Why do some continue using Microsoft Office on Mac?

[v3rlon]

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

We use Office at work.
When I switched to Apple, I made a conscious decision to try and use the Apple equivalents.
I like Pages better than Word, and Keynote better than Powerpoint for things I do.
Excel is a beast.
Getting the same functionality out of Numbers has eluded me.

• Categories are not the same as Pivot Tables, and Pivot Tables are very useful to me.
• "Text to Columns" is another gem that other spreadsheet makers just seem to ignore.
• VBA scripting is really deep, and I use this to solve many complex tasks. Apple scripting exists, but I am not as familiar with it. What I have seen is not as effective at doing things like "open this text file, parse it into these columns, apply these formulas, delete this old data, draw this chart." That may be my own lack of experience. Now that I think about it, does VBA work on a Mac? Like I said, I use Numbers at home.
• It is also broadly supported with scripts and extensions like the statistics plugin that can sometimes save you a round trip into Jmp if your work requires that.

Now I do not do as much Numbers at home as I do Excel at work, and it is quite possible that all my problems look like nails because my most used tool is a hammer, but Excel is a very good hammer.

Finally, it is easier to find help if you get stumped. Not only is Excel more broadly supported, but it is more effectively named. Dropping "numbers pivot table" into a search engine doesn't always get you to Apple's spreadsheet program because, as it turns out, other spreadsheets use numbers, too. I have the same complaint with Music and Photos. A dedicated and specific name is more search friendly.

 

[MacBH928]

I still use filemakerPro 11on Sierra. Its one of the last versions before it went subscription. It is not worth a monthly fee to use it personally. I keep one machine running Sierra for this reason. I recently downloaded LibreOffice database to see if it can work for me.

What do you use it for?

 

[MacBH928]

Now I do not do as much Numbers at home as I do Excel at work, and it is quite possible that all my problems look like nails because my most used tool is a hammer, but Excel is a very good hammer.

Finally, it is easier to find help if you get stumped. Not only is Excel more broadly supported, but it is more effectively named. Dropping "numbers pivot table" into a search engine doesn't always get you to Apple's spreadsheet program because, as it turns out, other spreadsheets use numbers, too. I have the same complaint with Music and Photos. A dedicated and specific name is more search friendly.

I completely agree with, here Apple's branding is stupid, they dumbed it down too much. Apple pages or apple numbers can mean a lot of things and cause a confusion. You won't find similar confusion with Microsoft PowerPoint.

Whats more to add that resources on using Apple's iSuite is near none existing compared that massive multimedia library of MS Office.

I recall in the old days that amazing all in one Claris then apple works . That was one incredible piece of software .

The tiling function alone was worth the asking price , they should put a similar feature into the Mac os

whats the tiling function?

 

[George Dawes]

It was in the top menu , I recall having 32 separate windows all perfectly tiled on a 19” apple crt , oh the good old days 😆

 

[calliex]

What do you use it for?

The Company that I work for casually decided not upgrade from ver 11. I still use the database I created to help with work I do for them. They switched to Redcap as there main database. I just keep my old laptop running sierra so I can use Filemaker pro 11

 

[webkit]

• WordPerfect: This thing still exists, why I don't know but they are asking $250 for and I am not sure who still insist on it and who is buying it

WordPerfect is still somewhat popular in law offices.

You can get WordPerfect Office 2020 Home & Student Edition, which includes WordPerfect, Quattro Pro (spreadsheets) and Presentations (slideshow creator) at places like Amazon for $50.

 

[MacBH928]

WordPerfect is still somewhat popular in law offices.

You can get WordPerfect Office 2020 Home & Student Edition, which includes WordPerfect, Quattro Pro (spreadsheets) and Presentations (slideshow creator) at places like Amazon for $50.

but why? why not just use excel and word?

 

[Boyd01]

I still use filemakerPro 11on Sierra. Its one of the last versions before it went subscription. It is not worth a monthly fee to use it personally. I keep one machine running Sierra for this reason.

