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TribeLeader · Jun 11, 2009, 08:22 PM

I've been a Mac user for almost 6 years and am getting ready to buy my second Mac (a MBP to replace my PB). I'm wondering, do I *need* MS Word?

I will need to work with Word docs (and Excel and PPT files, too), but are there good alternatives? On my PB, I have iWork 08 but it's not quite a replacement. Is iWork 09 better (i.e., the save as Word files in Pages vs. the export feature in the 08 version)?

I have an old version of Word (v.X) on my PB and I'd rather not have to buy Word (and Excel and PPT) unless I absolutely have to.

Thanks!

amazing · Jun 12, 2009, 01:02 AM

The educational/home version price of Office is cheap enough...

OTOH, I'm using Office X quite happily, no problems.

SpaceMonkey · Jun 12, 2009, 07:38 AM

Have you tried the free OpenOffice or NeoOffice?

JKT · Jun 12, 2009, 08:00 AM

Office 2008 is so effing awful that even if you do need it, I can't recommend getting it. You could try NeoOffice (free) for a while to see if suits your needs, but I'm afraid that it is likely that you will continue to have to suffer MS Office if you need something approaching 100% compatibility with other Office users.

slugslugslug · Jun 12, 2009, 08:14 AM

iWork 09 is pretty much the same as 08 with respect to other file formats: it doesn't edit them natively. i.e., when you open, say, a Word .doc, it gets converted into a new Pages file. So Cmd-S doesn't just save your changes back into the .doc, but brings up a Save dialog (i.e. it's effectively "Save As…").

If you're creating and editing documents on your own, it's no problem, since you can just work in the iWork format up through the final edit, then Save As/Export to an Office doc when you need to share. If you need to do a lot of editing on existing files in Office formats, it's a PITA.

You can probably install Office X on new Macs. It'll run in Rosetta, but probably will still be plenty fast. If colleagues are using the new Office file formats (.docx, etc.), you might have problems, though. If you really don't want to spend the money on Office 2008, you could always give OpenOffice a try.

Thorzdad · Jun 12, 2009, 08:36 AM

We just went through this conundrum when we ordered a MB for our daughter to use at college. In the end, we bit the bullet and got Office 2008 (the student edition) for the sake of compatibility with whatever the school/instructors might throw at her or require. College has enough stumbling blocks without having to dork around with file format conversions and whatnot.

TribeLeader · Jun 12, 2009, 11:02 AM

Thanks for the quick replies. Currently, I use Pages 08 whenever I can (i.e., when I just need to print something and don't need to send someone a Word doc or if I can send a PDF). I use Word when I need to send someone a Word doc, but I was hoping the new version of Pages made Word less necessary.

My preference to not use Word is not so much financial (although I'd love to save the money or put it elsewhere) as much as I'd simply rather use something else (e.g., Pages) AND not have to use more than one word processing app.

Originally Posted by SpaceMonkey

Have you tried the free OpenOffice or NeoOffice?

I'm familiar with them but I haven't really tried them. How well do they work with Word docs?

Originally Posted by JKT

[...] I'm afraid that it is likely that you will continue to have to suffer MS Office if you need something approaching 100% compatibility with other Office users.

You may be right, but I'm not giving up yet.

I don't think I need 100% compatibility -- I mainly need to be able to open Word docs that I receive. And occasionally, I will need to send Word docs (although I send PDFs when I can).

Originally Posted by slugslugslug

iWork 09 is pretty much the same as 08 with respect to other file formats: it doesn't edit them natively. i.e., when you open, say, a Word .doc, it gets converted into a new Pages file. So Cmd-S doesn't just save your changes back into the .doc, but brings up a Save dialog (i.e. it's effectively "Save As…").

If you're creating and editing documents on your own, it's no problem, since you can just work in the iWork format up through the final edit, then Save As/Export to an Office doc when you need to share. If you need to do a lot of editing on existing files in Office formats, it's a PITA. [...]

Thanks for the explanation of iWork 09. I might get by with that, although more native compatibility would be nice.

Salty · Jun 12, 2009, 03:08 PM

I refuse to buy Office and I get by fine

Spheric Harlot · Jun 12, 2009, 03:23 PM

Originally Posted by TribeLeader

Thanks for the explanation of iWork 09. I might get by with that, although more native compatibility would be nice.

