![[F]](/Images/i7/site.gif) TidBITS  TidBITS TidBITS Talk
Replacing Microsoft Office with iWork '08![[hhbv807]](/webx/?30@@1) hhbv807 (apparently) - 10:58am Aug 15, 2007 PSTvia emailLet's stipulate that any replacement for Office has to be
acceptable to power users and to anyone who even occasionally may
need Office's powerful feature set and share-ability of Office
documents. Keynote easily qualifies on these scores, but until iWork
'08 (improvement to "Pages" and the introduction of "Numbers") the
iWork suite did not look like it had enough gravitas to attract power
users.
You can bet that Microsoft has noticed the change. When they
introduce "Office '08" next January, they may find themselves losing
multitudes of customers. So they have two choices; quickly improve
MSOffice's cost/value ratio or discontinue development soon after
this upgrade, like they did with "Explorer", "VirtualPC", and "Media
Player". It may not happen all at once, but Office looks like an
orphan.
One hopes therefore that Apple has lots more improvements for iWork
in the pipeline, because when Office is orphaned, the survivability
of the entire Mac platform may be called into question. I think that
Apple has made the fateful decision... to go forward without
Microsoft. It is a high risk strategy and will require lots more
improvements in rapid succession. The competition is actually
MSOffice for Windows, not MSOffice for Mac. Implications are many.
For myself, the improvements in iWork '08 are already significant.
"Numbers" is well conceived and executed, a worthy replacement for
Excel in almost every respect. The new "Pages" has finally become a
passable alternative too. It's definitely closing in on Word for big
writing projects, and is an awful lot more fun to use. Overall,
there is enough substance and promise in the new suite to cause me to
make the switch... after some 20 years with MS Office. I hope I
haven't made a mistake.
Aside: My #1 complaint about the iWork suite right now is the lack
of scriptability and other tools that might allow connectivity
between the modules (and Filemaker), but that will come along in time
I trust.
H.
dianeofor (apparently)
-
Aug 27, 2007 7:42 pm
(#66 Total: 85)
|
 |
|
|
|
| Posts: 24 |
Re: Replacing Microsoft Office with iWork '08
On 8/27/07 6:53 AM, "Geoff WALLACE" <gwallace2  optusnet.com.au> wrote:
> Would Typeit4me me or a similar program be able to make shorter shortcuts?
Definitely. Some of the auto completion applications we have been discussing
require at least two characters, but SpellCatcherX allows for one.
--
Diane Ross, Microsoft Mac MVP
Entourage Help Page < http://www.entourage.mvps.org/>
Entourage Help Blog < http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/>
|
|
 | |
hcleong (apparently)
-
Aug 27, 2007 7:42 pm
(#67 Total: 85)
|
|
|
|
|
| Posts: 11 |
Re: Replacing Microsoft Office with iWork '08
Kevin van Haaren wrote:
> Microsoft still has anti-trust concerns as well. Until the Mac as a whole,
> or another Office product, has a significant share of the marketplace
> Microsoft could be accused of forcing Mac users to the Window platform by
> abandoning the Office for Mac product. Hmm, a true open standard office
> format might be enough to get around anti-trust as well (the Office XML
> formats aren't open standards yet.)
I find it very strange that Microsoft cannot, by law, abandon Office for
Mac. Certainly, resources required to handle the two major transitions
(OS X and Intel) are very valid reasons for Microsoft to cite.
Sincerely,
Heng-Cheong Leong
[ There's nothing in law requiring them to produce Office for Mac. However, many ponder that its presence, and a healthy Apple, lends credence to their "but we're not!... see?" argument. --Andrew ]
|
|
| |
Bob Williams (apparently)
-
Aug 28, 2007 10:54 am
(#68 Total: 85)
|
|
|
|
via email - TriVectus, LC |
|
|
 |
| Posts: 78 |
Re: Replacing Microsoft Office with iWork '08
On Aug 26, 2007, at 3:39, Malcolm Westley wrote:
>> Insert the current date, Excel Shortcut Control and Colon,
>
> In preferences you can create a text substitution such as
>
> t/d =TODAY()
The referenced keyboard shortcuts in Excel insert their respective
bits of text as straight text, not as formulas. A formula that refers
to now() will always update as the date and time change, or at least
whenever a recalculation is done.