I am also running FileMaker Pro 11, but I use a Sierra Virtual Machine with Parallels on Catalina. Works perfectly on my 2018 i7 Mini and a lot faster than it was on my old hardware. I also run the Windows version of FileMaker Pro 11 in a Parallels virtual machine. I have been using Filemaker since the beginning and have quite a lot of databases for many purposes. I make maps, and one important use is processing large geodata datasets, with millions of records. Still works very well for that.

But you can still by the standalone (non-subscription) version of Filemaker Pro 19: https://store.claris.com/individuals . I was planning to do this when I got my new Mini last summer, but when I saw how well the old version ran in the VM, I decided against it. This new version is the equivalent of the old "Filemaker Pro Advanced", which lets you create standalone apps. They used to sell regular FileMaker Pro without that ability for less money, unfortunately that is gone.

One drawback of the new version is that (according to the license) you can only install it on one machine. The old version could be installed on both Windows and Mac, which was important for me. Not such a big deal now that I run everything on the same computer in VM's I guess.

FileMaker 11 really still does everything I need, although the new versions have some features that look interesting, so I may eventually upgrade. It is a minor annoyance to have to start a VM everytime I need Filemaker.

 

[webkit]

but why? why not just use excel and word?

While it comes bundled with Quattro Pro and Presentations, I think the appeal for law offices is largely the WordPerfect. Lawyers like it because of its available legal-specific tools and document features, advanced reveal codes, etc.

I suppose for some other users, it may be price. WordPerfect Office Home & Student is about 60% cheaper than a similar MS Office package.

Some may also like it simply because it’s what they're used to dating back to the 1980s and into the 1990s when WP dominated the word processing market.

 

[sracer]

I recall in the old days that amazing all in one Claris then apple works . That was one incredible piece of software .

The tiling function alone was worth the asking price , they should put a similar feature into the Mac os

I was a heavy ClarisWorks for Windows user back-in-the-day. I was able to run rings around my co-workers who were using MS Office. It definitely was an incredible piece of software. It and AppleWorks for Windows that followed were the reasons why I made the switch to OSX in the first place.

I know that flat-file databases have long fallen out of fashion, but I would love to see Bento revived. I still have it installed (it loads in Mac OS Mojave but locks up soon after starting)

 

[webkit]

I was a heavy ClarisWorks for Windows user back-in-the-day. I was able to run rings around my co-workers who were using MS Office. It definitely was an incredible piece of software.

Was ClarisWorks really suitable for business office use in its day? I always thought it, as well as Microsoft Works, were basically just inexpensive (a fraction of the price of MS Office) add-ons for OEM home computer package sales. Adequate for home/school use but that's about it.

 

[Boyd01]

I managed an office full of Macs from 1994-2000 and most of the staff used AppleWorks/ClarisWorks. There were a few people who had Windows computers and a few of the Macs had Excel/Word. But AppleWorks really met most people's needs. But "business office use" could encompass a pretty broad range of needs. In my case, it was a non-profit arts organization with around 30 employees.

For my personal use, I stayed with AppleWorks up until around 2002 and still have a large number of legacy documents in that format. It's lucky that LibreOffice can still open them, since Apple abandoned that format long ago.

 

[mk313]

For my personal use, I stayed with AppleWorks up until around 2002 and still have a large number of legacy documents in that format. It's lucky that LibreOffice can still open them, since Apple abandoned that format long ago.

Glad I followed this thread. I have a bunch of old ClarisWorks files and thought they were dead to me. Good to know that I can open them in libre office if I ever need to.

 

[sracer]

Was ClarisWorks really suitable for business office use in its day? I always thought it, as well as Microsoft Works, were basically just inexpensive (a fraction of the price of MS Office) add-ons for OEM home computer package sales. Adequate for home/school use but that's about it.

I was working for IBM at the time and ClarisWorks definitely held its own against Office. 7 times out of 10, it is the user that is the limiting factor, not the software. Of course it took me quite a bit to "think different" about document creation to better flow with how ClarisWorks did things.

