Office for Mac '08 or iWork '09?! Gaaah!

This might be addressed somewhere 'round here already, but I can't find it.

Anyhow, I'm truly torn as to whether I should get iWork '09 or Office '08 for my new Mac.

I use Excel for work and all of my older documents are Word documents from my PC. However, I don't do too much work out of my office, so I don't know which is the proper route to go. It would be nice to do whatever I needed to for work on my Mac.

With that said, I'd love some solid arguments as to why one is better than the other, or maybe they're the same. Who knows? The reviews are so mixed.

You guys tend to really, truly know what's what, if you know what I mean, so I thought I'd ask you.

Thanks!

 

i never use iwork at all, but i've been really2 disappointed with excel on mac 2008. So sluggish compared to office 2007 for windows. Takes about 30 second to plot a 3d graph or even change the viewing angle, while the windows version does it snappily.
I'm actually looking at iwork these days, I would suggest you use the trial version of each and see which one fits your need...you might want to boot to windows for better performance with office

 

I use office 2008 (word:mac) only for typing docs. Other works are done on office 2003 through parallels 4.0 running windows 7.

 

This might help you out even more.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=350976

 

Thanks for the help!

Still unsure, but more information is always good.

 

No problem BDronicus! That thread has some other opinions and views, so you might get alot more reasons why people like/dislike one specific one.

 

I think the key to answering your question is what degree of MS Office compatibility do you need. If you are editing MS Office documents back and forth with others in a work environment then I think your decision needs to be Office 08.

iWork can import and save MS office format documents but its conversions in or out are definitely not 100%. Works great for simple documents but as you use more an more complex MS Office features the conversions are less successful and more problematic.

If you mostly produce your own documents and can just share them with others in a common format (either PDF or something else) without the need to edit back and forth iWork is great. Its a real joy to use and I much prefer it to MS Office. But sadly for Work I really need the compatibility of Office 08 and thus mostly use Office08 for work. I do have iWork09 and use that for personal stuff though.

 

You make great points. Looks like at this point I'm gonna have to go with Office.

 

Yes, definitely go with Office 2008. It's miles away from Office 2007, but it sure beats iWork.

 

office 2004

 

excel 03 and iwork'09 aren't quite compatible with each other as iwork'09 keeps on creating new page name and stuff

 

I kinda prefer NeoOffice 3 ... its not quite as elegant or Mac-ified, but it works great for me and is free. I have MS Office 2008, and its quite a nice program, but I only have it cuz someone gave me a copy for free in a promotion thing... I don't use it much.

 

As others have stated, the main difference is how much compatibility do you need and how intricate is your Excel work. I think Numbers is the weakest of the three iWork apps (Keynote is amazing). If you want to be safe, then Microsoft Office 2008 is the way to go for compatibility!

 

Sounds right on.

I need Excel to work as well as possible or it ain't worth it.

It just hurts that Office is like $150.

 

I have both and for some reason I get the occaisional crash with office. As long as iwork can handle Office 08 docs then you shouldbe fine with it?

Also I think excel has more features than numbers apparently.

 

Wow, Sam's still around!

As others mentioned, it depends on your compatibility needs.

Maximum compatibility: Virtualization/Boot Camp + Office 2007
VBA compatibility, but legacy file types: Office 2004
Reasonable compatibility, but no VBA and some Powerpoint differences: Office 2008
Mediocre compatibility but looks great: iWorks
Mediocre compatibility, slow, and ugly interface: NeoOffice


More to the point, the VBA part is especially important for your needs since you stress Excel compatibility. Your Office 2007 macros and scripts will not work in Office 2008.

 

office 08 for sure! being a non-mac user, i tried iworks and office 08, and 08 was much easier to use. although you could say b/c i already own the pc version of 07, if i didn't, i would still go with 08.

 

Office is industry standard.... little tip: Whatever standard your industry uses, GO WITH THAT ONE!

 

I been playing around with the iWork 09 free trial... and I must say, i actually like it better... Pages is just as good as Word from what I've been doing.... and Keynote kicks Powerpoint's butt all over the place.... Really surprised how much i like it... never expected to.

 

iWork 09 is excellent, for nearly all users it should be a more than capable replacement for MS Office in most cases.

Plus it is much less expensive, especially if you buy it with a new mac.

Industry standard means absolutely nothing when it comes to generating documents nowadays. No one locks down their file formats so you can easily open and save any MS Office document within iWork. They have made it extremely simple to save out MS Office copies in the newest version as well.

Unless you need a few extra's that Excel has or you really like Powerpoints crappy transitions and useless templates. iWork

The ONLY feature of MS Office that I would love to see in iWork is Word's notetaking view, that can record audio right into a document. Perfect for recording lectures while taking notes.

 

that would be nice... right now have to record in something else like garageband, then later after lecture import it into the Pages document.. much easier to have it built in

 

I haven't disappeared off the face of the Earth , just been busy! I hope to stick around more now!

 

Well we're all glad to see you back!

 

Since I got my Mac, i've always been using Office 4 Mac and never had any problem.