That said, any decent automation utility, such as Keyboard Maestro,
can auto-insert the date and/or time quite easily. They can also do
the duplicate-the-cell-above feature by moving up, copying, moving
down, and pasting, though this is more clumsy than a built-in feature.
Note that I'm assuming that iWork doesn't have equivalent features.
As I don't use it (I rely too much on the power-user features in
Excel and Word), I have no idea if that's the case. If that is the
case, though, then hopefully it'll change, as these are remarkably
useful features.
Regards,
Bob
|
|
| |
John C. Welch (apparently)
-
Aug 28, 2007 10:54 am
(#69 Total: 85)
|
|
|
|
|
| Posts: 862 |
Re: Replacing Microsoft Office with iWork '08
On 08/27/2007 22:42 PM, "Heng-Cheong Leong" <webmaster myapplemenu.com>
wrote:
> Kevin van Haaren wrote:
>> Microsoft still has anti-trust concerns as well. Until the Mac as a whole,
>> or another Office product, has a significant share of the marketplace
>> Microsoft could be accused of forcing Mac users to the Window platform by
>> abandoning the Office for Mac product. Hmm, a true open standard office
>> format might be enough to get around anti-trust as well (the Office XML
>> formats aren't open standards yet.)
>
> I find it very strange that Microsoft cannot, by law, abandon Office for
> Mac. Certainly, resources required to handle the two major transitions
> (OS X and Intel) are very valid reasons for Microsoft to cite.
Office makes money. If it didn't, it wouldn't be on the platform. There's no
goodwill here, it's just still good business.
--
John C. Welch Writer/Analyst
Bynkii.com Mac and other opinions
jwelch bynkii.com
|
|
| |
Redroofer
-
Sep 3, 2007 2:15 am
(#70 Total: 85)
|
|
|
|
|
| Posts: 1 |
Re: Replacing Microsoft Office with iWork '08
I have used an apple product since 1978. I have owned over 30 macs since the fat mac 512. This is the first letter of complaint about an apple product that I have ever written. But the poor planning of the iwork interface was too much.
If you only work on your mac with your installed copy of iwork, Pages is good and Numbers is good. BUT IN THE REAL WORLD! Best that YOU remember to save everything in .doc or.xls.-because apple doesn't provide applescript or even a preference to automatically save in either . No big deal? Well, what then will other mac user's who don't have iwork use to open a Pages document that you email them. Very poor customer service-I boxed my new iwork up and told apple I wanted a refund.
|
|
| |
Nik (apparently)
-
Sep 4, 2007 1:42 am
(#71 Total: 85)
|
|
|
|
 |
| Posts: 386 |
Re: Replacing Microsoft Office with iWork '08
On 9/3/07, Redroofer <redroofer cox.net> wrote:
> Best that YOU remember to save everything in .doc or.xls.-because apple doesn't provide applescript or even a preference to automatically save in either . No big deal? Well, what then will other mac user's who don't have iwork use to open a Pages document that you email them. Very poor customer service-I boxed my new iwork up and told apple I wanted a refund.
That's really no different than any program that has a proprietary
file format (the vast majority of them). True, many apps make it easy
to keep re-saving the file in a foreign format (e.g. MS Word and Excel
will gladly save back to RTF or CSV, and Photoshop doesn't mind saving
out to TIFF), but in every case, you lose some of the special features
inherent in that application.
iWork doesn't translate perfectly cleanly into .doc or .xls, as both
Word and Excel have some very different approaches. You'd lose a great
deal of functionality working purely in those formats.
So yes, you need to be diligent in remembering to save/export in a
readable format for your recipient, but that hardly seems like a
unique failing of this application. And, for that matter, Word and
Excel format are hardly as ubiquitous as you might think. Those who
can't afford Office make do with apps that translate from those
formats with various inaccuracies on the translation.
This is why I make an effort to send PDFs for read-only documents if
there's any formatting involved (and RTF, Text, or CSV if there
isn't). If I need to collaborate, I'll use a lowest-common-denominator
format (e.g. RTF) if I cannot use the exact same app as my fellow
contributors.
-- Nik
|
|
| |
Jochen Wolters (apparently)
-
Sep 6, 2007 4:55 am
(#72 Total: 85)
|
|
|
|
|
| Posts: 138 |
Re: Replacing Microsoft Office with iWork '08
> Word and Excel format are hardly as ubiquitous as you might think.
