Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

ankurcd · Nov 26, 2007, 01:11 PM

Hello Friends,

I was aware that one can open MS documents via iWork - but can we create an iWork document and save it as an MS Doc? e.g - I create a Pages document and save it as MS Word?

Thanx.

TETENAL · Nov 26, 2007, 01:15 PM

Yes, you can export Word documents from Pages.

peeb · Nov 26, 2007, 03:36 PM

It is not 100% accurate in preserving all formating though.

ankurcd · Nov 27, 2007, 06:51 AM

Thanks a lot TETENAL and peeb...

guess ... best would be to wait for MS Office for Mac 2008 then...

peeb · Nov 27, 2007, 06:56 AM

Well, it depends what you are doing, and what degree of compatibility you need. I would suggest you try out the free trial of iWork, and also look at Neo or OpenOffice along with Office 2004.

CaptainHaddock · Nov 27, 2007, 07:28 AM

Unless you're doing something complicated with images and line art, Pages exports Word documents just fine, indistinguishable from what you'd produce in Word itself, I think.

Office X is a real chore to use on a Mac — text-editing is terribly slow and clunky compared to Pages — and I'm not confident Office 2008 will be much better.

ankurcd · Nov 27, 2007, 01:54 PM

Hmmm....thanks "peeb" and "CaptainHaddock" ... my requirements are exporting iWork documents to Word and Excel with basic-basic formats... no fancy stuff... if iWork is capable of that.. it is just great!

Lemme know... thanks guys for your continuous feedback!

peeb · Nov 27, 2007, 09:22 PM

It's fine for basic formating. Complicated things occasionally trip it up.

ankurcd · Nov 28, 2007, 05:49 AM

ok... thanks "peeb"...

I think that would do just fine for me... just one more thing... are MS Documents in basic formats importable to iWork ???

Thanks ....

TETENAL · Nov 28, 2007, 07:33 AM

Yes, they are.

ankurcd · Nov 28, 2007, 11:14 AM

Thanks TETENAL!

monkeybrain · Nov 28, 2007, 11:45 AM

Go and download the free trial of iWork. Then you can experiment to see if it will meet your needs (probably will, I think the new version is great).

ankurcd · Nov 28, 2007, 12:43 PM

I see that the Open Office is compatible with Mac OS X (under X11) - what does the "under X11" mean?

peeb · Nov 28, 2007, 01:13 PM

It means it runs under the X11 environment, which is another window manager. In practical terms, it means you install X11, and the program likely looks ugly and does not have OSX coolness.

monkeybrain · Nov 28, 2007, 09:47 PM

NeoOffice offers better compatibility than Open Office.

ankurcd · Nov 29, 2007, 03:33 AM

uh haa... thanks...

King Bob On The Cob · Nov 29, 2007, 04:10 AM

Originally Posted by monkeybrain

NeoOffice offers better compatibility than Open Office.

Um, unless I'm much mistaken, NeoOffice is the Cocoa front end to the Java version of Open Office...

Mike Pither · Nov 29, 2007, 07:19 AM

From my experience Numbers is not that good at importing anything other than very simple Excel Spreadsheets, Often the fomulas do not translate. I have not tried going in the other direction.

monkeybrain · Nov 29, 2007, 11:34 AM

Originally Posted by King Bob On The Cob

Um, unless I'm much mistaken, NeoOffice is the Cocoa front end to the Java version of Open Office...

I don't know if it's the Java version, but that would explain why it's so slow. The point is that it's OpenOffice without all the X11 stuff and looks more like an OS X app. X11 will scare many people away.

Mrjinglesusa · Nov 29, 2007, 11:51 AM

Originally Posted by ankurcd

Thanks a lot TETENAL and peeb...

guess ... best would be to wait for MS Office for Mac 2008 then...

Or, if you don't already have it, buy Office 2004 now, even the Student and Teacher Edition if you are eligible. MS is running a promo now where any purchase of Office 2004 for Mac gets a FREE upgrade (you pay S/H) to Office 2008.