Basically, Office 2008 is slightly more natively compatible with Office for Windows, while iWork is *tremendously* more natively compatible with human beings.

Chuckit · Jun 12, 2009, 03:36 PM

NeoOffice has very good compatibility. It's free, so I'd check it out and play around with it. I use it instead of Microsoft Word on most of my computers.

JKT · Jun 12, 2009, 05:14 PM

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot

Basically, Office 2008 is slightly more natively compatible with Office for Windows, while iWork is *tremendously* more natively compatible with human beings.

cwkmacuser · Jun 12, 2009, 06:17 PM

iWork is really quite good. I'm not sure if the newest version supports saving to MSW or not. But anyway, I NEVER, EVER use Word (except at school). I use Pages for word processing, Numbers for spreadsheets, and Keynote for presentation. And I manage to get by fine, even when I have to work with MS users.

cgc · Jun 12, 2009, 08:00 PM

I have no complaints with Office 2008, though I didn't pay much for it (got it through employer's Home Use Program w/ Microsoft). I prefer Nisus Writer Pro for my longer projects, however.

TheoCryst · Jun 13, 2009, 03:00 AM

In my experience, iWork '09 doesn't have significantly better file compatibility with Office files over iWork '08, but it is a much smoother and slicker suite overall. OOo/NeoOffice are much more compatible with the files than iWork, but are much more painful to use on a regular basis. My recommendation is to download one of the free suites and try it out for a while. If you can live with its eccentricities, then you probably won't need Office.

There are also free trials of Office '08 and iWork '09 if you want to give either one a shot.

cwkmacuser · Jun 13, 2009, 01:56 PM

I'm not sure about OO having better compatibility. I think iWork is pretty compatible. But if you don't like word, you may not like OO or NeoOffice any better.

Eug · Jun 13, 2009, 02:38 PM

Get Office.

Office 2004 actually seems a bit faster to load on Intel machines in my experience, so if you can find a cheap used copy of it that'd be fine, since you can get a free .docx patch for it from Microsoft.

fisherKing · Jun 13, 2009, 03:41 PM

i've NEVER used Word. opening word docs used to be useless in textedit; now i have pages, which usually does a good job (altho often substituting a font)...

still, office 2008 runs better on my clients intel macs than office 2004..

Eug · Jun 13, 2009, 04:05 PM

Yeah, the main problem with Office 2008 is that it takes a long time to load. After that it's fine.

On my desktop it's not a big problem, but on my laptop it's noticeable.

P.S. I'd be less inclined to recommend Office if I had to pay full price. I get it for 2-digit $ prices. (That's 2008. I actually can't get 2004 at those prices. To get 2004 I'd have to go used.)

Veltliner · Jun 14, 2009, 05:33 AM

Word is a mess.

They should call it Mess.

Looking into Nisus Writer Pro. Unnecessary expensive, but what the heck...

cgc · Jun 16, 2009, 09:21 AM

Originally Posted by Veltliner

Looking into Nisus Writer Pro. Unnecessary expensive, but what the heck...

Academic price = $39 if you qualify. I'm a student but don't have a .edu but they gave me the discount from my .mil email address (I'm doubly poor being student in the military).

Jordan · Jun 20, 2009, 11:03 AM

I still have both at work and we are a 99.99% Windows shop. However, about a year ago I started using my Mac as part of an experiment to see if a normal office user could really survive without Windows in a large multinational corporation.

I started off with all MS tools and was doing fine. Gradually though, I've been phasing out even the Mac MS tools and I haven't looked back. I use Pages for all my word processing and share files as PDF's generally as I don't always want them changed. Everyone is very impressed with the professional looking documents I create.

In all honesty, you are probably not going to be able to get 100% away from Office if you are in a corporate environment as there will always be someone who asks you to make a few quick changes to a PPT and you can't risk screwing it up with an import and export through Keynote. (Same thing with Word although I tend to see less Word docs these days.)

In my role generally someone asks me to review minutes written in Word. In that case I don't even open them in Word but use QuickLook. (I tell them the changes in an email.)

Bottom line is that you can survive reasonably well without MS Office in a corporate environment but it's better to have it there. The first time you screw up the formatting of someone else's PPT it will be a nail in the coffin of your Mac.

My two cents worth...

Jordan