Ah, the myth that "everyone uses MS Office." Heck, I've even received
emails with an empty body and the actual message contained in an MS
Word file attachement (yes, MS Word, and not winmail.dat). *sigh*
> Those who can't afford Office make do with apps that translate from
> those formats with various inaccuracies on the translation.
If the software I use -- mainly iWork '08 and occasionally NeoOffice
2 -- fails to properly open a file I receive, I kindly but firmly
tell the sender to please resend the document as plain text or a PDF
file, or otherwise I won't be able to help them. [1]
Regards,
Jochen.
[1] -- Obviously, you should always take your specific (business)
relationship with the sender into consideration before handling
things this way. ;)
--
Jochen Wolters
jochen polytropia.com | http://polytropia.com | jochenwolters (Skype)
|
|
| |
hkaufman1 (apparently)
-
Sep 10, 2007 3:24 am
(#73 Total: 85)
|
|
|
|
|
| Posts: 56 |
Re: Replacing Microsoft Office with iWork '08
On Sep 10, 2007, at 2:43 AM, Nik wrote:
> But for databases, spreadsheets, painting, and real drawing tools
> (Pages' freeform drawing tools are terribly anemic), iWork has no
> equivalent. Even looking to third parties, it would cost them a
> good $450 to fill in iWork's gaps! (LineForm, FileMaker, and
> Photoshop Elements for drawing, database and painting, respectively)
(I think your inclusion of spreadsheet above is a typo, no?). For
drawing look at Omnigraffle ($80) and my favorite: EazyDraw ($95).
For database, there are several 3rd party apps that would do the job,
I think, and the total of the above would be far less than $450.
What is the exact application for the database?
And then there is always NeoOffice, which does all of the above and
way more, and is free! It actually works quite well. Even if you
only use it for drawing and/or database.
Regards,
Howard
|
|
| |
inkmaker (apparently)
-
Sep 9, 2007 10:43 pm
(#74 Total: 85)
|
|
|
|
|
| Posts: 16 |
Re: Replacing Microsoft Office with iWork '08
I read'
"Apple iWork '08 Provides Simple But Solid Spreadsheet App"
and that Apple's "Numbers" is the Big Draw in iWork '08,
Users Say in e-Week http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2172717,00.asp
Just wondering if anybody has checked this out??
Charles Harrison
<x-sigsep> --
</x-sigsep>
|
|
| |
Nik (apparently)
-
Sep 11, 2007 2:51 am
(#75 Total: 85)
|
|
|
|
|
| Posts: 386 |
Re: Replacing Microsoft Office with iWork '08
On 9/10/07, Howard Kaufman <hkaufman1 mac.com> wrote:
> For database, there are several 3rd party apps that would do the job,
> I think, and the total of the above would be far less than $450.
> What is the exact application for the database?
Mostly simple address book, asset tracking, and equivalent DBs. Sure,
these fit nicely into various other apps, but I haven't seen something
yet that has a AppleWorks-easy method building your UI and everything
else.
What would you recommend? I've looked at iList Data and NeoOffice, but
both are pretty involved. More free-form databases like iData,
Yojimbo, etc. lack the nice interface and customizable reports and
input screens.
> And then there is always NeoOffice, which does all of the above and
> way more, and is free! It actually works quite well. Even if you
> only use it for drawing and/or database.
I've always found NeoOffice to perform poorly and be as difficult to
use as MS Office '97 for Windows. It's certainly a bargain, but it's
not a polished Mac application by any means. Half of the reason I put
my parents on AppleWorks was to avoid getting them MS Office.
--Nik
|
|
| |
hkaufman1 (apparently)
-
Sep 12, 2007 1:59 am
(#76 Total: 85)
|
|
|
|
|
| Posts: 56 |
Re: Replacing Microsoft Office with iWork '08
On Sep 11, 2007, at 6:51 AM, Nik Friedman TeBockhorst wrote:
> I've always found NeoOffice to perform poorly and be as difficult to
> use as MS Office '97 for Windows. It's certainly a bargain, but it's
> not a polished Mac application by any means. Half of the reason I put
> my parents on AppleWorks was to avoid getting them MS Office.
I think recently NeoOffice has improved a lot. If you haven't tried
it lately it might be worth another look.
