Pages & Numbers vs Word & Excel

I've seen many threads on this subject and wanted to add my own observations, which may help someone trying to make a decision on which suite they may need. Personally I use both since they have different strengths and weaknesses. I haven't worked much with Keynote or PowerPoint so I'll skip them.

I work in a WinXP eviroment so Office is what I use 8-5, mostly Excel and Access. At home, I'm a freelance photographer and custom print designer. I've done sales flyers, restaurant menus, advertising, and custom graphics. I've done a lot of custom marketing materials for my work and always fire up my Macbook, showing off what a Mac can do better than any Windows software we have.

iWork is predominantly a typesetting suite. If the end result is to be printed, then iWork really has the better tool set. Pages is easier to work with than Word for working with text boxes, images, backgrounds, and imbedded spreadsheet tables. I find it more intuitive and the tools make more sense, and it's a true WYSIWYG from sceen to printer. Numbers is easier to work with than Excel, again for printed output. Tables and graphs can be moved around to create a more flowing presentation. I also love versions... being able to go back to a previous version is a huge timesaver if a particular layout is not working out. Another plus to iWork is Pages and Numbers for iOS at $9.95 each. I can sync files to the cloud and have access to them on my iPhone anywhere anytime.

If printing is not your goal, or you need to share or collaborate, then Office is the better suite simply because the files will transfer virtually seamlessly between Mac and Windows versions. Many university professors also require .DOC and .XLS files for assignments, and Word has better tools for footnotes, bibliography, and table of contents, and as many reviewers have noted, will handle 100+ page files better than Pages. As for Excel, Numbers just can't compete when it comes to power number crunching on huge spreadsheets. Numbers is great for a budget, grocery list, or pie charts, but if you need to set up complex arrays, multi-point statistics, heavy calculus or physics equations, or need to graph a wormhole, Excel is your tool. For iOS devices, I'd recommend DataVis Documents-To-Go ($9.95 or $16.99 for Premier on AppStore) to work with Office files on your iPad or iPhone.

Amazon has Office Home & Student for $99 single license, or $117 for the 3 user family pack. iWork for $79, $99 family pack. There are free alternatives to both such as OpenOffice but I'm not getting into that debate. I've used OO but I don't like it's interface and the way it works. It's just not Pages or Numbers.

So, for my personal workflow, I prefer iWork for in-house documents, letters, simple spreadsheets, and anything that doesn't need editing outside. For simple documents, I'll just export to .DOC format and check it in Word before emailing or uploading. I share PDF's for printed output that needs approval and I use Office for collaboration files. I actually use Software McKiev's PrintShop 2 ($69.95) for more complex layouts like flyers, business cards, labels, greeting cards, custom envelopes, and advertising graphics. I try to use the best tool for the job since I've really never found a Swiss Army knife suite that does everything well.

If you're a student or writer and need tools for footnotes, TOC's, bibliographies, heavy calculating and graphing, then you'll get better mileage out of Office than iWork. If you're working more with the presentation of information in a printed format, then iWork will probably be easier to get the output you're looking for. Businesses can easily use both as I do.

Both suites have thier fans and haters... all I'm saying is they both will do the job, just some jobs are easier using one or the other.