iwork or office for mac

Question

iwork or office for mac

I don't just understand the difference between iwork and office for mac: i just need something to write documents and to create diapos. but the thing is that on both program you can do so!!!

so which is better for a student??

does anyone know?

macbook white

Posted on Feb 14, 2010 2:14 AM

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Answer 1

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JasonFear

Level 5

4,965 points

Feb 14, 2010 2:46 AM in response to sharlize-alicia

Hi sharlize-alicia,

Welcome to Apple Discussions.

iWork, is Apple's suite of productivity applications, essentially their version of Microsoft Office.

Pages = Word
Numbers = Excel
Keynote = Powerpoint

Microsoft Office comes with Microsoft Entourage which is the Mac version of Microsoft Outlook. iWork does not come with a mail application as the Mail application is part of OS X. Microsoft Office for Mac also comes with Microsoft Messenger but I don't count that because it's a free application anyway.

Both applications offer a free trial if you want to try it out.

[iWork|http://www.apple.com/iwork/download-trial> (30 days)
[Office|http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/Office2008/trial-download.mspx] (30 days)

Both trials are "fully functional" so you can see for yourself if Office is worth the $149 to iWorks' $79 fee. On a side note, to add a third option. There's also the open source [Open Office|http://www.openoffice.org> and [Neo Office|http://www.neooffice.org/neojava/en/index.php] which look and play a lot like Microsoft Office for Mac.

You'll find the community pretty split on which is better, I personally think each suite offers strengths to the other's weaknesses. The general vibe I get among my co-workers that if you're interacting with a lot of other users of Microsoft Office (Mac or PC) it's easier to go with Microsoft Office for Mac. In case you're wondering, though, iWork is fully compatible with all of the Microsoft Office file formats and can open/export them.

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Answer 2

Feb 15, 2010 5:13 PM in response to sharlize-alicia

never mind.

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Answer 3

Apr 10, 2010 12:10 PM in response to JasonFear

so, am I understanding you correctly? I just bought microsoft office for my Dell desk top, did it come with Entourage already on the disk? I just have to load it into my mac laptop? (new to mac) don't have to buy another program for my mac?
Carrie

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Answer 4

Apr 10, 2010 1:50 PM in response to carriern2

No, the Dell desktop is running MS Windows, not OSX, so you likely purchased MS Office for Windows. You would need to purchase the Office for Mac version in order to use it on your Mac.

By the way, although Open Office is free and states MS Office compatibility, I have found that it is not 100% compatible. It does not, for example, properly display things in Word Documents like check boxes that were already checked by the original author of the document, which caused me some confusion when filling out work related forms. Because of issues like this I eventually decided to purchase Office for Mac. I don't know how well iWork performs in this regard.

Message was edited by: BucksCountyBob

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