Just a thought: I believe that at some point in the near future
Appleworks may stop working, or at least be frought with a lot of
problems. It might be the time to rethink your needs and figure out
more current solutions. Yes, rethinking will be needed, but there
are many ways to skin the cat.
Regards,
Howard
|
|
| |
rickl
-
Sep 12, 2007 1:59 am
(#77 Total: 85)
|
|
|
|
|
| Posts: 16 |
Re: Replacing Microsoft Office with iWork '08
|
|
| |
inkmaker (apparently)
-
Sep 13, 2007 10:18 am
(#78 Total: 85)
|
|
|
|
|
| Posts: 16 |
Re: Replacing Microsoft Office with iWork '08
This past week I have opened several of our company's formulation
work sheets which were done in Excell with Numbers. All of them
presented some translation error. Most significant were the custom
formats in the cells. Where we have 8.33 #/gal with the #/gal is
custom formatted in the cells, we were presented with the number 8.33
and an error message. Something about unsupported formats.
Some of our formulations are based upon linking more than one
formulation together with a second and the last a finished product,
recalculated the basics from the quantity input for the finished
amount, 1 gallon, 5 gallons, etc. Numbers dropped the links and
leaves the 2 formulations separated.
That won't work for a manufacturing environment. It's either back to
Excel or FileMaker
Inkmaker
|
|
| |
hkaufman1 (apparently)
-
Sep 14, 2007 1:41 am
(#79 Total: 85)
|
|
|
|
|
| Posts: 56 |
Re: Replacing Microsoft Office with iWork '08
> That won't work for a manufacturing environment. It's either back to
> Excel or FileMaker
>
> Inkmaker
Or NeoOffice.
Regards,
Howard
|
|
| |
Nik (apparently)
-
Sep 14, 2007 12:26 pm
(#80 Total: 85)
|
|
|
|
|
| Posts: 386 |
Spurred on by this discussion, I tried out using Numbers for a
presentation handout for work. I intended to compile a single page
sheet gathering up a number of key metrics and observations about my
company. I wanted something that would stand out and creatively mix
multiple graphs, tables, and text. It seemed like the perfect job for
iWork '08!
While Numbers' basic functionality was up to the challenge, the
overall experience was horrible. it imported my original Excel
documents appropriately, and the tables and calculations went fine.
Unfortunately, as I added multiple tables and layout elements (text,
colorful boxes, pictures), things got buggy. Some objects would
inexplicably become impossible to select, things would disappear when
I grouped elements (and I do mean DISAPPEAR, not just fall to back or
something), and the invisible page margins would either grow the
document or leave me with a huge amount of white space on two sides of
the page!
In the end, I just deleted everything but the tables and then copy and
pasted it all into Pages and did my layout and charting there.
I'm quite disappointed by this experience. The whole point of Numbers
is to present quantitative information beautifully, but its layout
functions seem pretty much useless. I assume some of these bugs will
be fixed in later updates, but for now, I'm sticking with Excel.
(Which can't do the same level of design, but I can copy/paste into
Word or Pages quite easily.)
--
Nik
nik inik.net | http://inik.net | http://notions.inik.net
|
|
| |
u.huth (apparently)
-
Sep 14, 2007 12:26 pm
(#81 Total: 85)
|
|
|
|
|
| Posts: 74 |
am 12.09.2007 11:02 Uhr schrieb tidbits-talk tidbits.com unter
tidbits-talk tidbits.com:
> Half of the reason I put
> my parents on AppleWorks was to avoid getting them MS Office.
So, why replacing it?
What kinda data have your parents to share with other people? I don't think
they will share their assets data base, won't they?
The spreadsheet and the word processor of AppleWorks will save documents
just fine in Word or Excel format, for sharing and forwarding to Office
users. A drawing or a painiting document can be printed as PDF with OS X
without any hasse so far. Just forward the resulting PDF document.
Me thinks, learning a new command ("Save as") and chosing another printer
for some print jobs is less of a hassle than learning a new program.
Udo
|
|
| |
hhbv807 (apparently)
-
Sep 26, 2007 12:00 am
(#82 Total: 85)
|
|
|
|
|
| Posts: 47 |
Re: Replacing Microsoft Office with iWork '08
For what it's worth, "Numbers" is a VERY poor replacement for Excel.
It isn't the concept that's bad, but rather its implementation.
