iWork or Office for Mac 2011

mcw92

Hey, im going getting an office suite for my macbook for college.

A few questions about which would be better.

1: If buying Office for Mac, il be using Software4Students, anyone know how much it will be on that or when they will update the website with the 2011 version( i saw on wikipedia that its being released on 26th October)
If buying iWork il use Apple.ie, its 49€. Is that the best place to get it?

Now i want to be able to open all Documents created with Word,Excel and Powerpoint on a Windows Comp, Will both programs do this or is there limitations on either one?

Now before anyone recommends a free one ive had Open Office and NeoOffice and i didnt like either because with the Docs i opened they were different from the Docs on a Windows Machine. Also i dont like the layout so I only want Recommendations on iLife and Office For Mac.

P.S. I have Windows in bootcamp with Office 2007 Installed so no need to mention that either

Ham'nd'egger

mcw92 wrote: »

Hey, im going getting an office suite for my macbook for college.

A few questions about which would be better.

1: If buying Office for Mac, il be using Software4Students, anyone know how much it will be on that or when they will update the website with the 2011 version( i saw on wikipedia that its being released on 26th October)
If buying iLife il use Apple.ie, its 49€. Is that the best place to get it?

Now i want to be able to open all Documents created with Word,Excel and Powerpoint on a Windows Comp, Will both programs do this or is there limitations on either one?

Now before anyone recommends a free one ive had Open Office and NeoOffice and i didnt like either because with the Docs i opened they were different from the Docs on a Windows Machine. Also i dont like the layout so I only want Recommendations on iLife and Office For Mac.

P.S. I have Windows in bootcamp with Office 2007 Installed so no need to mention that either

I have MS Office 04 and iWorks 09 and I personally find iWorks a lot better overall. It's less resource hungry, it's more seamless and it's user friendly. Pages also handles pictures far better than word and it has a lot of templates that you can work with from the off. Keynote is miles over Powerpoint and Numbers does the Excel basics just fine.

All three allow you to save in the MS favoured formats or you can use their native ones; it's just a wee click while they allow you to view MS files in iWorks format. You may get stuck the odd time looking for things in different places but that's par for the course.

For the basics, iWorks is far far better and better value to boot.

conor.hogan.2

Neither.


Openoffice or neooffice both allow you to save to doc and multiple other formats and many colleges (ucd and tcd anyway now have openoffice installed on most campus machines)

aidan_walsh

iWork if you like the Apple aesthetic and pretty good export functionality (I have seen some problems with some templates and Word exports).

Office if you want the maximum compatibility (straight from the horses mouth).

OpenOffice if you really, really, really liked Office 98.

Ham'nd'egger

conor.hogan.2 wrote: »

Neither.


Openoffice or neooffice both allow you to save to doc and multiple other formats and many colleges (ucd and tcd anyway now have openoffice installed on most campus machines)

Did you read the bit where OP said he didn't like either?;)

MACHEAD

I have both, on a small Mac network at work. We actively encourage the students to use the iLife/iWork apps on the system to get them used to 'feel' of them and so they can see just how much better they are overall. MS Word may have loads of bells & whistles (far too many possibly), I think when you get used to using it, 'Pages' is much better. As far as PowerPoint goes, well Keynote blows it clean out of the water. You can always export a keynote presentation to PP but as PP won't be able to display the cool transitions from Keynote, this kind of defeats the purpose of the exercise. I kept MS Office on the system for those who bring homework in on a pen drive, I've been so tempted to delete it alltogether and just tell them, "sorry, we don't do microsoft here". But among the 'teaching staff there's just so many that are set in their quaint old 'microsoft ways', I better keep it on. In conclusion, I would probably have to (reluctantly) admit that 'Office' is more compatible, particularly in a cross platform environment, but if cost becomes a significant consideration, look carefuly at the iLfe/iWork suite of apps. They're fully compatible with Word and Excell documents.

coylemj

It never ceases to amaze me when I see the first responder on any thread using the 'quote' button.

Microsoft say that if you buy a 'qualifying' Office for Mac 2008 product between Aug 1, 2010 and Nov 30, 2010 you will be eligible to download Office 2011 for Mac for free, you'll need the sales recept and product key, see details here......

http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/Office2008/office-2011-upgrade.mspx

-Chris-

coylemj wrote: »

It never ceases to amaze me when I see the first responder on any thread using the 'quote' button.

Dunno what this has to do with the thread tbh...




@mcw92 - I have both iWork and Office '08 on my Macbook, and despite the fact that often iWork is generally easier/more pleasant to use than the MS equivalent (Keynote in particular), I still end up using Office primarily as I don't like to have to worry about niggly little compatibility and formatting issues when moving between computers/OSs.

