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Neooffice vs iWork vs Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac
When upgrading this computer to the next system (Leopard) I decided to install intel-native apps only.
Back then Office for Mac was still dating from 2004, and thus Rosetta. Apple's Pages wasn't such a big deal, so I decided to go for the free Neooffice.
I liked what I saw: a free word editor, offering me what I needed.
Yet, when I installed iWork 08, to my great surprise, all Microsoft problems were solved: from 08, iWork offers perfect compatibility with MS Office, and their beautiful themes allowed me to make quick price offers, looking really pro.
Even their excel alternative was quite good, again, for my needs that is. Numbers turned out more pro than Pages first attempt.So I threw out Neooffice pretty quick.
(I still advise it though, as a free alternative, perfect for students, and people who don't need extra stuff)
I admit, I fell in love with the new iWork 08: more themes for Keynote, much easier than powerpoint used to be, Pages with nice themes, and Numbers, with basic worksheets, allowing me to make some basic charts, and keeping my finances up to date.
But, admitted, many people ask for powerpoints instead of keynotes, and although the Keynote export to PPT works great, one cannot lie, things don't always come out the same.
Moreover, in the near future, powerpoints will be asked more frequently in my new job.
And, although I really hated it's look and feel, Office for Mac 2008 is the only real thing.
Yesterday one got dropped in my mailbox, and I installed it as soon as I got time.
Boy, what a surprise!!!
The new layout of powerpoint rocks. They surely lent some ideas from iWork, and got some inspiration from KeynoteProThemes, but I couldn't be happier: an intuitive interface, with loads of themes, and transitions, but also smartart stuff, which makes it really easy to integrate charts, or sitemaps and sofort.
Yep, cheating on iWork got a whole lot easier with this newly arrived gorgeous lady...
(interface and example of new Powerpoint for Mac 2008)
(interface of Keynote 08)
Excel hasn't changed so much (it is already the most advanced worksheet program existing so no need for more there..), but also here we find the nice and easy interface, enabling the change and add stuff easily.
I like the bar a lot. And admitted, it might be the reason why I prefer Excel above Numbers.
(Numbers lay-out)
As for Word and Pages, I cannot but notice that there are a whole lot more useful templates in Word (or Office for that matter)
My conclusion?
When it comes to usability of the existing tools, Office gets my preference. Way above the other solutions.
Adding an excel chart in Word, opens up an example in Excel one can change easily, so get the final chart.
The existing themes outnumber those in iWork, and are good, some even classy.
The newly added 'gallery' makes sure the usability got a definite upgrade (if not remake)
Professionally Office is also my first choice, as it definitely has a lot more to offer to the user. Sometimes simple things like the integration of Avery for tickets, but often extra possibilities a beginner like iWork doesn't feature (yet)
As for the creation of themes, I'd still stick to Keynote, with its easy to find and easy to use masters.
And when it comes to the transitions, it has to be said that these of Keynote are still to be preferred. Although, some of them got well integrated into Powerpoint.
iWork seems perfect for people who don't need to share documents, or can give presentations from their own mac. Office is certainly the better choice for work environments, people who receive a lot of documents, and presentations to be given on other computers (often pc :) )
On top of that the grreat Apple look and feel of Office makes it a lot more attractive to work with.
And, one of the main disadvantages of Pages is the lack of more templates (especially commercially), making Word even more attractable on Mac.
I have to check on the compatibility, like in exchange between mac and pc, and between old system and new (as I didn't find the time yet to check this) I know there are some issues with the .docx files.
I'll let you know.
But for now, I have a new toy to play around with ;)
Posted on February 6, 2008
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