Office:Mac or iWorks?

Note: I'm a new Mac user. I've used windows, and microsoft office all my life until now.

Which is better?

I forgot to ask this important question today, while I was at the local Apple Store.

Is Office:Mac more compatible than iWork?

For instance, if my professor sends me a PowerPoint document from his windows PC to my Macbook Air (via e-mail), will I be able to open it in iWork's Keynote?

And the same for word documents to pages, or excel to numbers?

What are the benefits (pros & cons) or extras of Office:Mac, or iWork, that other doesn't have?

Here's my requirements (basic):

To type documents, and make the odd presentation (no problem there!).

To receive & open documents (word, powerpoint, and excel documents) from my peers, co-workers, and professors.

 

I find iWork much nicer to use over MS Office 2011. I just like how it works and its very simple.

LibreOffice is free and also very good...

I keep MS Office 2011 as well because compatibility is important. I often have to open things I've worked on in there just to check compatibility and fix problems. Usually there is no problem if its just a word document, but its possible. If compatibility is the number 1 most important thing to you, you might want to stick with MS products. While other solutions are "compatible" there are sometimes minor problems... powerpoint to keynote and vice versa has problems as well... usually you want to stick to the one you need the final format in. I like keynote better, but if you have to use a ppt/pptx then you might want to just use PowerPoint.

 

Compatability wise MS Office is better then everything. If you type something up with a bunch of formatting and you want to send it without looking at it in MS Office (say you did it at the last minute) then you can get some minor errors, and lose some points for them.

From what I know iWork is nice, but Office 11 works quite well. You'll never have a problem opening documents usually however.

Hunt for deals on office however as the regular price of $120 is pretty high.

 

How is iWorks excel program compared with Excel? I have seen that open office's excel program isn't that advanced when it comes to its spreadsheet. Word type programs usually aren't that bad.

 

Keynote is an extremely powerful program and it reads everything from Powerpoint plus does more than Powerpoint could ever wish for. I always receive very complex PPT presentations from our head office and Keynote handles them without any compatibility issues. From my own experience most people don't have complex spreadsheets as they tend to use an example on these forums so Numbers should be fine however if spreadsheets from the OP's school will be very complex then MS Office would be better.
I use Pages for doing my brochures for business and document creation as it has much better three dimensional tools than Word and for the most part Word docs sent from most corporations are not complex and Pages should easily open them up. The only compatibility issue might be a change in font. This should only be an issue if you have to make changes and send stuff back over the wire, otherwise it should be a non-issue.
That being said I have both Office 2011 and iWork (no "S" in iWork ) and for business purposes I use iWork 99% of the time. Office is just "there" for legacy docs that won't work well with anything but Office.

OP I would wait it out until iCloud is released as Apple may have an immediate update to iWork so it may be worth waiting for. Don't let the world con you into thinking you "have" to have Office. That's what Microsoft is counting on.

 

If your working with excel spreadsheets as I do then you would probably be better off using office. For compatibility reasons as mentioned above.

 

Open office is compatible, but I have seen it is lacking in macros and statistics test like ANOVA.

 

In all reality, you will need both in order to maintain compatibility. Actually, I would just download Keynote for your presentation instead of the whole iWork package. Keynote is above and beyond PowerPoint in almost every way. It takes a little bit of time to get used to how things are done in it but, by the time you figure everything out, Keynote is able to make better presentations than PowerPoint. The thing PowerPoint has going for it is that the software is really easy to use but that is about it. You will stand out when giving a presentation using Keynote simply because almost everyone else will be using PowerPoint.

I suggest going with both simply because there are some things that Pages and Numbers cannot properly open. As previously pointed out, anything with Macros isn't going to work with OpenOffice or iWork. You can also lose a lot of the formatting when opening Office documents in iWork and OpenOffice. For example, I write a lot of documents that are constantly being edited. I use Word's tracking feature so that I know where text was changed and the person suggesting those changes can make comments. That is completely lost when using OpenOffice or iWork. I also use Word's ability to automatically create a table of contents and references page as that comes in handy when writing a 40 page paper. Again, that formatting is lost in iWork and OpenOffice.

I have also opened other Excel, Word, and PowerPoint files in iWork and OpenOffice only to have to change the text/paragraph formatting around because something was screwed up when the documents were open. Lastly, Excel is actually much better than either Numbers or OpenOffice's alternative. It has more functions, greater compatibility, and a lot more options. I also think its equations are dead simple to use.

iWork and OpenOffice by themselves would be fine but, for compatibility reasons, you should still look at Office 2011. You don't want someone to e-mail you a Word document only to open it in Pages (or OpenOffice) and have it use strange margins, delete any integrated photos, or change some text around simply because there was a formatting issue.

 

Numbers is the newest program in the package and it clearly shows. It's close to useless if you want to move beyond basic arithmetic and such. Its performance is also terrible once you start to (mis)use it like you would Excel.

If you need Excel then buy Excel.

 

I know people keep talking about "OpenOffice" but do not use it. You want LibreOffice.

