iWork vs Office 2008


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Not sure which to get, I only deal with .doc and .xls files mostly, but can iWork use .docx and .xlsx files?

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Yes iWork can edit .docx files but obviously it won't be as nice as editing them in Word. You might run into compatibility issues.

That being said, Office 2008 is kinda broken for the Mac. It freaks out at expose and spaces, resources usage leaves much to be desired and its not exactly the speediest piece of equipment you'll use. (miles off iWork by that respect). Plus, iWork is considerably less expensive.

All this being said though, Office is still the standard and you are much better off using Word. You will save your self trouble down the road. Just know that its not a great experience. You've been warned.

P.S: I swear by Keynote, best presentation software hands down. Powerpoint 08 is...interesting, but no where as nice. Oh yeah and numbers suck :/

Edited by NeoXY
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No contest in all categories from price to feature set. More apropos comparison would be to MS Works vs iWork.

The suite comparisons is ridiculously tilted towards Office so you gotta decide if you're just light word processor/desktop publishing user. If you're big into into the "Apple Lifestyle" than the choice should be obvious otherwise I'd experiment with Open/Neo Office or try the current circulating previews/beta's of Office.

As someone who lives on .xls files I can honestly say there is no is no rival to Excel.

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As has been said no comparison, Office is massively better with the exception of Keynote. In my experience OpenOffice is rubbish when it comes to spreadsheets.

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I've used both and am currently sticking with iWork '09. It's not that I think it's better, it's just that it does all I really need: basic word processing, occasional spreadsheet usage, etc. Office '08 worked fine for me, but it was just more than I needed.

BTW, will the next version of Office be branded 2010, or 2011? It seems that Office updates tend to be released every 2-3 years.

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I prefer Office 2008 - I do find iWork a bit too difficult to use for some things, and usually I am impatient to learn.

The only issue is that something you make in Office 2008, won't *always* look the same if you transfer it over to the computer (I've found this out, usually hours before a deadline). Therefore for time critical stuff... I used to just use bootcamp and have Office 2007 installed in Windows :D

For the record, students/those working in educational instituitions in the UK can get a legal version for ?35 - http://www.software4students.co.uk/Microso...ac-details.aspx

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If you need OOXML compatibility (like I do for university), then you'll need Office 2008. iWork just isn't cut out for working with docx, and still fails with regular doc files.

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I don't know, I don't really like both of them.

They have their strengths and weaknesses, but I don't like them because in all honesty they're newer than Office 2007, yet not as good.

Numbers misses the solver, but it has to be my favorite app of all. Even when I compare it to Excel, I prefer it a lot.

Pages misses a lot of things, including checking grammar and sentence constructions. If Apple implemented this feature throughout the whole OS for instance in Snow Leopard, it would fix the problem. You don't have these special letters effects like in Word 2007 or 2008, which are FAR better than the old '98 Wordarts. But they're laggy in Office, so...

Keynote, I can't say I've really played a lot with it. It seems really powerful though. Powerpoint 2008 is also powerful, but I prefer the layout of 2007 because you never have to open any window to edit stuff. 2008's interface is strange. Also, I've noticed colour compability problems between Powerpoint 2008 and 2007, as well as Excel 2008 and 2007 (you have a choice of like 16 background cell colours in 2008, what the fudge is that? As if Macs could only display 16 colours again?)

I didn't try Entourage 2008, as I already have Mail and iCal and Address Book. They're 3 separate apps, but I like that and they do the job really well.

Oh and Office 2008 takes a lot of time to start, no matter which app. The updating system is really bad compared to iWork, BUT iWork requires your apps to be in the iWork '09 folder in /Applications/, or Software Update does not detect that you need an update. But at least, it's not a strange updating system.

When I'm on my Mac and I know I won't have to share stuff, I see myself using iWork much more than Office.

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Oh yeah forgot to say....

None of them support mathematical equations correctly. In Word, you get a half-assed window with billions of buttons and it seems to have been sorted by a retard...

In Pages, I think you have the same editor.

What you can do though, is copy-paste an equation from Grapher. Now the equation editor IMO isn't as easy and convenient to use as in Office 2007, but it does a hell of a great job. Sad thing is, if you did a mistake, you'll have to retype the whole thing again and copy-paste again. If only they could include Grapher's API or framework right into Office 2008 and iWork, I'd be so happy!

In Numbers, if you're looking for a specific function that you have never used before, or even looking at the behaviour of a known function, the help related to this is simply gorgeous. It beats the help of Excel 2007 and 2008 and I find myself using it a lot to discover new things, very useful!

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