There are dozens of little bugs and goofy ways of doing (or not
doing) things that will drive an Excel user absolutely crazy. For a
first iteration, maybe it's OK, but I think they should have called
it a "beta" release. Pages and of course Keynote are by contrast
quite polished.
H.
|
|
| |
Matt Neuburg (apparently)
-
Sep 26, 2007 8:16 pm
(#83 Total: 85)
|
|
|
|
|
| Posts: 2661 |
Re: Replacing Microsoft Office with iWork '08
On or about 9/26/07 1:00 AM, thus spake "Hudson Barton"
<hhbv glimfeather.com>:
> For what it's worth, "Numbers" is a VERY poor replacement for Excel.
> It isn't the concept that's bad, but rather its implementation.
This could be a glass half-full half-empty thing, but I've been very
impressed by Numbers, and have been preparing some financial reports using
it, with great success. Yes, it has some bugs (sometimes it stops responding
to clicks) and it is not at all an exact Excel clone (so what?), but I think
it's actually a heck of a lot easier for Mom to use than Excel, and I would
recommend it to her over Excel. What are some of the bad implementation
things you're referring to? m.
--
matt neuburg, phd = matt tidbits.com, http://www.tidbits.com/matt/
pantes anthropoi tou eidenai oregontai phusei
Among the 2007 MacTech Top 25, http://tinyurl.com/2rh4pf
AppleScript: the Definitive Guide, http://tinyurl.com/2ouo3b
Take Control of Customizing Tiger, http://tinyurl.com/33ad5s
TidBITS, Mac news and reviews since 1990, http://www.tidbits.com
|
|
| |
johnbaxterlists (apparently)
-
Sep 26, 2007 8:16 pm
(#84 Total: 85)
|
|
|
|
|
| Posts: 678 |
Re: Replacing Microsoft Office with iWork '08
On Sep 26, 2007, at 1:00 AM, Hudson Barton wrote:
> For what it's worth, "Numbers" is a VERY poor replacement for Excel.
> It isn't the concept that's bad, but rather its implementation.
I think that depends on what one has been doing with Excel. For
those of us who just skim Excel's most obvious abilities, Numbers is
fine. Numbers is indeed not a replacement for heavy-duty use of
Excel in tasks that use lots of its abilities. It's not intended to be.
I have a feeling that by census, most Excel users are in the "casual"
camp. Whereas more hours are spent with Excel in applications that
shouldn't be moved to Numbers.
Everything I've moved to Numbers so far has been fine.
I haven't tried the spreadsheets in which I compute BIND (name
server) zone file lines for A and PTR records for ranges of similar
names, but it looks as if all the needed string functions are there.
--John
|
|
| |
hhbv807 (apparently)
-
Sep 29, 2007 6:58 am
(#85 Total: 85)
|
|
|
|
|
| Posts: 47 |
Re: Replacing Microsoft Office with iWork '08
>This could be a glass half-full half-empty thing, but I've been very
>impressed by Numbers, and have been preparing some financial reports using
>it, with great success. Yes, it has some bugs (sometimes it stops responding
>to clicks) and it is not at all an exact Excel clone (so what?), but I think
>it's actually a heck of a lot easier for Mom to use than Excel, and I would
>recommend it to her over Excel. What are some of the bad implementation
>things you're referring to? m.
Numbers exhibits buggy behavior in the most basic operations, a fact
that makes it a difficult experience for "Mom"... unexpected behavior
while entering data, and difficulty correcting mistakes. For the
experienced Excel user, the lack of some keyboard equivalents, let
alone the same equivalents as in Excel, makes it a downgrade from
Excel rather than an upgrade. With both Keynote and Pages, these two
types of complaints don't exist.
Anecdotal Evidence: My wife, who has never used spreadsheets before
but is otherwise very adept at learning new computer skills, gave up
a simple data-entering project (for me) because she just couldn't get
things to work consistently. As the project was turned back to me, I
realized that I could finish in half the time with Excel as with
Numbers.
I certainly don't want to be too negative on Numbers. I felt the
same way the first time I tried Pages, and now I'm making using it
all the time. I still think that Apple will deliver a package that
Microsoft can't match, and the tipping point will come as early as
net spring.
H.
|
|
|
TidBITS TidBITS TidBITS Talk Replacing Microsoft Office with iWork '08
|
|
