Are the apple equivelant apps such as numbers, keynote and pages not good or the same as Microsoft office?
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Why do some continue using Microsoft Office on Mac?
- Thread starter Benz63amg
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I use MS Office at work, apples equivalents have different menus, functionality and such.
I also have an office 365 license that wife and kids use, so I have it installed on my macs.
i don’t have a need for the Apple apps...
Some people use Office because they have to for work.
It depends on your needs.
I don't really like Apple's programs. They're missing a lot of key features and while they may be simpler in some respects, they just don't do things the way I like to have them done on Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
I don't really like Apple's programs. They're missing a lot of key features and while they may be simpler in some respects, they just don't do things the way I like to have them done on Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
Work compatibility is the sole reason for most I think. Pages and Numbers are just fine for the vast majority of people, including most but not all professionals.
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If you grew up with Pages, Numbers, Office for Mac or some of the other knockoffs (LibreOffice), that should be all you need. I'm a long term Office user and just don't want to go full Mac for my Office needs. That said, I just installed MS Office for Mac on my MacBook Pro and find it very similar to my Windows Office Excel files. Not quite ready to pull the plug and get rid of my Windows 10 computer that I use mostly for Excel, Quicken and a bit for Word.
Everybody uses Office so if you need to exchange documents with them then why wouldn't you?
The short version: I stick with MS Office because of familiarity, Word's line numbers feature, and compatibility with Windows users.
Here's a longer version of that to more or less the same question almost a year ago:
forums.macrumors.com
Here's a longer version of that to more or less the same question almost a year ago:
Microsoft Office vs Apple Office Apps
I use Microsoft Office on my Mac for two main reasons: 1. The first is familiarity and inertia: when I moved over from Windows to the Mac in 2012, Pages, Numbers, and Keynote weren't free at the time. I was already familiar with Office, so I bought Office 2011 for the Mac instead of buying...
forums.macrumors.com
It depends on the specific functionality.
For example, conditionally formatting on today's Apple's Numbers app is FAR inferior to that of the Windows version of Microsoft Excel from five years ago.
How well do pivot tables work on Numbers? Yeah, I thought so.
Apple's iWork apps are "good enough" for maybe 75% of generic consumer usage for 75% of their usage cases. At a certain point, these iWork apps simply fall short.
Apple isn't trying to replace the full-blown Microsoft Office suite. They are trying to fill in the void between Microsoft Office and freeware solutions like LibreOffice.
Likewise Apple's iWork suite largely fulfills this goal in the same way that Photos, iMovie, GarageBand (a.k.a. "iLife") are a well-integrated suite of free multimedia tools.
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File compatibility. Windows is still the largest platform out there, and MS Office is de-facto standard.
Of course, for personal use, there's no need for MS Office imo. Even Google Docs is good enough.
Worked for years a s a casual Excel and Access etc. user but now no longer needed. Still find some functions missing or awkward to get to grips with. Never was a power user but finding help can be a pain. But only trying because I no longer work where Office is the norm. Many head shaped dents in my walls.
I work as a translator and I noticed that some files prepared in Pages look differently when converted to docx. The layout of the document is crucial in my work, so I don't really have any other option.
I realize that there are probably some ways to overcome this problem but I don't necessarily feel the need to use Apple software
I realize that there are probably some ways to overcome this problem but I don't necessarily feel the need to use Apple software
“Why do some continue using Microsoft office on Mac?”
Because there is more than one user type and therefore there is more than one solution to their needs.
Because there is more than one user type and therefore there is more than one solution to their needs.
You have to break it down App by App.
However first in general terms as others have said, a lot depends if you need to share documents with other windows users, who generally use Microsoft Office for windows.
All of the Mac Apps have the ability to export into an equivalent MS office format, so for simple documents you may be able to get away with converting and sharing with MS Office users. However from a business professional point of view you can quickly run into compatibility issues , even if the document just formats differently. Complex Numbers spreadsheets in particular do not export well to Excel and visa versa.
So if you are sending professional business documents to other people, unless you know that they are a Mac user I don't recommend using the Apple Apps, always use Microsoft Office for Mac.
In terms of features and functionality you need to look App by App. In my opinion
I prefer Keynote over Powerpoint and even in a business environment I tend to use Keynote, unless I need to collaborate or share with other Windows Users - feature wise it is similar to Powerpoint and I find it more intuitive and has better graphics handling tools - for example Magic Move.
Pages and Word are more evenly matched and while Word has a richer feature set, I find Pages easier to use. In the office I will always use Word in case I have to email the file to someone. At home I generally use Pages.
Numbers and Excel - There is no question that Excel is far more powerful than Numbers and conversion is much more difficult between the two formats. If you want to use Data Analytics Excel wins hands down with features like Pivot Tables. However Numbers can be use to create simple attractive spreadsheets for home users and even some self owned and small business users.
So in summary If you need to collaborate or share documents with someone that uses MS Office in a professional environment - Always use MS Office for Mac.
If you are a home or small business user then Keynote is superior to Powerpoint, You can probably manage with Pages and you can get away with using Numbers if you have fairly simple spreadsheet requirements, if at all.