If you have Office '07 installed on your computer already, I don't know if I'd bother investing in an alternative office suite unless you're one of us who has to have the latest version of everything.

The other suggestion I'd have is to install both suites as trial editions, and it'll probably become pretty apparent during the trial period which version you end up preferring.
http://www.apple.com/iwork/download-trial/
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/downloads.mspx

Ham'nd'egger

coylemj wrote: »

It never ceases to amaze me when I see the first responder on any thread using the 'quote' button.

Microsoft say that if you buy a 'qualifying' Office for Mac 2008 product between Aug 1, 2010 and Nov 30, 2010 you will be eligible to download Office 2011 for Mac for free, you'll need the sales recept and product key, see details here......

http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/Office2008/office-2011-upgrade.mspx

I don't quite know what was wrong with my answer that you don't like but I'm just speaking from experience having used both softwares over the years

-Chris-

mcw92 wrote: »

If buying iLife il use Apple.ie, its 49€.

BTW, it's iWork you'll need, not iLife

mcw92

-Chris- wrote: »

BTW, it's iWork you'll need, not iLife

Cheers edited it there
Have iLife already!

coylemj

Hamndegger wrote: »

I don't quite know what was wrong with my answer that you don't like but I'm just speaking from experience having used both softwares over the years

I wasn't commenting on the substance of your reply, I was drawing attention to the fact that you pressed the 'quote' button even though yours was the first response. What's the point in quoting the OP when you are the first responder, what else could you be responding to?

-Chris-

I find it ironic that you feel it's ok to drag mcw92's thread off-topic in order to correct someone's (perceived) inappropriate use of the quote function.

Pot/Kettle?

ironictoaster

I am currently using Office 2011. It's really nice, it's pretty much identical to Office 2007 windows version.

coylemj

-Chris- wrote: »

I find it ironic that you feel it's ok to drag mcw92's thread off-topic in order to correct someone's (perceived) inappropriate use of the quote function.

Pot/Kettle?

If that was my only contribution to the topic then your comment may be valid but since it was one line in a post that contained a material contribution to the OP's query then no I don't think it was 'ironic' at all.

Ham'nd'egger

coylemj wrote: »

I wasn't commenting on the substance of your reply, I was drawing attention to the fact that you pressed the 'quote' button even though yours was the first response. What's the point in quoting the OP when you are the first responder, what else could you be responding to?

And your issue with that is, exactly?:rolleyes:

ozt9vdujny3srf

Office 2011 is excellent, a huge improvement on 2008 (which sucks). I think its a step up from iWork aswell.

Also unfortunately as we still live in a world where people do send you stuff in doc / ppt / xls format, Office is the only thing which truly handles these filetypes correctly.

I never really put time into learning how to use iWork (although have made some nice presentations with keynote), but on the occasion I have had to use it I have found it difficult to get around.

TL; DR Office 2011 > iWork

conor.hogan.2

Clearly I didn't read the part he didn't like either, and clearly people haven't used either since the early days - every single essay I did in college was done in OO and every lecturer wanted it in there own (varying) office version(s) and I never got marked down on my History essays which specifically marked you on presentation.

mathepac

Or maybe just check out IBM Lotus Sympnony v 3.x for Mac OS X, Windoze, Linux; free to download, free to use, free clip-art, templates, plug-ins, etc.

http://symphony.lotus.com/software/lotus/symphony/home.nsf/home

-Chris-

conor.hogan.2 wrote: »

Clearly I didn't read the part he didn't like either, and clearly people haven't used either since the early days - every single essay I did in college was done in OO and every lecturer wanted it in there own (varying) office version(s) and I never got marked down on my History essays which specifically marked you on presentation.

He says he doesn't like OO. Simples...

Also, I've used OO in the latest version on both PC & Mac. It's slow to load, its UI is clunky, it doesn't always keep MS formatting (in my experience, anyway).

If the OP is willing to spend the €50, then I'd say it's €50 well spent at the moment.

conor.hogan.2

true - no point using something you dont like.

if oo ui is clunky then I would recommend you dont even look at office tbh.

-Chris-

conor.hogan.2 wrote: »

if oo ui is clunky then I would recommend you dont even look at office tbh.

Seriously?

mikemac

I never took to iwork.

Keynote certainly is great

However like many I've used Excel for years now and I don't realy want to learn about Numbers. Laziness maybe but I stick to what I'm used to.

Neooffice serves me fine but I understand the OP doesn't want that.

So realy OP, do consider Office for Mac 2011

mcw92

Got Office ...Happy with it tbh. only 70€.