlindz28]

I use MS Office just because I have it. It really all depends on what you need out of the product. I would like to use Keynote because it does look like it can do some awesome stuff, but PP is the only thing my work uses. This is almost like every other thread of Apple is better than MS (which it is). iWork is cheaper to buy and if you don't have to worry about peer sharing your work then use it.

 

[Switched]

Someone please enlighten me, what makes word a better app than pages? I smell bs

 

[xUKHCx]

Someone please enlighten me, what makes word a better app than pages? I smell bs

Lots of stuff depending on what you plan to do, for example can you embed an excel worksheet inside Pages (I don't think so). I tried to switch to pages but I really need interconnectivity with Excel so it really is a no go, for me.


Apart from lack of excel compatability I have some questions about Pages

Automatic generation Contents pages?
Figure Numbers, Table numbers etc?
Section numbering?
Can you easily draw in pages?
Track changes and comments?

These are the minimum features I need before Pages could become close to Word. The export to .doc also needs vast improvement, I also have a weird issue (persistant after reinstalls, clearing prefs, repair permissions, etc.) where the document inspector will become stretch horizontally and can no longer interact with it. So in my expereince it is less stable than Word, which is not good.

 

[gonnabuyamac]

i have both

i have been using iWork for about half a year now, and overall i like it. keynote is very cool, and i often use it instead of powerpoint.

i would compare pages more to publisher than to word. i like it for what it does, but i honestly would much rather use word for word processing.

pages has potential, but word has the advantage of having been in the business for years, and it shows. plus, if you're going to work with others who use office software, it's just easier. importing and exporting in from pages to word gets cumbersome, and the results are always perfect - especially if graphics are involved.

not to mention that as of yet, there is no iwork answer to excel. i don't use it much, but when i do need it it's sure nice to have it around.

i haven't even installed entourage - so i don't know about that. i really like mail and ical - so at this point i'm not interested in starting over. i may re-evaluate that when office 2008 comes out.

i highly recommend both iwork and office, it just depends on what you're using them for. of course, the price difference isn't much for me since i get office for $125 with free upgrades for two years through a non-profit distributer.

 

[tjwett]

iWork makes beautiful looking documents and has a robust template system.

iWork uses the page layout/desktop publishing workflow, while Office uses the word processing/business workflow.

iWork has limited spreadsheet functionality in tables in both Keynote and Pages. You can add your own math expressions to cells etc.

 

[MRU]

My friend authored a book using pages.

Only trouble came when he had to give a copy to a pc user to proof read and make corrections

They wanted it in word, and whilst text exports fine, because half of his book is images also, the layout went utterly out the window when exporting to word files.

Why can't word handle pictures nicely

 

[decksnap]

I keep hearing this, but I've never heard the reasoning behind it really explained. I do all of my word processing in Pages. So in what way is it not a substitute for Word?

Pages is in the 'desktop publishing' category. Word is in the 'word processing' category. This is the reason for their features and lack of features.

 

[72930]

NeoOffice can't be much better. The Microsoft file formats still need to be reverse-engineered. But the real surprise to me is that you prefer Pages for note taking. If I've got any big gripe about Pages, it's the occasional typing lag.

Not for me...and Pages takes up little screen space, and is quick to open. It has word count which I need, and simple formatting

 

[IJ Reilly]

Automatic generation Contents pages? yes
Figure Numbers, Table numbers etc? yes, but not automatic
Section numbering? yes, but not automatic
Can you easily draw in pages? yes, very
Track changes and comments? no and yes

I've never had any stability issues with Pages.

Pages is in the 'desktop publishing' category. Word is in the 'word processing' category. This is the reason for their features and lack of features.

Not so. Pages is a word processor that handles graphics properly.

 

[wyatt23]

if iwork has even a halfway decent spreadsheet program, it will be the Office for Mac killer.

Pages has become my word processor of choice. very easy controls and allows for AMAZING graphic integration.

Keynote is on par with powerpoint. however, it has much prettier templates. i've familiar with powerpoint. i've never used keynote 'til last semester. after two uses, i was sold on keynote.

now if i just had a reason to delete NeoOffice [for spreadsheet].

 

[notjustjay]

When I am giving a presentation, I use Keynote when I can. If people ask for a copy, I provide either a PDF of the slides or convert it to PowerPoint and provide that. The conversion to PowerPoint loses some of the "slick" look and definitely the transitions, but suits people fine when they just want the content. This worked great for school and extra-curricular stuff, but not for work.

When I am at work, it is Microsoft Office all the way. It is a corporate standard, for IT support, interoperability, security, etc. While some of you might say things like "fortunately not all of us are in that situation" there are definitely many of us who are, and we deal with it. If I insisted on sticking with, say, Pages, I would be forever converting things back and forth for everyone else who wants Word, for no other reason than sticking to some conviction that Pages was a better tool. Frankly I'm not so much of a rabid Apple fan that I'm not willing to use what everyone else uses in order to get the job done. Any pain of dealing with MS Word is outweighed by the hassle of all that back and forth conversion.

Not even going to get into the fact that I think Pages is a big steaming turd, because I'm stuck using an older version on older hardware so it's probably not a fair comparison, other than to say that Office '03 works fine on the same system.

I know people on Mac forums or groups who say things like "If they want a copy, I give them a PDF. If they want to edit it in Word, I say 'tough luck'." You wouldn't last long with that kind of attitude in my line of work. (Edit: it's not just Mac people, it's also Linux people, LaTeX people, etc.)

 

[EricNau]

Pages is a word processor that handles graphics properly.

That is so true. When dealing with images, Pages will trump Word every time.

Why can't MS understand "drag and drop?"

 

[dswoodley]

THis discussion brings up something that has been bugging me for months. I can understand why iLife 07 is late (waiting for Leopard and core animation), but why the hold up with iWork? Think Secret was posting screenshots of the upgraded program nearly a year ago and yet it's nowhere in site.

Thoughts?

 

[dswoodley]

In addition to the above post, iWork is my office suite of choice when spreadsheets are required. Just love it. Simple. Elegant. Powerful.

 

[EricNau]

THis discussion brings up something that has been bugging me for months. I can understand why iLife 07 is late (waiting for Leopard and core animation), but why the hold up with iWork? Think Secret was posting screenshots of the upgraded program nearly a year ago and yet it's nowhere in site.

Thoughts?

Would it really make sense to release iWork but not iLife?

...Anyway, let's leave that speculation for a different thread.

 

[dswoodley]

Would it really make sense to release iWork but not iLife?

...Anyway, let's leave that speculation for a different thread.

Why not? How are the two linked? I can't see any obvious connection. Anyway, you are right, this is a subject for a different thread.

 

[Bern]

Would it really make sense to release iWork but not iLife?

...Anyway, let's leave that speculation for a different thread.

I don't see how one has a relationship to the other? There's no logical reason why iWork should be delayed unless it has a significant dependancy to Leopard.