I’m not at all a power user but after using Office for 20+ years, I know where most things are (I don’t love office though).
Conversely, even though pages and numbers look more elegant, there’s something about the object paradigm that they use along the constant use of panes that I find really difficult to use.
Setting up a formula in excel is easy for me whilst doing the same in Pages can be slightly baffling - and always seems to involve far more clicks.
I’m looking forward to seeing what the new versions under Big Sur are like though. Hopefully they’re more intuitive.
Conversely, even though pages and numbers look more elegant, there’s something about the object paradigm that they use along the constant use of panes that I find really difficult to use.
Setting up a formula in excel is easy for me whilst doing the same in Pages can be slightly baffling - and always seems to involve far more clicks.
I’m looking forward to seeing what the new versions under Big Sur are like though. Hopefully they’re more intuitive.
They may be as good, they may even be better, but that is irrelevant (except for private usage), as they are not the industry standard.
As a number of other posters have already pointed out, most of the people in the work world, and in my work world - my professional environment - use Office (and the vast majority use use Windows); therefore, although I have a lovely MBA, I use Office for Mac for all of my professional needs.
Current version of Pages can't be installed on our middleaged Macbook Air, while Office can.
Office is a little annoying in places, but is being nicely developed with a few small changes each month and is comprehensive in its scope. Apple should concentrate on getting the OS right before the .5 iterations. Pages is clunky by comparison and numbers seems very slow when using complex formulas. Keynote is OK, but if you need to share it is not a good option.
This is without considering Teams, Bookings, Skype, etc that comes with a subscription
This is without considering Teams, Bookings, Skype, etc that comes with a subscription
If your spreadsheet has enough entries, Numbers will choke. Excel handles such large spreadsheets easily.
IIRC, 32K entries is Numbers' limit. That's not much if you are collecting a thousand samples a second.
IIRC, 32K entries is Numbers' limit. That's not much if you are collecting a thousand samples a second.
Personal experience: I write texts for a living, and as long as it's only me working on them, I use Scrivener, because that fits my needs better than either Word or Pages.* However, at some point I have to show my work to the people who are paying me for it, and they will add comments or make edits. For that kind of work, Word has become the de facto standard. Sure, I could insist on using another program but that would result in either annoyed clients (because I'm disrupting their workflows forcing them to switch from the software they're familiar with) or conversion errors (if I tried to convert files between the different applications).
*: Pages is in a bit of an awkward position: It's part word processor and part layout software. It's quite capable in both of these roles for home users, but neither side is fleshed-out enough for professional use cases.
*: Pages is in a bit of an awkward position: It's part word processor and part layout software. It's quite capable in both of these roles for home users, but neither side is fleshed-out enough for professional use cases.
For me, MS Office is a necessary "evil". When I need to work on files that others have sent me in MS Office format, or I need to send documents to others in MS Office format, there is no substitute for MS Office itself.
When I have a choice, i use Apples "iWork" suite. I am more productive and creative with those than when I'm using other suites.
I still use LibreOffice, but not as much as I did in the past... primarily because it's MS Office compatibility has taken a few steps backwards recently.
As I have time to tinker and explore, I've been making more use of Google's suite. The apps work great and are deceptively powerful (they look basic on the surface, but by thinking differently, I've been able to produce some pretty advanced documents). I like that it is extremely cross-platform.
Next to working in iWork on my iMac, using the Google suite on my Pixelbook, is my favorite working environment.
Excel handles extremely large spreadsheets like a champ. Numbers will load that entire sheet into memory and slow to a snails pace.
When the people you interact with use Microsoft Office apps, it is best to use Microsoft Office apps to ensure complete compatibility. You cannot send them an Apple Pages or an Apple Numbers or an Apple Keynote file. You will have to export in equivalent .docx, .xlsx or .pptx formats and that will most likely break something. And you do not want that headache.
Secondly, Microsoft Office comes with a 1 TB cloud storage that you can use to segregate your personal and professional work quite comfortably.
Now, if you were into collaboration, it gets even more important to use Microsoft Office since nobody really wants to open a browser and go to a provided iCloud link to share and work on the file one's been working on (quite happily) on a Mac.
It is certainly not about apps being not good or same. Although, to answer that question, Apple Numbers, Pages and Keynote apps today are neither as good nor are they same as Microsoft Office (or even same as their own glorious selves as they once were) ever since the iOSification happened. Keynote is the star app out of the three and I wholeheartedly wish I could recommend it, but the world works in PPT and PPTX so that is out of the equation as well.
I have happily used Keynote to make presentations when I was to present them on my own Mac to clients, but I would not dare use that or Pages or Numbers in an "office" environment. I have tried using Keynote to make presentations to be opened in PowerPoint, just to know firsthand the issues and non-issues in the process. Unless your slides are basic without any effects or contain fonts that PowerPoint also uses, there is no point since the effects won't port over and the fonts may be missing. You might be able to embed fonts, but that is not really productive, is it? At which point, you might just as well use PowerPoint since that would be faster, you can have all the effects and fonts you might want to use, graphics and charts you might want to use, and not go through compatibility issues, all for a very low monthly or even lower annual price.
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