Mac version of one note? ...and one more question...

I am THIS | | <--well a little less than that actually, far away from getting a macbook but I do have a few concerns. One, is there a mac equivalent to onenote? Now, I have a Treo cellphone (palm based) so I can make tasklists and that junk. I mean a real competitor. All I could find was some light stuff, but I want it to auto-link web pages when I rip notes, be compatable with encyclopedias and all that jazz. I probably won't use the audio or video notes but the rest I can't do without.

Secondly I hear tell that mac's powerpoint equivalent program won't run the finished product on windows machines. This is a big deal because in grad school I have to do powerpoint presentations and turn them in but my profs will only be using windows. Is there a way to do this? Also, I read there's no spreadsheet! I really need an equivalent to excel. Again, not something kinda closely resembling maybe excel, but something that can actually do nonlinear functions and print out sophisticated graphs since I'll be doing alot of mapping of fourier transforms and other mathematical based research.

 

I need an answer to your first question also.

As for your 2nd one, why not just get office for mac? It has word, excel and powerpoint. And even though it's not an universal app, it runs well on my 2.0ghz 1gb ram macbook. Of course you could always just use bootcamp and install whatever windows version of office you might have.

 

There's a few One Note types including Google notes which is free however a full featured program for $49.00 is called Circus Ponies Notebook. Best in the bunch. Links web pages and other things you mentioned. www.circusponies.com

Microsoft Office for the Mac is equivalent to the Windows 2003 version. It's very compatible as it should be. I design a lot of PPT presentations on my Mac and I email them to colleagues and they play just fine. Office for Mac comes with Excel. There will be a new version of Office for Mac shipping later this year so unless you can get it dirt cheap I wouldn't spend the money.

If you want a free office equivalent you can download NeoOffice. It's really a great program complete with word processing, spreadsheet and presentation software. It is fully compatible with MS Office including the new XML file format for Word. It runs slower and the presentation software isn't recommended for creating PPT shows since it doesn't blend well when shared with the Windows version of PPT.
Why is it free because with MS Office you are paying for the license and not the software. NeoOffice offers a free license. http://www.neooffice.org/neojava/en/index.php

 

Hmm I've read alot of terrible reviews on office for mac. They may have been old but they said it's slow to respond and there are some issues with it and alot of reviews said they wouldn't even consider it "fully functional" software.

I'll check into circusponies. Thanks for the link.

 

I agree, the Office for Mac 2004 on the school computers are really buggy, but I've also seen Office for Mac 2004 run perfectly fine as well. The trial of Office for Mac on my MacBook was fast and responsive.

 

Excuse me? Where did you read that? Nearly every review mentions how much better the Mac version is to the Windows version. There are a few Mac only features in Office and the graphic detail is well done considering it's coming from Microsoft. Microsoft's Mac business unit is a very profitable venture for them so they have gone quite the extra mile to make Mac Office very well. Office was on the Mac before it was on Windows.

It runs very very fast on the PowerPC hardware but on the Intel Macs it runs slower but runs very well. You wouldn't know unless you compare it to how it performs on a PPC Mac.

 

I agree with hldan. Don't know where you got that info about office for mac. I bought it when I got the macbook and in my opinion, it's better than office 2003 for windows, and I've been using windows and office all my life. Then again, I'd rather use office 2007, which I use only when I need to do something in powerpoint. For excel and word I just use the mac version since I kinda dread having to go into windows now.

 

In my opinion Journler is THE best note taking app for the Mac. It's free and has many features.

Also, my Yojimbo, whilst slightly basic, is very nice. It can also sync with my Palm Treo, but I haven't used that feature much.

 

I agree 100% with that statement

 

There are quite a few notetaking and organization software for Macs. Overall, I'd say none of them are quite as good as OneNote in what it does and its ease of use, but they all come close or excel in different respects

Circus Ponies Notebook, Journler, yojimbo as mentioned above
voodoopad...
OSX comes with a free standard version of omnioutliner - the pro version has a lot more features - especially if you like styles

There's nothing that quite matches up to OneNote 2007 in terms of searching (i.e. through images and audio) or the type-anywhere anytime feature, but they each have their own way of organization. Circus ponies notebook is especially good in that regard, and like OneNote, allows integration with most other applications in OSX. It also has the same record line-by-line feature like OneNote. On the other hand, Circus Ponies notebook is more limited than OneNote in the extent that you can rearrange your text (it's outline based, and slightly limited because it's so hierarchical). It does allow for more automatic organization though depending on what you're doing. It offers full integration with iCal (no clue about your Treo).

Omnioutliner is like OneNote, except it doesn't quite offer as much integration with other programs - specifically its linking ability (or lack of). The Pro version adds more styles and audio support.

 

Open Source > Microsoft, Just the way it is... I cannot stand Microsoft and their "half-way done" products... Agh!

 

Well, this is off-topic, but it makes as much sense to hate Microsoft just because it's Microsoft as it does to hate Apple just because it's Apple

Obviously Microsoft will have its share of horrible programs, even as there are redundant and mediocre open-source programs out there. At the same time, Microsoft will have decent programs as well.

OneNote 2007 is one such program - it's quite well done. It may not be for everyone, but for what it's meant to do, it's quite good.

 

I am using Office 2004 on my MPB.

The apps seem to take quite a long time* to boot but once booted it runs well.

*I mean long time compared to the quickness with which other programs boot. Even photoshop boots faster than Word...

 

I think all Ms Office programs are very well done. There are a few other good word processors other then Ms Word. But nothing comes close to Excel and Powerpoint.

 

Hrm, Excel's become industry standard at this point, but one could argue Lotus and Quattro Pro were at one time almost as good (from basic office suites anyway). As for Powerpoint, I wonder how long it takes for a Keynote fan to post

 

I have my issues about my Microsoft as much as the next guy but they do make good programs overall. They are a software company, aside from Windows they should get everything else right. My only gripe is that they pick and choose what they want on the Mac to retain Windows customers. Tons of business professionals use Macs everyday, there's nothing wrong with One Note being on the Mac but as usual it's Microsoft's insecurities of losing Windows customers to the Mac.