OpenOffice went to Oracle... Oracle wanted to make money off it. All the people and work that used to go into OpenOffice switched names since Oracle owned the name and its been LibreOffice ever since. OpenOffice was later given to Apache, but its barely been changed in years, and looks like it will stay stagnant, and all the improvements have gone into LibreOffice instead... and its where the future is at.

 

I personally use Microsoft Office just because I'm a student and at times I need to send papers to teachers and all teachers have PC's at home and school and so they have Office and so I just use Office primarily.

 

I am still awaiting my first mac to arrive...but I take it that the MS Office is not pre-installed and has to be bought ($120?) on the mac, is that right? I do have Office 2007 DVD but it's a windows version.

 

Correct. It doesn't come with any of the iWork programs either for that matter.

 

Right, it isn't pre-installed. The only things that Macs come pre-installed with are OS X Lion, iLife '11 (GarageBand, iPhoto, etc.), Mail, iCal (though I am not sure if those are technically part of iLife), Photo Booth, iTunes, QuickTime, Safari, and a few other things. Essentially they come with the basics to get the machine up and running. Apple also offers a basic text editing program (TextEdit) but it is about as productive as Wordpad for Windows. More advanced office productivity programs (Office, iWork, LibreOffice, OpenOffice) must be downloaded separately. The nice thing about iWork is that Apple now has it split up on the Mac App Store so you can download Keynote, Pages, and Numbers for $20 each. That way you can at least get Keynote for $20 and then use Office for Excel and Word (unless it is basic word document editing/creating, then you can use Pages for that if you aren't worried about the lack of compatibility or formatting).

 

Thx everyone. I just chevk the app store, ms office is not listed?

 

Although stranger things have happened, I don't think that particular program suite will be found in the Mac App Store anytime soon. Expect it in Microsoft's own App Market if and when that launches.

Check Newegg or Amazon or your favorite retailer. Note that the Home and Student SKU doesn't contain Outlook (which, I guess, is just lucky since it happens to be mediocre).

 

Looks like I will have to dual boot to windows because i can't afford to spend $$ again on ms office and compatibility is important to me.

Sad, because I was hoping to get rid of windows, entirely and eternally.

 

Some companies offer MS Office for $10 for home computer use. Not sure if you work for one of those companies. Microsoft has some sort of deal with those companies. That $10 office is the full professional version with a bunch of programs.

Also you can get office for around $60 if you deal hunt properly. Even if you don't work for one of those companies.

Also it will be a major pain if you have to go into Windows to use office. Office is one of those things you don't want to have on a dual boot. Games and stuff are fine because when your gaming you are only gaming for the most part. Its fine to wait 60 seconds to start playing a game youll be on for a couple of hours. Office on the other hand has a huge pain because if you need to do research and write a paper now you are on the dual boot for web browsing + music + office, which means you aren't using OSX. Plus if you want to write a paragraph essay and it'll take you 10 minutes now you have to switch to Windows. On a Mac OSX is much better then Windows 7 (keyword on a mac).

However you could just get pages + keynote (iWork) and then dual boot on some super complicated document, everything else will be fine. If you write something with a ton of formatting and macros it won't look the same in either one.

 

if you really have to use Windows version... your better off with a virtual machine than dual booting.

 

Unfortunately, I don't work for one of those corporations. if someone on this board does and can offer me, I am more than happy to pay for shipping and whatnot.

Think of it, I might have to keep my IBM until I find a good solution to this issue. Sorry bro, he was excited about the prospect of inheriting my X serie.

 

Not trying to be a wise guy but you can get Mac Office for a fair price and since you said you were going to install Windows now....what?...do you just happen to have a copy of Windows lying around? Most people don't.

 

Doesn't work that way its a download and you aren't really supposed to share it like that. Plus I think it asks for identifying information from the company etc. Really you have to work for a company like that to get it.

You can probably buy Office 2011 for like $60 come black Friday. I bought Office 2007 for that much a couple years back.

If you are a student check with your school. My school offerred free Office products for any student employees (not students, student employees). Finally the compatibility that most people talk about is to a point. If you have something with a ton of macros and formatting its a problem. 99% of documents aren't like that. Plus on top of that most documents like that aren't made in MS Word anyways. For example equations are annoying in between versions but most professional documents with equations are done in LaTex.

 

Sorry, I didn't know how it works for corporation users.

From what I can gather I could spend about the same $$ on iWork or on MS Office. iWork might work better, but MS office is popular and more compatible. I edit resume frequently, and i need to make sure the format looks right in front of recruiters. I don't know...I might give the web version of MS word and excel a try....past experiences didn't give me much of a confidence though.

 

A resume isn't a very format rich document. You can probably type up an acceptable resume on anything and it will look fine to recruiters. When people say format rich they mean some complicated xcel stuff or something with a lot of macros, equations, etc. Not text spacing and font size.