I initially took my MS Office mindset to the task of creating documents in ClarisWorks... it did not go well. But once I "got it" things really took off. That approach has served me well since then and allows me to use the latest version of iWork in a way that surprises my colleagues (they didn't think that app suite was capable of anything beyond basic documents).

 

[MacBH928]

Other than sharing the documents, I never saw what features in word+excel+powerpoint that is missing from iWork, its probably a rare thing. I am sure some corporate has a specifically programmed macro in Excel to do things, but for the most part, I just don't see it.

 

[webkit]

There are a lot of opinion regarding iWork's capabilities (or lack of) versus MS Office/365. So, what sort of future should iWork have? Continue along as little more than lightly used "free" apps for Apple users? Try to take on MS and make iWork viable in the Windows and corporate environments? Office suite apps have become so inexpensive these days that they'd have to generate a lot of volume to make it worthwhile. Apple has never been a strong player in the "office" apps market, can they be now? Should they even try?

 

[ThemePro]

I love Powerpoint and 1 TB OneDrive storage is included with Office (now Microsoft) 365

 

[Geepaw]

iWorks is just fine for most users -- even in the corporate setting -- in my opinion (with the exception of pivot tables and other specialized use cases). The biggest limiting factor I think is its compatibility with Office. It is not easy, for example, to seamlessly go from numbers to excels. Office, unfortunately, is ubiquitous. All kinds of demons arise when you do go back and forth.

 

[MacBird]

At work, we use MS Office, Google Docs/Sheets/Slides and iWorks, whatever works best for a certain task.

 

[GGJstudios]

Other than sharing the documents, I never saw what features in word+excel+powerpoint that is missing from iWork, its probably a rare thing. I am sure some corporate has a specifically programmed macro in Excel to do things, but for the most part, I just don't see it.

I spend less time with Word and Powerpoint, so I won't comment on those. Excel is a different story.

Excel has versions for macOS, iOS, Windows and Android, but Numbers only runs on Apple devices.

Excluding macros, Excel has 400+ functions, vs Numbers with around 260. A few of the commonly used Excel functions that are missing from Numbers are pivot tables, VLOOKUP and HLOOKUP, and naming cells and ranges of cells. If you know how to use these and you try using Numbers, their absence is a severe handicap.

Overall, if your needs are personal or pretty basic and you don’t expect to share spreadsheets with non-Apple users, Numbers might work well for you. For moderate to advanced business work, however, Excel is the clear winner.

 

[MacBH928]

There are a lot of opinion regarding iWork's capabilities (or lack of) versus MS Office/365. So, what sort of future should iWork have? Continue along as little more than lightly used "free" apps for Apple users? Try to take on MS and make iWork viable in the Windows and corporate environments? Office suite apps have become so inexpensive these days that they'd have to generate a lot of volume to make it worthwhile. Apple has never been a strong player in the "office" apps market, can they be now? Should they even try?

I can't complain on a free product, but my opinion is that either Apple escalate the capabilities of iWork to compete against Microsoft Office or withdraw. As you have seen in this thread many people favour MS any how, and others use something like Libre office or Google Docs. Apple continuous efforts to keep a capped office suite seems to run on inertia, they are probably afraid to abandon it and get a lash back.

Apple has withdrawn from many software+hardware before including AppleWorks, iDVD, iWeb, Ping, WebOjects, Dashboard, Sherlock, Airpot Time Capsule, Airport express, Apple Server, Xserve.

I spend less time with Word and Powerpoint, so I won't comment on those. Excel is a different story.

Excel has versions for macOS, iOS, Windows and Android, but Numbers only runs on Apple devices.

Excluding macros, Excel has 400+ functions, vs Numbers with around 260. A few of the commonly used Excel functions that are missing from Numbers are pivot tables, VLOOKUP and HLOOKUP, and naming cells and ranges of cells. If you know how to use these and you try using Numbers, their absence is a severe handicap.

Overall, if your needs are personal or pretty basic and you don’t expect to share spreadsheets with non-Apple users, Numbers might work well for you. For moderate to advanced business work, however, Excel is the clear winner.

