Is Apple’s iWork a viable alternative to Microsoft Office? To find out, IT Business asked Jeffrey Battersby–our go-to expert on word processing programs–to use Word 2008 and Pages ’08 to create the same project, progressing from the basics (text entry and formatting) to more-advanced features. Our questions: Which program is better at each stage of the job? What are their strengths and weaknesses? Which jobs (and which users) require which tool? (And for our experts’ take on alternatives to Office and iWork, see Word Processing Alternatives.)
Battersby reports, “Microsoft Word may well be the standard for business word processing programs, but Apple’s Pages ’08 presents an excellent alternative. If you find that you’re constantly changing the way a text document looks, then Word’s document themes offer a distinct advantage over Pages. For all other types of documents, however, from basic word processing files to sophisticated page layouts, Pages is equal to or better than Word.”
Full review here.
MacDailyNews Take: Do you really need Microsoft Office? Give Apple’s free 30-day iWork ’08 trial a try and find out for yourself.
agreed. Got rid of word and never looked back.
I like Pages, but I have to say that Numbers definitely needs much more work before I give up on Excel!!
Not!
I’ve tried Pages in my local Apple Store, and it does not have the tools I need for large, complex documents.
I recently completed my thesis in Word 2004 for Mac, and I did not have the problems a classmate did with Pages. The problems were table of contents, tables of figures and tables, and indices.
I have both iWorks & Microsoft Office. I like & use them both.
qka and Swing Geezer,
I agree with both of you. The only true replacement in iWork is Keynote – puts PowerPoint to freakin’ shame!!!
Numbers needs a lot of work,
I’m not sure Pages is supposed to be a Word replacement. Apple would be better off turning TextEdit into a Word rival.
I prefer Neooffice to both. Abiword is nice too.
Pages ’08 beats Word hands down for everything…no argument. And not least for the two that matter most – productivity and ‘enjoyability’..!
The things that the author liked about Word (Styles and Themes) are features that 95% of Word users don’t understand and therefore don’t use. I am glad the author did highlight what I consider a huge weakness in Word, that is, how it handles graphics and objects that are inserted into documents. Anyone who has ever inserted a picture in a Word doucment knows that moving it around so it fits where you want it to in the text is like grabbing jello.
While both Word and Pages are good programs, anyone who wants to create documents made up of more than just text is far better off with Pages.
I really like Pages.. but there are some things I need word for – mail merge and like a previous poster wrote – TOC… NeoOffice is just a little too java-clunky for me..
I use both Word and Pages; I feel compelled to use Word for business, but turn to Pages when doing presentation documents that have to look good. One day, I’d like to completely move my writing over to Pages.
I am still grappling with Numbers — too many years (all the way back to VisiCalc) thinking about spreadsheets as rows and columns. I think I will take it more seriously when it goes to V2.
The previous poster that described Keynote as the best part of iWork got it right: Keynote has surpassed PowerPoint. It is elegant and fluid, and creates beautiful presentations. Especially in the current rev, the tools are better and offer more control over appearance and behavior.
The big news is that this comparison took place at all. Can you imagine a publication such as IT Business doing a shootout between MS Word and AppleWorks just a few short years ago? Serious people in places of Business influence are definitely asking critical questions and rethinking their perception of Apple and its products. We are seeing more and more rational discussion of the realities of Apple in Business, rather than the simple dismissing seen in the past.
@Ralph M,
Thanks. I’ve been using Keynote for several years now to give lectures to medical students and residents and have been dropping jaws ever since. They convert real easily once they hear it is part of a suite of 3 programs for $79 vs. the $200 for PP alone!
There is one thing (twoish) that I want in Pages – the ability to redefine styles more like word and to be able to set styles to follow on from others. In word I have letter templates setup so I can type an address using line-breaks then start a new paragraph and date it, title it etc then write my letter all without having to select a style. One thing.
Apple needs to buy VectorDesigner (http://www.tweakersoft.com/vectordesigner/index.html) and release it as MacDraw. Then add Bonjour data sharing to FM Bento and add it to iWork. Then allow Pages to do mail-merge with either Numbers or Bento.
For large complex documents, my pick would be Nisus Writer Pro.
@MDB “Do you really need Microsoft Office?” Yep. When you’re the sole Mac hold-out in a PC workplace, you need Office.
However, think twice before upgrading to Office 2008. Launch times are far longer than for 2004, and the component apps seem slower in operation too. And if you buy the home and student edition (you’ll save heaps doing that), you’ll still need Entourage 2004 to attach to a Windoze network. Not your finest hour, MS MBU.
Sorry, that should be @MDN.
@HolyMackerel
I like your thinking.
I still have to use word x to copy with formatting included. Pages strips everything out. Some kind of simplified html output would be obvious.
For a “Pro” app, the whole orfice suite sucks. The lacks of efficient UI is a big hinderence. ClarisWorks/AppleWorks was years ahead in this category. Things like controlling the size of text box or graphic is just one example of where word really irks me. As iWorks… Pages matures, it will only continue to rise above the pos that is ms word !
you need it for excel… numbers has a long way to go
As far as text is concerned I hate the entire Office suite. If a customer sends me resources for a web site you can bet your lucky stars they type these resources in word. You get so many awful replacement custom characters in Microsoft apps it makes them totally useless for web resource production.
Not tried it in Pages yet. I think I will have a go.
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Tried Pages. Seemed to work OK. No silly characters
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@Mike
It depends if you just want to create ordinary spreadsheets with a few functions. Yes Numbers may need work but it’s version 1 and has layout features that put Excel to shame.
@HolyMackerel
I second that. It makes perfect sense that Apple especially needs a good consumer vector drawing app. iWork rocks and can already do basic vector graphics, but something like vector designer would fit like a glove. The only other thing Pages needs now for me is cmyk mode.
Speaking of vectors, Word o8 sill rasterizes placed vectors! WTF? Isn’t it 2008 already? You can drag vector graphics (i.e. Ai, EPS, PDF) right into Pages, Keynote, Numbers since v.1 and they look perfect and print/output the same. I was shocked to find that Word 08 still has not got that right. Same thing as IE6 with png transparency. They only recently fixed that in IE7. Pathetic.