[Longbow1]

I got an email from Macworld today discussing an upcoming article on Office vs. iWork and the differences in their word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation programs, but I think the focus of this article is missing the biggest and most glaring difference between the two programs. The application in Office that gets used the most on a daily basis is obviously Outlook. That seems to me to be the biggest weakness in Apple's "suite." Apple's email program and address book are nowhere near as easy to use and configure as Outlook and Outlook Express are! I'm no Microsoft fan, but after buying my father a Mac laptop last year to replace his failing PC laptop, that is the constant complaint that I hear from him, and the part of the switch to Apple that is frustrating him the most. That is the biggest weakness to the Mac's operating system, and the one that needs to be addressed ASAP!

[greg30307]

As one who used to use Outlook, I agree, but with this proviso: that Apple do MS one better and make "AppleLook" less complex and difficult to use than Outlook and certainly that the data not be stored in one file as Outlook's is.

[jwags]

I still use Office on my Mac because I can. I also don't know if iWork is compatible with new and older versions of Word, Excel, etc.. I never use Outlook because it is such a pain to learn. I had to use it at my old corporate job, and I did get used to it over time. I think all who don't switch have familiarity with Office, or some part of it, in common and don't see a need to learn something new. I think Apple also needs to better market their iWork product to highlight compatibility if in fact it exists.

[dots]

I'm certainly not an expert. But here's an interesting incident: When I purchased my new computer, it came with a sample version of iWork. I've been an Office user for many years, so I didn't pay any attention to it. Until a friend send me a Word file (she has a PC) with .docx which she couldn't open, asking me if I could. Well my version of Word wouldn't open it either, but I decided to try Pages. It opened fine, and I could export the file to a version of Word that my friend could open.

I decided to purchase iWork.

[HawaiiBill]

As a new Mac user after a career on PC only, I can sympathize with your dad about the change. It is frustrating on many fronts, mainly because of Apple's insistence on changing the nomenclature of just about every facet of computing work. Directories became folders and everything else became something new, also.

My wish is that MacWorld would wean itself away from almost only stories that might produce an ad for them. Both OpenOffice and StarOffice -- free software that runs identically on Mac or PC -- should be given equal footing in that magazine. Why should any serious computer user want to hear yet another story about the Mac/PC combat? Or Hillary berating Obama?

What we need is a steady outlook AT THE TASKS INVOLVED and the best way to get the work done.

Mac has enough problems these days with getting Leopard to work -- without reference here to the added problems of living with the two updates, so far! I'm going to be very slow to purchase any software from Apple until it cleans up the OSX mess and very little about that is in MacWorld or MacLife or online at Apple tech support!

Need a place to start, Mr. Editor? Time Machine. The concept is both elegant and valuable but details on how to best configure it for varying purposes is totally missing. My 500gb drive bought from AppleStore in late November reports today that only 43gb is available though my Mac hard drive is merely 160gb. Something seems very wrong here but getting help from Apple on understanding that is impossible.

[encapman]

I want to switch totally to iWork. I really do! But at this point I can't give the nod to iWorks 100%
I have been a Windows user for many years. I purchased my new MacBook last July. And I also purchased iWorks 06 as well as MS Office. And a couple of months later when iWorks 08 came out I bought that too. I now prefer the Mac (most of the time).
There are times that I like iWorks and there are times that I prefer MS Office. I love the highlighter tool in MS Word - can't live without it. The page numbering in the footer works better in Word too. Yet I will use Pages for most simple projects. I prefer Swift Publisher for simple DTP projects www.belightsoft.com/products/swiftpublisher/overview.php And I'll trudge my way along with Illustrator on more complex tasks.
I like Numbers, but I still use Excel on the Mac too. So it's kind of a toss up on the spreadsheet. I'm really undecided on a favorite here.
Apple's mail and address book are lame, compared to Entourage. Apple needs to get a lot more serious about an office style PIM if they want the business world to take their suite seriously.
On the other hand, Keynote smokes PowerPoint. Keynote is worth the purchase price all by itself. Compared to Keynote, PowerPoint is a dog.
It seems obvious to me that MS Office still has the edge in almost every serious business aspect. However I enjoy iWorks too. It's more "Mac" like. And it's more enjoyable to work with. However I think iWorks could become a lot stronger as a full fledged business app. Of course, I also recognize iWorks is obviously priced lower and it's obviously designed for a more basic scope of work. Thus, for basic office needs, iWork is a strong contender. And when you compare the price, iWorks shines. For many people, iWorks will probably serve quite well.

[jwags]

Thanks Dots! Excellent feedback! I'll probably try it!

[kellybean]

I have never tried iWork. I want to, but most of the documents I create I need to submit to others electronically (for whom Word is the required, standard format), and I wonder if I create a doc in iWork then save it to Word, if too much of the formatting will change?



