Should I use iWork or Microsoft office for school?

I am trying to decide if I want to buy Microsoft office mac or i work for my mac to use for taking notes in school. wondering which is better
please help

iWork - for yourself with little compatibility with others unless they are all using Mac's. If you have to switch to a Windows machine later, you can be in trouble with these file formats. Payware.
OfficeMac - what the business world uses as standard as most the world uses Windows Office, most shared file format, you will have to learn it eventually. Payware.
LibreOffice - Cross-platform (Linux, OS X and Windows versions) Office like version can read and write to Office formats. Donationware, free to use. Free to include with files for others to use.
If your just in school and started learning, I would go with LibreOffice first to get you feet wet with those different softwares and how they do things. Since it's free and good enough, even for only at home use.
Also since a lot of schools are hurting for software, the free LibreOffice is great for a multi-use site as it costs nothing.
In high school I would start uisng OfficeMac or a Windows machine and Office to prepare yourself for the job market.
If your rich, never need to work with others on Windows, or a graphic artist that works with others using Mac's, then perhaps iWork.
If your doing a LOT of trading files with Windows users, it's best to use Windows either in Bootcamp or OfficeMac with the Microsoft fonts, because there are problems with formatting when transporting files between platforms.
Of course PDF's are just a image, so they retain the look, but editable files require the fonts to be on the other system too.

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IWork vs Microsoft Office For Mac

I am a university student and just bought the MBP 2.53 and i was curious of which i should get. iWork 08 or Office for Mac. Any opinoins?

I have several Macs in my household and because I have a 13 yr old daughter with a MacBook, I purchased iWork. I also own Mac Office which I upgraded to 2008 the week it came out.
I thought that I could stop using MS Office for my work-related stuff, but after using iWork for a while, I went back to MS Office 2008. The formatting conversion in iWork is not reliable. More importantly, If you work in the real world and have to share files with colleagues, Office rules, unfortunately. It's just not worth the incompatibility hassles to use iWork instead of Office.
Even my daughter has given up on iWork because of compatibility issues with her school which has only PC's available to students. This is going to change next year when she starts high school at a private Catholic school. This school uses Macs, but they still require MS Office.
For a single user looking to get a nice work package affordably, I think that iWork is a great value and much nicer to use than Office. But that's about it until iWork develops further into a real business package.
BTW, if you are a student or have a student in your household, I suggest that you check out the steep software discounts for students at www.academicsuperstore.com. You can purchase the student version of MS Mac Office 2008 for $159, and it includes licenses for 3 computers! The student version is the same as the full retail version except that MS does not allow upgrades on the student version to the next generation of Office, whenever that becomes available. Other than that, it's the same product that you can spend $350 for a single-user license.
Cheers.
Bud
Message was edited by: budjames

Apple works or iwork vs. microsoft office for mac

I am a first-time mac user and unfortunately, did not have apple works loaded onto my imac. I did have a beta version of office for mac with which I am familiar. My question, since I was unable to trial apple works or iwork, is whether I should go with office for mac or apple works/iwork? My basic needs are word processing/home use. Hope someone can help me out as I need to purchase something.

My question, since I was unable to trial
apple works or iwork, is whether I should go with
office for mac or apple works/iwork? My basic needs
are word processing/home use. Hope someone can help
me out as I need to purchase something.
AppleWorks and iWork are both less expensive than MS Office.
You should have trial versions of both iWork and MS Office on your iMac, according to this software list from the specifications page:
iLife ’06 (includes iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie HD, iDVD, iWeb, GarageBand),
Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac Test Drive,
iWork (30-day trial),
Quicken 2006 for Macintosh,
Big Bang Board Games,
Comic Life,
Omni Outliner, and
Apple Hardware Test
Although my personal preference is AppleWorks, I'd hesitate to recommend it in your case. Appleworks is not, and likely never will be native to the intel OS X environment, and runs through Rosetta on the new machines. Although it runs well, and is a viable choice for anyone currently using it, AppleWorks is at the end of its development cycle. Unless you need its spreadsheet and database capabilities, you're probably better off looking at Pages in iWork.
Pages is a competent wp and page layout application, and for some long term users of AppleWorks, has become their favourite for this purpose. Pages includes some basic spreadsheet functions in inserted tables.
Office is an 'entrepreneur' level suite of applications, and as such contains a larger feature set in each application than either iWork or AppleWorks. But given your stated needs, it's probably a bigger hammer than you need, and one with a longer and steeper learning curve than you'd want. If you NEED to share files with Windows/MS Office users, there are a couple of free alternatives—OpenOffice.org, which requires you to install X11, Apple's Xwindow implementation, and NeoOffice, which runs in Java, which you will already have installed.
Others may have different recommendations.
Regards,
Barry

