Why do some continue using Microsoft Office on Mac?

[throAU]

Are the apple equivelant apps such as numbers, keynote and pages not good or the same as Microsoft office?

Because in the real world, in a corporate environment, MANY businesses use office 365 and the integration between the entire suite of 365 products is a thing.

Numbers, Pages, etc. are a totally different class of product to what 365 offers.

If they do the job for you, great - but they simply do not do the things that the Microsoft 365 apps do.

 

[Benz63amg]

Because in the real world, in a corporate environment, MANY businesses use office 365 and the integration between the entire suite of 365 products is a thing.

Numbers, Pages, etc. are a totally different class of product to what 365 offers.

If they do the job for you, great - but they simply do not do the things that the Microsoft 365 apps do.

when you say office 365, are you only reffering to word, excel and powerpoint outlook, one note, and onedrive as well?

 

[960design]

Everybody uses Office so if you need to exchange documents with them then why wouldn't you?

I work in and am completely surrounded by Windows computers. I am just about the only little island of Mac (iMac27, MBPr, iPhone, iPads, ect. ) surrounded by a sea of Windows. I use Pages, Keynote and Numbers for everything. I can exchange documents just as easily as everyone else, no need for Office. Most of our documents are exchanged as PDFs; as who still sends .docx or .pages unfinished documents these days with all of the collaboration choices if documents need to be worked on together.

 

[zhenya]

when you say office 365, are you only reffering to word, excel and powerpoint outlook, one note, and onedrive as well?

Plus Teams, Sharepoint, and the whole suite of more esoteric tools that Microsoft integrates. There is really no comparison between iWork and how Office is integrated into a complete system for collaborative remote work.

 

[dogslobber]

I work in and am completely surrounded by Windows computers. I am just about the only little island of Mac (iMac27, MBPr, iPhone, iPads, ect. ) surrounded by a sea of Windows. I use Pages, Keynote and Numbers for everything. I can exchange documents just as easily as everyone else, no need for Office. Most of our documents are exchanged as PDFs; as who still sends .docx or .pages unfinished documents these days with all of the collaboration choices if documents need to be worked on together.

This might work for you but it's generally difficult. I know I couldn't give my boss a converted doc for fear it butchers the formatting or leaves stuff out. In general these format conversions might work for toy documents but when you're job depends on it you stick with Microsoft.

 

[thejadedmonkey]

Because I know that anything I write in Word, will be able to be opened in word, until the world ends.

IIRC Apple has already had breaking backward and forward compatibility changes since Pages was first introduced.

 

[||\||]

Pages is terrible. Super awkward interface to use.

 

[throAU]

Plus Teams, Sharepoint, and the whole suite of more esoteric tools that Microsoft integrates. There is really no comparison between iWork and how Office is integrated into a complete system for collaborative remote work.

Exactly. Powerbi, Dynamix, etc.

If all you’re doing is basic office docs by yourself then pages and numbers might do the job.

but office 365 for example is so much more than that.

If you aren’t working for a big company that has an office 365 tenant then there are a huge swathe of apps that you probably don’t even know exist that at are fairly integrated into the 365 suite.

and that’s fine. You don’t need it. But business do use this stuff and that’s why office is essential for those people.

 

[AZhappyjack]

Are the apple equivelant apps such as numbers, keynote and pages not good or the same as Microsoft office?

In a word (no pun intended), they are not as good as MS Office, IMO. Numbers is an absolute train wreck... you can make stuff pretty, but for the heavy lifting, it's Excel all the way... and as a life-long MS Word user, nothing compares. I don't use PowerPoint or Keynote at all, so I have no opinion on these, except to say that, based on my personal preferences for Excel and Word over Numbers and Pages, MS would win the presentation software comparison, as well.

And that does not even consider compatibility headaches that you will no doubt encounter when sharing your spreadsheets and documents with colleagues. Best to avoid that nightmare completely.

 

[Benz63amg]

When installing Microsoft Office suite on the mac, do you do a custom install of just word, excel and powerpoint or do you install AutoUpdater and outlook as well as OneNote and OneDrive?

 

[James_C]

I just have Word, Excel, Powerpoint and the updater. I have have used Onedrive and Outlook in the past, but don't currently use them. Never used OneNote as I use Apple Notes instead.

 

[Benz63amg]

I just have Word, Excel, Powerpoint and the updater. I have have used Onedrive and Outlook in the past, but don't currently use them. Never used OneNote as I use Apple Notes instead.

Is Outlook worth installing along with the big three(excel,powerpoint and word)? is it just Microsoft's version of the "Mail" app or is it a necessary component of the Office for Mac package?

