<p>Would anyone advise against going with iWork from a compatibility perspective? </p>
<p>I don't want to spend the extra 70$ for Office if iWork will be completely compatible for all of my assignments. </p>
<p>BTW I am an economics major so I won't be doing any engineering or anything of the sort.</p>
<p>As a matter of personal preference, I would literally rather run a Windows machine that had Office on it than be forced to use Pages for all the papers I'll have to write in college.</p>
<p>There are a few definite advantages to Office, I think, but it's mostly ease of use, comfort with the software, and a few good features that Word has that I find Pages is sorely missing.</p>
<p>I couldn't tell you if you're going to have compatibility issues, though. Pages opens Word documents, but the formatting is lost. You can also save to .doc, but the file has to be re-exported after every change you make, which could be annoying.</p>
<p>If you were majoring in journalism, communications, or anything that requires your documents to be graphics intensive or web-ready, I would say iWork without question.</p>
<p>Helpful at all?</p>
<p>Helpful but soon after I posted my question I discovered NeoOffice and found that virtually every problem I would have with iWorks can be solved with NeoOffice. Another nice thing about NeoOffice: it's free.</p>
<p>I'll be buying a macbook in the next several days with the 40$ iWorks due to the student discount. I'll be running it alongside NeoOffice just to be safe.</p>
<p>Having had a mac for a while now and testing all of the programs extensively...
I can say Office really is the best. As for compatibility iWork is fine and I do find iWork being faster than Office, it is kind of annoying to have to export documents into .doc files.
Office is fully compatible, just makes things a ton easier, and while it isn't the speediest program, it gets the job done.</p>
<p>I tried neooffice and did not like that at all even thought it was free. if you like it good for you b/c it is free.</p>
<p>The one main thing which you guys might think is stupid and not important is the synonyms feature in Word where you can right click a word and see the synonyms. I use that feature alot.</p>
<p>So to conclude, you need to do your testing on your own, but for me I'll stick with office.</p>
<p>And either way congrats on the mac i really have been enjoying mine after using PC for all my life... but thats a completely different discussion and I don't want to spark a PC vs Mac debate as they are useless.</p>
<p>My dad is a computer programmer and he gets a whole bunch of software for free, besides Windows Vista (who needs it when you have XP already?). I got Office 2007 absolutely free and I love it. The new features on Office 2007 are excellent and very easy to use.</p>
<p>I'm a huge Mac lover, but even I'd advise getting Office.</p>
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I would literally rather run a Windows machine that had Office on it than
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<p>As opposed to figuratively? :D</p>
<p>In all seriousness, get office. Things just don't convert right oftentimes, and it's a real headache if you're sharing documents between people that use different word processors.</p>
<p>im been thinkin about buying a mac but i have never used one on a regular so can i get some advice on what i should look out 4 some pros and cons to apple?</p>
<p>I would ask what do you expect to be made to do in your assignments. Will you simply have to turn in printed sheets, or have to send actual files to your professors? Will you have to trade files among friends and classmates, sending your files to them and opening their files? Will you have to open files given to you by your professors? These questions will determine whether any given choice is sufficiently compatible or not.</p>
<p>honestly, being a new mac lover myself, office really is a superior program. even if compatibility isn't an issue, i like the office suite better. maybe its because thats what i'm used to, but for me, even though i love pretty much everything apple, office is the best.</p>
<p>and for gator 2008, i would highly recommend a mac. just so many things that i now enjoy coming from a pc. compatibility with other pc's is not an issue at all. all i find is that everything from the hardware design to the os/software is just much easier and better for mac.</p>
<p>the way i look at it is if you are running a pc your missing out on everything mac. if you are on mac, you can pretty much run everything a pc can + everything mac and all the convenience it brings.</p>
<p>like i said ive used pc my whole life and actually disliked macs for quite a while, but the new apple products are amazing and i would highly recommend a mac.</p>
<p>Life expectancy: Mac vs. PC?</p>
<p>A Mac is definitely going to force me to shell out a couple hundred more for what I want and a lot of "***?" from my parents if that's the route I choose. My most recent Apple experiences consist of my love for my resiliant Nano [I would never buy another kind of iPod; my friends' have all died due to that hard drive] and my distain for iTunes.</p>
<p>I'd much rather get a high-end gaming PC than a Macintosh. Macbooks are great, but you usually have to resort to getting Windows or installing a Virtual Machine, which would take up hard-drive space and processing power. You also get more for your money. If I really wanted a nice looking laptop, I would rather get an Acer Ferrari series than the white or black Macbook.</p>
<p>I would just go with openoffice:
www:</a> OpenOffice.org - The Free and Open Productivity Suite</p>
<p>It's free and supports .docx .xlsx .pptx etc...
I have both Office and OpenOffice, and can honestly say I prefer OpenOffice. The only problem I notice occasionally is that it runs a little slower than Office2k7, but that's because it's written in Java and everyone knows Java is the devil T_T</p>
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It's free and supports .docx .xlsx .pptx etc...
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<p>Open office is crap if your documents require equations. You CANNOT convert them well to other platforms, or even among different versions of OO. If you're just looking to type words with minimal other things, it's fine though.</p>