IWork v. microsoft office (for Mac)

which one should i get, if not both. im not sure which one is necessary or which one i'll get more use out of

You said: i bought iwork and found that i really REALLY didn't like it, most likely because i was used to microsoft office on my windows machine. iWork is a different animal from Office but it is also a flagship example of the direction Apple wants OS X applications to follow - ie Inspectors and palettes and the like. If I hadn't instantly liked Keynote and worked through its different user interface, a year later when Pages was released I'd have reacted pretty strong against it at first too, I think. But I love Pages and only use Word today when I really have to. Getting away from the bloat and Word's tendency to assume that it knows what I want it to do (when it really doesn't) has made me a much more productive person.
You continued: a month later i decided i needed to upgrade to 2 gb of RAM, since office was bogged down with only 1 gig. Interesting. My MacBook originally had 1GB and I was perfectly happy with its performance. At time I was working on a grant proposal and was regularly running Word, Filemaker Pro, Entourage, Safari, and NetNewsWire. It wasn't until I added Parallels Desktop to the mix that I felt the need to upgrade to 2GB.
MacBook (black) / G5 Dual Desktop / Intel Mac mini Mac OS X (10.4.10) Win • Linux • Treo • iPod

Iwork or Microsoft office for mac?

Well i don't know which one to buy. All i really need is something to write essays with and be able to send it to a PC if i need to. If anyone can help me make a decision i would thank you.

Very good advice with one caveat - first become at least somewhat proficient with each program before making the last comparison. OO, NeoO, and MS Office are all work alikes but they don't have the same interface so performing 'task X' on each one can be different which isn't necessarily the same as better or worse.
And then with iWork the tasks aren't just performed differently, some can't be done at all - but there are the things iWork does that the others can't. After my first couple hours with Pages I was pretty sure it was a light weight program that I couldn't use for serious work. A few hours more and I saw I was wrong, and within a couple weeks I realized I hadn't started Office for a long time.

What is the difference between iwork and microsoft office for mac?

I was wondering which one is worth the money.

+I was wondering which one is worth the money.+
It depends on why you want iWork or Office. If you work in a group where Office is the main collaboration app, you need it and it's worth it. If you work independently and don't plan to do much collaboration with Office users, but you still need a nice productivity suite, iWork might be a bargain for you.
There are many situations where buying both Office and iWork is the right choice. If you're not sure what you will do with either one, save your money and use TextEdit. If your needs are very specific, there are many third-party apps that may suit you better than either iWork or Office. If you describe your needs, there are many users here who will be eager to offer specific suggestions.
Jerry

I use excel at work. Should I use Numbers or buy Office for Mac?

I use simple spreadsheets that I change the values in daily. My main concern is compatibility. I use a Macbook Air mid 2013.

Hi sapper,
Exporting from Numbers to Excel is OK if you have a single table with no bells and whistles. That is the same as sending your accountant a plain text or CSV file. However, if you want to use the power of Numbers to do some processing and layout...
Here is a "simple" Numbers document. Two tables and two charts (graphs) on one Sheet:
Now export to Excel then import back into Numbers:
Now 4 sheets.
Now repeat (export to Excel, then import back into Numbers:
Now 4 sheets with longer names.
And if your Excel recipient made changes, wouldn't that be a nightmare?
Stick to a single table (that becomes a single Worksheet in Excel) and you can get away with it. Anything else, good luck.
Regards,
Ian.

I update my OS to Mount Lion and all my .docs ( microsoft office for mac) can't be read or open. Any advice on to what app should I get so I can open or transfer to so I can open em?

I update my OS to Mount Lion and all my .docs ( microsoft office for mac) can't be read or open. Any advice on to what app should I get so I can open or transfer to so I can open em?

What program did you use prior to the updade? Did you updrde that program when you updaded the OS?

Will microsoft office for mac 2004 transfer from my emac running 10.4.11 to the new iMac running mountain lion using migration assistant?

will microsoft office for mac 2004 transfer from my emac running 10.4.11 to the new iMac running mountain lion using migration assistant?

Microsoft Office 2004 will not work on any Mac running Lion or Mountain Lion. You will need to upgrade to Office 2011, buy the less expensive iWork apps from the App Store or use a free office clone like OpenOffice or NeoOffice.

