iWork vs Microsoft Office

[Ingenious TROLL]

Hey guys,

Considering the new rMBP come with iWork free (I am led to believe but stand to be corrected?) is this a good alternative to Microsoft Office, and how does Mail fare against Outlook?

Would appreciate some input from those who have used both; any pros and cons etc.

Cheers

 

[Ingenious TROLL]

This is a very silly question but what is the iwork equivalent of word called?

Pages = Word
Numbers = Excel
Keynote = PowerPoint

 

[Ingenious TROLL]

If your requirements are rather "normal", then all the Apple apps should suffice. Personally find the new Pages to be fantastic though they have missed out some features (luckily they are well aware and will be gradually adding them back in...according to Apple). Despite those missed out features and having to work around them (I don't remember exactly what features unfortunately), I still prefer to use Pages over Word (which I tried and couldn't get on with it - very powerful but more difficult to use as a result).

Use Mail and don't feel the need to replace it with anything else. If you use Gmail, make sure you fully understand how Gmail works, otherwise you could mess up your email threads, but aside from that, I have no gripes with Mail at all.

Well I would use it for word documents. It is as good as Word in the respect of spell checker and grammar?

 

[Ingenious TROLL]

Well just waiting for delivery of my rMBP. Will try iWork first, but have a free copy of Office for Mac if I want it. Cheers for the help guys.

 

[Ingenious TROLL]

I've very much gone off Microsoft, so hoping I get on well with iWork as I would like to stick wholly with Apple. Have had some very good experiences with Apple customers service, and quite the contrary with Microsoft.

The most annoying thing will be that most businesses opt for Microsoft, and documents may not always be compatible which would prove annoying.

 

[Ingenious TROLL]

Just save your documents as pdf or .doc then from Pages, you won't hit any compatibility issues then.

The new version of Pages is fantastic, most of the features which people reference as missing, 98% of users won't even notice.

Keynote is best in class.

Not really needed to use Numbers much, but for my basic needs it works as well as a spreadsheet app needs to.

Can't really complain for free, can you?

That's a very apt comment to be fair! I'll give it a whirl. Delivery was due today but I've had to go into work so will miss it now should be re-delivered on Monday.

 

[Ingenious TROLL]

No complaints from me for Pages, Numbers (but haven't used Keynote yet). Numbers and pages are great, and suit me down to the ground. Really impressed and won't be getting office on my Macbook.