Adam Kos We use documents, tables and presentations regularly, whether at home or at work. Microsoft Office includes Word, Excel and PowerPoint for word processing, spreadsheets and presentations. But Apple provides its iWork suite consisting of Pages, Numbers and Keynote. So what is the ideal solution to use?
Compatibility
The key factor to consider when choosing between MS Office and Apple iWork is of course the operating system. iWork is only available as an app on Apple devices, but it can also be used on Windows devices via iCloud. This may not be convenient for many. However, Microsoft offers full support for its office applications for macOS, except that it can only function fully via the web interface.
When you're working on a Mac, whether as an individual or a team, it's relatively easy to use Pages, Numbers, and Keynote as long as the whole team is using the Mac. However, you may encounter many compatibility issues when sending and receiving files with PC users. To solve this problem, Apple has made it easy to import and export files into popular Microsoft Office formats such as .docx, .xlsx and .pptx. But it is not 100%. When converting between formats, there may be problems with fonts, images and the overall layout of the document. Both office packages otherwise work very similarly and offer similar functionality, including rich possibilities for collaboration over a single document. What sets them apart a lot is the visuals.
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Benjamin Levicek The user interface
Many users find the interface of iWork applications more clear. So much so that Microsoft tried to copy some of its looks in its latest update of Officu. Apple followed the path of simplicity so that even a complete beginner knows what to do immediately after launching the application. The most used functions are in the foreground, but you have to look for the more advanced ones.
iWork lets you store and access files from anywhere for free because it's fully integrated with iCloud online storage, and Apple gives it away for free as a benefit of using its products. Apart from computers, you can also find it in iPhones or iPads. In the case of MS Office, only paying users are allowed to save files online. This means that OneDrive storage must be used.
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Word vs. Pages
Both have numerous word processing features, including custom headers and footers, text formatting, footnotes, bullet points, and numbered lists, etc. But Pages allows you to add charts to your document, which is a major feature that Word lacks. However, it beats it when it comes to writing tools, including spell checkers and word counts. It also provides more text formatting options, such as special effects (shadowing, etc.).
Pages
Excel vs. Numbers
In general, Excel is much better to work with than Numbers, despite its aesthetically unpleasant design. Excel is particularly great when working with large amounts of raw data, and is also more suitable for more professional use as it offers a greater range of functions and features. Apple has taken the same approach to creating Numbers as it does with its other software, which means that compared to Excel's offerings, it's not entirely obvious where to find formulas and shortcuts at first glance.
PowerPoint vs. Keynote
Even Keynote clearly surpasses PowerPoint in the area of design. Again, it scores with its intuitive approach, which understands drag and drop gestures for adding images, sounds and video with a wide range of built-in themes, layouts, animations and fonts. Compared to the appearance, PowerPoint again goes for strength in the number of functions. However, its very complexity can be an unpleasant obstacle for many. Besides, it's always easy to create ugly presentations with "oversized" transitions. But it is Keynote that suffers the most when converting formats, when the file conversion removes all the most elaborate animations.
Keynote
So which one to choose?
It's quite tempting to reach for Apple's solution when it's already served to you on a golden platter. You will definitely not go wrong and you will enjoy working in its applications. Just keep in mind that you should refrain from any graphically obscure elements that might get lost when converting formats, so the result might look different than you actually expect. For this, it is advisable to install a spell checker in the macOS system. Everyone makes a mistake at some point, even if they don't know it.
MS Office on Mac is mainly incredibly slow (for larger documents). Either this is sabotage from the MS or they are totally incompetent. Personally, I would estimate a ratio of 30:70.
The size of each Office application is about 2GB. That can't turn out well.
off topic, but I have to dig in - I like people who praise office, but don't know what a tab is, end of a page and, God forbid, styles ;)
"In general, Excel is much better to work with than Numbers". Is the author expressing his opinion, someone else's, or just generalizing? I have the complete opposite experience, I don't use Excel anymore, only Numbers and everything is somehow easier, as is usual with Apple.
The overall ergonomics are useless. It makes me cringe when I adjust the color of an element in the office and when I want to see the change, I have to unclick the colorselector every time and then reopen it 10 times because of the change. There are a lot of such details and I am glad that I am not referred to the office.
In Word, for example, "document body" cannot be turned off, so creating your own layout or "master object" is a big pain. I would also be interested in how to lock the position and size of an object due to unwanted displacement. Or why can't I set the content of the header so that it doesn't sit like a watermark, etc...