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When do we get 30% of the Mac? Hopefully that's what the so called products transition is about...

Aug 12, 08 - 10:55 am Comment from: Jubei

Anyone know if the new iWork can open the default file formats of new Office for Windows?

Aug 12, 08 - 10:58 am Comment from: Prophet

@Jubei

Yes, they can.

Aug 12, 08 - 10:58 am Comment from: Jay-Z

Students, save your money for Thirsty Thursday. There are free solutions out there that actually work. Office is unusable.

Aug 12, 08 - 10:59 am Comment from: Roberto

And be sure to check out the Mojave Experience on your way out!

Jubel -
The answer to your question is yes.

Better yet, just Buy a Mac and forget Office. And if you need a suite, go for iWork, the free NeoOffice or OpenOffice, or the IBM/Lotus counterpart. Me, I bought a Home Use copy of Office 2004 for $19.95 through my old government office.

Sounds good for those who may need it or can't do without Office...but...isn't M$ a little late for back to school promotions?? School has already started here in GA. Most people have already made their computer purchase.

Office is 95% useless (OpenOffice, amongst few, works pretty well) so microsoft can easely do some "tremendous bargains" on their suite...

iWork is only really good for flyers, cards, and KEYNOTE.

Otherwise Office takes the cake with word processing and spreadsheets, hands down.

Aug 12, 08 - 11:12 am Comment from: Big Al

Why do kids from GA have to go to school one month earlier than the rest of North America?

Aug 12, 08 - 11:14 am Comment from: Big Al

Excel for Mac was good in the 80's. It has grown bloated faster than Ballmer.

Aug 12, 08 - 11:15 am Comment from: tenderisthemind

@Jay-Z

Office is unusable? Granted, I have Office for Windows in mind when I say this, but MS Office is anything but unusable.

Star Office: unusable.
NeoOffice: unusable.
Google Docs & Spreadsheets: unusable.

Aug 12, 08 - 11:38 am Comment from: TowerTone

Big Al
-Because they need it.....

Office does NOT take the cake..!

Excel may do, I admit - but only if you are an extremely advanced economist or bean counter. For any normal user Numbers does a great job.

Otherwise Pages is a FAR better and more efficient word processor than the bloated and slow Word.

Keynote also runs rings around the awful Powerpoint.

@ Big Al

Cause they are being invaded by Russia. Need the kids back in school.

Aug 12, 08 - 11:47 am Comment from: DanielM

Better yet, if you are switching from Windows, charge the upgrade price for the Mac Version.

U Cinci student price for Office is $13 - you only get the CD, and it is for student use only, but a great price. Many Universities may offer this - check before wasting money that you'll need for $$books$$

Do you really need iWork '08? Give the free NeoOffice a try and find out for yourself.

Aug 12, 08 - 12:03 pm Comment from: MacLovin

Office sucks, iWork rocks. I can't STAND office for Mac or PC.... its just not right the way everything works, and its just plain ugly.

Aug 12, 08 - 12:05 pm Comment from: Cubert

Office 2008 is a POS! How in the world can a Universal app run slower on Intel hardware than 2004 (PPC only) ran in Rosetta?!

Emulation faster than native? Only Microsucks could do that.

Aug 12, 08 - 12:12 pm Comment from: GizmoDan

The biggest problem I have with Numbers is that you can't lock the column headings so that you can see them as you scroll down a large spreadsheet.

So you can't really use it for large spreadsheets.

Aug 12, 08 - 12:13 pm Comment from: Cubert

@kirkrr,
Ahhh....another Cincy boy! U.C. was where I went to med school.

And, I'm a native Cincinnatian now in Philthadelphia.
(And, yes I spelled Philthadelphia right)

I think office still has advantages over iWork. I love iWork for home projects but excel 2008 is more powerful for professional output.
I tried Open Office and I think it has some weird behaviors.
Although pages has great layout potential, it is also not 100% compatible with word DOC files required for resumes and other documents.

iWork? NeoOffice? OpenOffice/Aqua?

Why choose?

Buy one. Get one free!

Excel is better than Numbers..<ducks below flying objects>.. with larger files.

I love iWork. It is all that I want to use for anything relating to letters, spreadsheets, presentations, etc.. but Numbers just can't handle the larger spreadsheets.

I run data for a dozen locations. I created a spreadsheet on Numbers, 15 sheets, 30 days worth of data, add in a few graphs and Numbers slows to a crawl on a new 24" iMac with 4Gb of RAM.

The same spreadsheet that I originally had in Excel actually held more data than what I put into the Numbers sheet, and it ran like a scalded-dog.

Pages is great.. way better than Word. Keynote is great, and is way better than PowerPoint. But Numbers still has quite a bit of fine-tuning to compete against Excel.. which is what keeps Office on top.

MM

Aug 12, 08 - 12:40 pm Comment from: Micro Me

Been here, done this, many times.

Do I really need Office? Yup. I work in a PC dominated environment. None of the alternatives will cut it.

Was it a good idea to buy Office 08? Nope. As pointed out by Cubert above, it's slower than Office 04 (under Rosetta), by far. That sucks MS MBU.

Apple is offering iWork and MobileMe free with the purchase of a Mac. You can't beat that!

Buy iworks instead and get something that actually works.

UK part/full-time students can get an authorised copy of Mac Office 2008 for £37 from Software4students - that's far cheaper than the direct Microsoft offer.

I actually find Office's note taking function very useful, I don't know if iWork offers a better alternative. With tabs that actually helps and voice recording mark for specific section, I think I'll stick to Office for note taking.

Aug 12, 08 - 03:36 pm Comment from: JAYGEE

I like both iWorks & Office for Mac

Aug 12, 08 - 03:43 pm Comment from: Jay-Z

@ tenderisthemind:

If you use Spaces or Exposé (a feature that has been around for almost 5 years), have multiple Office documents open at once, have iChat open in the background, save relatively simple documents down and open them in Windows versions, ever open the Help feature, then yes, Office 2008 is unusable. This is just a small list of what doesn't work properly in this poor excuse for software. Microsoft needs to spend less time creating superfluous button animations and more time bug-fixing.

Aug 12, 08 - 07:59 pm Comment from: Road Warrior

Hey Freddy the Pig:

That is exactly what I have been doing for years. Amazing too when it comes to some friendly competition between staff on who makes the best looking projects. I see some of these people sweat away at stuff and hit them with some real knee breakers.

-You used clip art for that? (or a ghastly look) You mean you don't make all your graphics from scratch?
-Naw, I finished that part of the project that you are still working on a month ago.
-I was able to open up that file and incorporate it into the final product a long time ago so I don't need an extension.

I love it that most people are Windows users. It allows me to be more effecient and more competitive with my work. It is like being the only carpenter with a hammer and everyone else is using rocks.

I certainly enjoy the faces of the people too, real Stockholm Syndrome stuff. They see the better product. They see my relaxed attitude. They see me getting the promotions and awards and the salary increases. I even tell me how I do it, and how they could be doing it too.

Ah but they believe the FUD and stick to the windows machines....thank goodness for that.

Aug 13, 08 - 01:45 am Comment from: 84 Mac Guy

Like the true whores that they are, MS will sell its services to anyone, including the competition who is beating the crap out of them.

Be careful of buying that version with 30% off cause it only comes with:

Wor
Exce
Power
Ma
Ace