 

[James_C]

No you don't have to install outlook, to be honest the only reason for using it is to use to connect to a Microsoft Exchange Server. It is a Mail and Calendar App.

 

[960design]

This might work for you but it's generally difficult. I know I couldn't give my boss a converted doc for fear it butchers the formatting or leaves stuff out. In general these format conversions might work for toy documents but when you're job depends on it you stick with Microsoft.

I'm the boss ( well, a boss, there is always someone higher - board ), and would never accept a .doc or .pages file. I only accept completed documents, typically in PDF format. I need the final document, not a rough draft. I'm certainly not 'fixing' it. I also only forward completed documents to my bosses as well.

 

[Benz63amg]

I'm the boss ( well, a boss, there is always someone higher - board ), and would never accept a .doc or .pages file. I only accept completed documents, typically in PDF format. I need the final document, not a rough draft. I'm certainly not 'fixing' it. I also only forward completed documents to my bosses as well.

And which app do you use for PDF documents? What’s the best tool for pdf documents on mac?

 

[960design]

And which app do you use for PDF documents?

I use Pages to create PDFs: File > Export to PDF.

What’s the best tool for pdf documents on mac?

I use Preview to read PDFs.

For quick documentation: I use Typora.

 

[G5isAlive]

Since you seem to be taking a poll, add my name to the list of folks that use Office exclusively for the increased feature set and compatibility.

I have been using Macs since 1984. I love them. And so from time to time I try, I really try to switch to Pages and Numbers, but they just don't have all the tools I need and count on.

 

[ssmed]

Since you seem to be taking a poll, add my name to the list of folks that use Office exclusively for the increased feature set and compatibility.

I have been using Macs since 1984. I love them. And so from time to time I try, I really try to switch to Pages and Numbers, but they just don't have all the tools I need and count on.

You'll be waxing lyrical about Word 5.1a next!

 

[G5isAlive]

You'll be waxing lyrical about Word 5.1a next!

LOL. that's going too far. To be clear, I do not LIKE MS office. It just has the features I sometimes need. And yep sometimes that means I have to spend 30 minutes trying to figure out where in the bloody menu system it is. I would definitely be more sane using Pages, frustrated, but sane.

 

[throAU]

When installing Microsoft Office suite on the mac, do you do a custom install of just word, excel and powerpoint or do you install AutoUpdater and outlook as well as OneNote and OneDrive?

Install the App Store version and you can avoid the Microsoft auto updater for most of the apps.

edit: the other reason a lot of companies use Office is for data loss prevention.

You can set up a 365 tenant (i.e., the company's "cloud service" end) to only permit access to company data via 365 apps, and then set policies on data (that the 365 applications will enforce) so that (for example) - end user Billy can only open a document (in the relevant 365 program) but can't print, copy or save it for example.

You can also prevent copy/paste to/from the apps if required just as another example of preventing data from leaking. This is also why Microsoft are pushing Edge everywhere - because Edge can also have such policies set.

Apple's apps can't do any of this stuff; and if you work for a company who is concerned about their private information easily leaking ... the 365 apps help - if configured to prevent it.

 

[NLLV]

Like many here, work.
Also my work has office 365 so that I can seamlessly transition between devices.

 

[Eric Idle]

Are the apple equivelant apps such as numbers, keynote and pages not good or the same as Microsoft office?

Not even slightly equivalent. It's like you have no clue.

 

[Benz63amg]

I have another question, I don’t plan on using office (Word, Excel) on a daily basis but perhaps once or twice a week and my question is this, Does Office 2019 for Mac run processes in the background even when not in use and uses up resources such as Ram and CPU power?(I only have 8gb ram so I don’t want to install something that hogs up resources in the background even when not in use),

Would greatly appreciate if someone can confirm this for me, I’m on MacOS Catalina

 

[James_C]

Does Office 2019 for Mac run processes in the background even when not in use and uses up resources such as Ram and CPU power?(I only have 8gb ram so I don’t want to install something that hogs up resources in the background even when not in use)

No none of these apps should run anything significant in the background when closed. The auto updater may run some background tasks but this will not have any noticeable impact on RAM or other resources.

 

[thejadedmonkey]

I have another question, I don’t plan on using office (Word, Excel) on a daily basis but perhaps once or twice a week and my question is this, Does Office 2019 for Mac run processes in the background even when not in use and uses up resources such as Ram and CPU power?(I only have 8gb ram so I don’t want to install something that hogs up resources in the background even when not in use),

Would greatly appreciate if someone can confirm this for me, I’m on MacOS Catalina

There's an auto updater that runs in the background. IMO it's far less invasive than the background processes that run for iCloud/Photos/etc