iWork vs. Office. What is Better for Mac
Follow this easy step by step tutorial to learn about iWork suite and which is better when compared to
Microsoft Office for MacBook.
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In this tutorial, we will be basically discussing what would be a better option for
Mac, iWork or Microsoft Office.
Step1 -- Microsoft Office
In our iWork vs.
Office comparison, we start with Microsoft Office first.
The office suite for mac is basically 219.99 dollars and if you opt for the home and student edition that would cost you around 139.99.
Now that's quite expensive when you compare it
with iWork. The three basic applications of iWork, that is,
Pages,
Keynotes and
Numbers are available at
19.99 each. That makes it about roughly sixty dollars for the whole suite.
Another feature with iWork is that as long as you can log on to your iTunes account, you can use the iWork suite on multiple accounts and on multiple
Mac's, whereas with Microsoft Office, you would only get the license for one user and one Mac. If you want access for multiple Macs, you would have to subscribe to the
Office 365 home premium edition which costs about ten dollars a month.
Step2 -- Ms. Office vs. iWork
However it doesn't come as a surprise why iWork is available at such a price when compared to Microsoft Office. When you compare the features, you can clearly see the
difference amongst the two.
For example the macro recorder feature in office is a very useful if you want to automate and customize things amongst the different applications within the office suite.
iWork however lacks this feature and the only workaround for to customize your excel document, for example, is to write the
Macro in
Apple Script and use the Automator to run it. So if you are used to
VBA editing and macro recording, Microsoft Office would be the tool for you.
Step3 --
Application Space
But when you compare the layout of the applications, many would agree that iWork applications are much cleaner than
Office applications. The problem with Office applications, for example
Microsoft Word, is that everything is cluttered up on the screen. You've got like three layers of customizable menu bars on top and many different sections containing more and more options. For the average user, it just looks way more complicated than it should be.
With the
Page application in iWork, you've got this single menu bar on top and if you open up the toolbar you can configure what's to be included in that menu bar. So everything is at your finger tips without filling up the screen with different options. This way, the user can actually focus more on the document itself.
Step4 -- More
Software with Office
With the
Microsoft Suite, you do end up getting a lot more applications for example
Outlook for emails, OneNote,
Microsoft Access and Publisher. But with iWork, you're sort of stuck with only 3 applications, Keynote, Pages and Numbers.
We would like to conclude for iWork vs.
MS Office with the fact that if you need a tool for document making and simple number crunching or basic presentation related work for your Mac, then iWork would be tool for you.
It's cheaper and easy to use. For professional users who are looking for more advanced features, Microsoft Office would cater your needs better.
Hence, iWork or MS Office, it all boils down to the user requirements and purchase capacity.