How do i type in tamil in microsoft office for mac? my previous tamil documents from my pc are not displaying the font correctly, nor am i able to use the inbuilt mac tamil font to write in microsoft office

How do i type in tamil in microsoft office for mac? my previous tamil documents from my pc are not displaying the font correctly, nor am i able to use the inbuilt mac tamil font to write in microsoft office

You should probalby post your question on Microsoft's own forums for their Mac software since it's their stuff you're asking about:
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/mac

I just bought a macbook pro and am ready to order Microsoft Office for Mac. I use Windows 2007 at work and want to be sure I am able to work with files from that system. Do I need to buy 2 different editions of Microsoft Office to be able to do this?

Do I need to buy 2 different Microsoft Office products if I want to be able to use my new Mac with Microsoft Office for Mac and also use files saved on my work computer which uses Microsoft Window 2007?

Pomme4us wrote:
Do I need to buy 2 different Microsoft Office products if I want to be able to use my new Mac with Microsoft Office for Mac and also use files saved on my work computer which uses Microsoft Window 2007?
Sorry, but your likely going to have to use Windows 7 and Office on your Mac at work using Bootcamp.
Although you can share files OfficeMac and Office on Windows, the formatting will be off because two platforms use different installed fonts and formatting. This will cause a productivity lost and require extra editing at work
If you could share just PDF's then your fine, but that will unlikely be the case.
So to share files seamlessly your going to have to install Windows 7 (another $300) full version, 64 bit, using Apple's Bootcamp.
https://www.apple.com/support/bootcamp/
It's ok, though, you can boot into OS X to use that online and surfing etc at home. It's the internet and sharing of files from other Windows users that cause Windows to hoze up, so mimimalize both of those and you should be fine.
You can also run Windows 7 in a virtual machine software like Parallels or VMFusion. as long as you don't have any super demanding needs of the hardware, like running 3D games or super intense CPU actions like video processing. Office work is just fine and it's safer than Bootcamp, as in a virtual machine you can keep "snapshots" of previous states of the OS, and revert back to in case something goes wrong in mere seconds.
A real good piece of news though, Windows 8 is so radically changed from Windows 7, that your workplace will remain with Windows 7 as long as possible to put off all the retraining necessary with that new OS version.
So think of the $300 + $60 investment in Windows on your Mac as a longterm thing.

I just purchased a Mac book air. I have the Microsoft office and school for Mac but can not down load it on The Air. Is ther a way to download it on line using the codes on the box?

I purchased MacBook Air I have a Microsoft Offic and School for Mac. Is there a way to download this product using info from the box since I can't put the disk in the Air

You can download the trial: https://www.microsoft.com/mac/trial
There should be a place to register in which you could enter your code. It may only ask you to register after the thirty days, I can't recall.

Can i use microsoft office for mac on windows 7 installed on macbook pro?, can i use microsoft office for mac on windows 7 installed on macbook pro?

I have recently installed Windows 7 on my Macbook Pro (2011). I have also recently got Microsoft office for Mac 2011. Can somebody please advise if it is possible to use (install) office for mac 2011 on this windows 7 that i have installed. If possible, how to do it?

No it is not possible.
You can use office for mac, on OSX, but not on windows.
You need to use the windows version, on windows 7.

I am using a verizon email address and microsoft office for mac outlook program to manage my emails. Does any one know if the apple outlook version offers the ability to save emails as a pdf so that I can save it to my hard drive and how to access?

I am using a verizon email address and microsoft office for mac outlook program to manage my emails. Does any one know if the apple outlook version offers the ability to save emails as a pdf so that I can save it to my hard drive and how to access?

This is the Microsoft forum site that parallels what Apple has:
Office for Mac forums
It's not uncommon for MS employees who work with the Mac side of the business to help there. All in all a useful resource for Office:Mac

If I buy Microsoft office for MacBook pro will I be able to use diacritical marks for Welsh input? Welsh requires a circumflex sometimes on a,e,i,o,w and y, in addition to a diaeresis. An acute accents are not a problem as they occur in other languages.

If I buy Microsoft office for MacBook pro will I be able to use diacritical marks for Welsh input? Welsh requires a circumflex sometimes on a,e,i,o,w and y, in addition to a diaeresis. An acute accents are not a problem as they occur in other languages.

You can add in System Preferences, Language & Text, Input Sources, Welsh keyboard

Should I use iWork or Microsoft office for school?

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