Comments on: Living a Microsoft Office Free Lifestyle

By: Paul

Paul — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 15:25:13 +0000

I haven’t tried this, but you could use BibDesk to import your references into Bibtex using a Mac friendly GUI (see http://bibdesk.sourceforge.net/) and then import the BibTeX references into Pages. There are a billion BibTeX utilities out there, so I’m not sure what the best way of doing this would be, but something such as the BibTeX word macro (see http://www.rennes.supelec.fr/ren/perso/etotel/bibtexWord/index.html) allows BibTeX entries to be imported into Word.

By: Sankar

Sankar — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 13:08:21 +0000

It will be difficult for professionals who use endnote or Reference manager for bibliography setting. As of now Endnote or Reference manager has no option of a mac version that is compatible with Pages.

Is there a way out ?

By: Karen

Karen — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 10:46:24 +0000

I find Pages amazingly good at reading Word documents – unless they mix landscape and portrait page formats (which Pages can’t handle). Funnily enough, Microsoft’s Word 2007 on Windows has problems with the format of some older Word documents – so I’d expect to see the same with Word 2008.
Numbers is really nice, but slows horribly with bigger spreadsheets (or fails to load them totally).
Keynote is my favourite – it just makes PowerPoint look so clumsy in comparison.
I’m sure that once Apple has had a few more releases of Numbers it will be a lot more competitive.

By: Chad

Chad — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 17:12:19 +0000

Paul has a point, but it’s not an “either/or” thing for me. I think Pages AND Word have their limitations in professional settings and are both necessary for now. What limitations? Pages doesn’t have all the features of Word. It’s still a relatively new program. Meanwhile, Word has a ton of features, but some of spotty implementation. Example: Using styles in Word tends to be problematic and not very intuitive. Styles in Pages are far more user-friendly and straight-forward. (Not sure how Office 08 will be, hopefully much better.) In general, I feel when Word and Pages have a common feature, the Pages feature is better implemented (though change tracking is still 1.0). So right now, I use them in tandem. I use Pages exclusively for projects with design elements when I know it will go to PDF. For design and layout, Pages is hands down better than Word. But I agree with Paul that longer documents, certainly ones headed to pro layout using Adobe InDesign need Word. In these cases, I build templates in Pages, complete with styles, and then export to Word, for projects that need Word features or will go to a Word end-user. (Still you need Word to verify that your templates look right in Word.)

I agree with Paul that I like the Mac BU, especially because it push both Microsoft and Apple to innovate in this space. Pages will make Word better and vice versa. Same with the rest of the suites (and their growing Web, Open alternatives). After almost a decade of minimal competition (how could Microsoft have such a long development arc for all of its products), we have options. And that’s a great thing.

By: Life Without Microsoft Office | Numbers Templates

Life Without Microsoft Office | Numbers Templates — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 04:45:57 +0000

[...] Dang has an interesting post on the apple blog, regarding his attempt to ditch Microsoft Office in favor of [...]

By: Paul

Paul — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 11:43:06 +0000

Pages is OK for home use, or perhaps small office use, but it really is not suitable for professional use. It really does lack the basic features needed for generating lengthy reports or documents of that ilk. I view it as a competitor for Microsoft Works, not for Microsoft Office. I personally think Office on the Mac is a great product, very nicely done and can’t wait for the 2008 release. Unlike the rest of Microsoft, the Mac BU understands where Apple are coming from.

By: Louis

Louis — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 10:16:50 +0000

I want to like iWork but, as a MS office replacement used to communicate with other Windows office users, it ain’t so hot (then again, the Mac version of Office often has problems with it’s Windows brethren)
Pages handles documents, with form fields and tables created in Word, horribly. NeoOffice can open and display them fine. Numbers, as nice as it is, is not ready to be an excel drop-in replacement. The Office documents that Numbers mangles open fine in NeoOffice as well.

Of course NeoOffice doesn’t have the spit and polish or integration that iWork has either.

iWork is, IMO, a few tweaks away from being a more viable drop-in replacement for Office. However, it can easily handle most common WP and number crunching tasks for the average joe.

By: tzs

tzs — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 07:20:16 +0000

What’s wrong with emulated apps? I generally can’t tell a difference between PPC apps and native Intel apps on my iMac.

By: Allister Jenks

Allister Jenks — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 07:05:26 +0000

@Arvin, forgot to comment on your point “For students, something to keep in mind, is universality.”

Whilst document *interchangability* is important, the reason I got iWork for my kids is precisely *because* they’re likely to come across Office anywhere else.

I’d rather teach them how to use word processing software than how to use Microsoft Word (TM). Goodness knows the schools (here in New Zealand at least) do not understand that basic concept!

Having cut my teeth on computers when graphics were a novelty I can understand and use a lot of software and am not limited to “Windows & Office” as many people I know are.

By: Allister Jenks

Allister Jenks — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 06:59:45 +0000

I’m in the process of switching to iWork, having bought a family pack when I got my kids new iMacs.

As a long time Excel power user, I would rate Numbers as “shows promise”. It doesn’t do well in some areas, and I’ve yet to get the hang of its “tables” paradigm. My main issue is the restrictive conditional formatting at the moment.

Pages and Keynote are plenty good enough for the pretty basic needs I have in those areas.