 

Actually, resumes are pretty format rich documents. I have had iWork mess up on the margins or even orientation of text when saving as a Word document or opening one. So yes, I have come across quite a bit of formatting issues just with text, font size, and spacing between iWork and Word. I have even come across issues with Word 2011 and Word 2010. For example, I created a document in Word 2011 and opened it in Word 2010 under Windows. The title page was no longer centered and everything was bumped down by a few lines. I actually had to go through and move every single page up by two lines since something strange happened in the formatting.

That has been about the only case I have come across for Office Mac and Office Win incompatibility issues but I have experienced quite a few between iWork and Office (both Mac and Win) involving small (spacing, font sizes, orientation, embedded images gone) and larger aspects (losing macros, equations, specific abilities,).

 

Depends considerably on the type of job or company you are applying for. We regularly turn down people who have generic/crappy/not-a-lot-of-though resumes.

 

I thought the content of the resume was a lot more important then the formatting on it. Unless there are formatting errors of course.

 

Proper formatting and showing that care and time was spent on the resume is as important. My husbands company will look much closer at an individual who will go the extra 2 miles on their resume to make it look extremly well done to proper formats and ease of reading. It is normally your first impression to an employer and if they see sloppy with incorrect line breaks, horrible bulleting, inconsistent line spacing, etc. it WILL stick out in their minds.


one thing that is my husbands biggest pet peeve is cover letters with incorrect paragraphing and punctuation. then inconsistant margins and random line spacing. you can be the best qualified person but if your resume looks like it was done in half an hour he WILL file 13 it for someone who spent the extra time and effort on it. he says it gives a glimpse of your worth ethic as well.

here as well.

 

Shouldn't you send out resumes as pdfs anyway? That's one document where you want to be absolutely sure the format is consistent regardless of what the recruiter uses to open the file, and of course you want to prevent accidental edits. [Disclaimer: I don't know if this is current etiquette as I haven't sent one in ages, but all the ones I receive are in pdf format--though that may be simply our recruiting dept converting them. Obviously don't take resume advice from some random guy on a forum (i.e. me) ]

Anyway, I'm hoping Apple will update the whole iWork package soon. It's been 2 years hasn't it?

 

Even MS for Mac would have trouble with compatibility sometimes.
I tried open a pptx file with MS for Mac and it ed up, though it was better than Open Office and Libre Office. Had no problems with my other Windows laptop. Oh well, just have to live with it I guess.

 

Well that can't be right, MS promised 100% compatibility with Office 2011 (Mac) and Office 2010 (Windows). My office passes a lot of complex MS Office files back and forth between Macs and PC's and we've never experienced any incompatibility. That issue you're having may hold true for the older versions but you should be sure there was nothing interfering that might have caused that.

 

2008 doesn't have perfect compatibility it can't do macros and equations.

 

Well I did state in my earlier post that older versions may have compatibility issues but since the OP is about MS Office or iWork it should be safe to assume that the forum is going to recommend the most recent versions.

 

MS may have promised one thing but I too have experienced an issue when opening Office 2011 files in Office 2010. Granted, I think it has been the only time that happened but I expressed what happened in an earlier post. It doesn't really matter what MS promised. Much like many other companies (so I am not singling them out), MS makes a lot of promises and doesn't come through. So you can't take a promise as being fact.

 

I gotcha Korn but I don't think you understood my post. I certainly didn't mean to imply that I trust what Microsoft says 100% and if they said they'd fix things then it has to be true because that's exactly why I dumped Windows because of Microsoft's failing of promises.

What I was saying is they got slammed extremely hard from their customers about how thy cheated Mac users with such a horrible version of MS Office 2008. They promised MS Office 2011 would be more inline with the Windows version and they actually came through. I use both versions and from the Ribbon UI to the functionality and down to the compatibility they did a mighty fine job. I'm one of the last that would compliment Microsoft. The issues you had with compatibility with the latest versions may be unique to you and some others but the 2010 and 2011 are both near the same versions.

 

true that.

I currently have this word file with our company's logo in the background. This image shows up on all Windows based office Word program. But in office for mac 2011 (latest ver); this image doesn't show up. Just a dark shade where the image is supposed to be...

 

what image format was the picture origionally in, we had the same issues wth some logos that were in certain clipart formats as well as .gif's that were animated but dropped into word unanimated. it was more of a system not being able to display/use the image and not word itself.

 

I believe I am using Office 2011 for Mac and Office 2010 for Windows, not sure I am having the latest updates though.
Maybe the issue is my document was in Japanese but well, since I live in Japan now it is a problem.
I tried to open a power point received from a collage, the compatibility was like
Open Office < Libre Office < IWork << MS for Mac <<<<<< MS for Wins

One more thing, my file was a pretty big and complicated file ( my company`s training guide) so I think it maybe has no problem with less complicated file.

 

I've been using Office 2011 for Mac since I got to college and am absolutely in love with it. Just as good as the Windows version which is new for Microsoft.

 

i have both, and i find Office to be better for regular things like school and such.
But if you are doing something for a presentation iWork is better