I agree

iWorks is just fine for most users -- even in the corporate setting -- in my opinion (with the exception of pivot tables and other specialized use cases). The biggest limiting factor I think is its compatibility with Office. It is not easy, for example, to seamlessly go from numbers to excels. Office, unfortunately, is ubiquitous. All kinds of demons arise when you do go back and forth.

Why doesn't Apple use ODF so we all can play nice together.

 

[sracer]

I can't complain on a free product, but my opinion is that either Apple escalate the capabilities of iWork to compete against Microsoft Office or withdraw. As you have seen in this thread many people favour MS any how, and others use something like Libre office or Google Docs. Apple continuous efforts to keep a capped office suite seems to run on inertia, they are probably afraid to abandon it and get a lash back.

Apple has withdrawn from many software+hardware before including AppleWorks, iDVD, iWeb, Ping, WebOjects, Dashboard, Sherlock, Airpot Time Capsule, Airport express, Apple Server, Xserve.

I agree

Why doesn't Apple use ODF so we all can play nice together.

The latest version of iWork components has advanced in some ways beyond iWork '09 versions, but in other ways there are still functions that are missing. When Apple redesigned iWork their intention was to have a consistent look and feel across web/MacOS/iOS. From that perspective, they hit a home run.

Neither LibreOffice nor MS Office have that level of consistency across platforms.

I created a custom font of my handwriting that I use for my preaching notes, and once the font is installed on my iOS and MacOS devices, it looks exactly the same on both those systems. Apple has done a stellar job of font substitution for the web version of those components that except for the font style being different, everything else is identical... line breaks and spacing.

This flexibility is not useful for most people but I can seamlessly work on my iWork-specific files on iOS, MacOS, Windows and ChromeOS (both via the web).

On the surface, standardizing on ODF sounds like it would be the solution, but given how poorly ODF documents survive between LibreOffice and MS Office, I have little confidence that an ODF version of iWork would fare any better.

 

[DanTSX]

Lol because the real world runs on a bunch of poorly authored excel workbooks.....

 

[James_C]

Lol because the real world runs on a bunch of poorly authored excel workbooks.....

I am a Chartered Accountant (CPA for anyone in the USA) and sadly this is so true. I recently worked for a company that ran its entire Sales Order Processing and quotation system in Excel. I used to tear my hair out with the number of errors that system would create.

 

[throAU]

We use Office at work.
When I switched to Apple, I made a conscious decision to try and use the Apple equivalents.
I like Pages better than Word, and Keynote better than Powerpoint for things I do.
Excel is a beast.
Getting the same functionality out of Numbers has eluded me.

• Categories are not the same as Pivot Tables, and Pivot Tables are very useful to me.
• "Text to Columns" is another gem that other spreadsheet makers just seem to ignore.
• VBA scripting is really deep, and I use this to solve many complex tasks. Apple scripting exists, but I am not as familiar with it. What I have seen is not as effective at doing things like "open this text file, parse it into these columns, apply these formulas, delete this old data, draw this chart." That may be my own lack of experience. Now that I think about it, does VBA work on a Mac? Like I said, I use Numbers at home.
• It is also broadly supported with scripts and extensions like the statistics plugin that can sometimes save you a round trip into Jmp if your work requires that.

Now I do not do as much Numbers at home as I do Excel at work, and it is quite possible that all my problems look like nails because my most used tool is a hammer, but Excel is a very good hammer.

Finally, it is easier to find help if you get stumped. Not only is Excel more broadly supported, but it is more effectively named. Dropping "numbers pivot table" into a search engine doesn't always get you to Apple's spreadsheet program because, as it turns out, other spreadsheets use numbers, too. I have the same complaint with Music and Photos. A dedicated and specific name is more search friendly.

pretty much

numbers is a good entry level spreadsheet for home user type stuff. And that’s fine. It’s apple’s bread and butter market. for many people numbers will probably do the job.

it has no real place in an enterprise dealing with large data sets, connectivity to SQL databases, etc.

any comparison to excel is like comparing a Cessna to an f-16 in terms of complexity and flexibility.