I just don't have time to mess with finding out.

[dots]

With my limited experience, unless you have a lot of complex formatting, it won't change at all.

[jfelbab]

iWork is almost there. It's needs a drawing and database module in the package and all would be well.

I think the old AppleWorks package was great. iWorks without these modules is crippled.

Pages and Numbers are fine. Keynote is great. Maybe Bento should be added along with a drawing/flowcharting module and it would be my goto app.

[kendallsims]

I do not own office. I do own Iwork 08, also iwork 06, also Appleworks (remember them?) and NeoOffice (a mac version of Open Office).

NeoOffice is adequate for basic things, sometimes I"ve encountered bugs (had a problem at one point with wintel people being able to read documents saved at pdf or word, but that seems to have been fixed. The spreadsheet (NeoCalc) is ok for basics, but I haven't tried graphing.

Haven't tried Numbers. The Pages program has neat templates, but can't find the ones I liked in 06. I'm not all that comfortable with pages, I find the formatiing controls difficult to master.

I did a slideshow in Keynote a while back, it works ok and it converts powerpoint fine.

I still make flyers from time-to-time in Appleworks, and I use the database application for mailing lists. I used to make post cards in Appleworks until I got Printshop.

I mostly use NeoOffice, altho if I need something really stylish, I'll resort to Pages. I'd use Pages more if I were more comfortable with it. (which I'm not).

[encapman]

You know what the Mac world really needs is a GOOD HTML/web package? Something like MS FrontPage. Dreamweaver is a pain to work with, compared to the simplicity of FrontPage. I've tested Freeway. And I've treid the toy-like template web products like iWeb, RapidWeaver, etc. No dice. So I find myself having to run Fusion and FrontPage to work on our website. (We're an e-commerce company) The closest web software compromise I can find for the Mac is Kompozer. But it would sure be nice if there was a really good wysiwyg web editor for the Mac, along the lines of FrontPage (or better).
And while I'm on my rant, what's up with Quickbooks? I would happily switch our company over to Macs if there was a real version of Quickbooks available for the Mac (as opposed to the joke that Intuit calls QB for Mac). What's up with Intuit anyway?
Hi, I'm a Mac. Hi, I'm a PC. Hi, I'm a guy who would love to use Mac's to run a business. But we still don't have adequate web software or mainstream accounting software offerings. Hi, Apple isn't paying attention.
If Mac wants us to buy into the idea that the Mac is truly a better system, then they need to find a way to get the software developed so the world can truly embrace the elegant Mac as a business machine, rather than a tool simply for artists and photographers.
For now my MacBook and my iMac will remain my choice for home use, and for moderate business use on “light days”. And those limitations are truly unfortunate, because I know the fabulous Mac could be so much more. It looks like Steve's preoccupation with the iPod and the iPhone may be clouding Apple's priorities a little.

[HawaiiBill]

Yes, but you may want to know that Microsoft has fairly recently dropped support of FrontPage extensions, the vital tools on web servers for many FrontPage functions. They simply stopped working unless -- in a few cases -- individual servers kept them available. Those, too, will soon be gone. I know of no other packages that were so easily used with good results for most purposes.

As for accounting, the world needs to be aware that QB is not really a professional 'ready-for-prime-time' package. In many of its functions, simply doesn't work. You might look in on Accutek.com for a system that runs on either PC or Mac, a vital need in many small businesses. QB has a Mac version but it likely has all the failings of the PC version that cost me a lot of money because it moved it's errors over to Peachtree when we finally realized what was going on. So it was input all that data again! Kid thee not!

Whether it's Apple's responsibility to 'get the software developed' is hard to define but maybe the code is a little hard to come by for developers. When Jobx put OSX up in Linux or Unix, whichever, it was a good thing to do but I don't know enough to even wonder whether that code is sufficiently "open" to be of use in building a professionally responsible accounting package. Then, too, what OSX 5 graphics software runs on your Mac with the level of reliability needed for the dollars and cents of the accounting world?

[SJAllan]

I loved AppleWorks and still use it for quick items. I purchased the first version of iWork and hated it so much I didn't buy the second version. I relented on the third version and am very happy. I have learned that if you set up your Tool Bar with View>Customize Tool Bar you can customize the Page Layout module to act all most the same as AppleWorks Draw, if not a little better. It doesn't let you create as stunning gradients as AW but it does have many other features to give it a big plus. I use it to create hand outs for my classes on Mac. Two things are missing, one being Data Base which may be solved by Bento and the other is a good business card template. Pages Templates for business cards does not allow you to create one from scratch without copy and pasting your creation into each cell. No longer can you create one business card and then go to a menu and have the business card replicated in each cell. Too bad. I will continue to teach business card creation in AppleWorks.
SJ Allan