“Whether you’re a Windows or Mac user, you’ve probably paid the Microsoft Office toll — more than once,” Mike Himowitz reports for Newsday.
“Today, however, some powerful challengers are chipping away at the Office edifice. They have significant outside backing, they’re compatible with Office documents, and best of all, they’re free –something that Office definitely is not,” Himowitz reports.
Himowitz covers OpenOffice and Lotus Symphony in his full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Many Mac users think they need Office, but really don’t. Although Himowitz doesn’t mention Apple’s iWork ’08, we recommend that you give Apple’s free 30-day iWork ’08 trial a try and see how well it works for your needs.
AppleWorks all the way, baby!!!
I work isn’t even compatible with its last years release. That seems stupid that I have to save two different documents for older iWork versions!
Sorry the sentence should start with iWork not I work.
iWork’s three apps are among the best products – hard or soft ones – that Apple has ever done.
Wish they would do the same with all the rest and not allow the growing demand for their stuff – hard and soft – result in inferior quality such as iMac difficulties and a premature Leopard release.
HELLO!
What about NEOOFFICE?
somehow i think it’s easier and more intuitive to use office to take notes (I like their tabbed function), I don’t know if pages can do that. I tried, but so far sorting out bullets and spacing is a headache on pages
What’s the Microsoft Access equivalent for the Mac?
hmmm,
FileMaker:
http://www.filemaker.com/products/index.html
iWork is not a complete substitute right now. Funny, I can’t even view iWork files on the iPhone. And because I teach at a university, Word/Excel are the defacto standard.
iWork programs are a good alternate (with some caveats). They are not a good replacement YET.
Is FileMaker as easy to learn and use as Access, though? I’ve heard it’s pretty bulky, albeit more powerful.
Here’s how it goes: I’ve used office like all the other guinea pigs for many years now. I got my hand on the trial, used it for 30-days and found myself irritated to have to revert to office. I was distraught that my trial was over. Well, I’m buying it, I have to. It’s so much nicer, you just have to play the “get to know you” game for a couple weeks and loves sets in. Do the right thing and stop supporting an inferior word processing program created by an inferior software company.
The Microsoft Access equivalent for Mac (there is a Win version as well) is Filemaker Pro.
It’s made by Filemaker Inc. which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Apple Inc.
Does FileMaker allow for built-in coding, like Access does with VBA? If so, what language is it in?
I luv FREE stuff!
opensourcemac.org
freesmug.org
freemacware.com
One thing important to note about iWork is that it opens Office 2007 file formats, which these other free suites can’t do. I even downloaded Microsoft’s beta Office Open XML Converter, which only translates Word XML files and not Excel or PowerPoint files.
And the thought of the author that Office 2007 users will save their documents as older versions of Word, Excel, etc. is laughable. Most people have no idea what format they’re saving a document in, they just save it. Ask them to save as a different format and you get a deer in the headlights look.
It’s OpenOffice all the way for me. I like the freeness of it, something that iWork simply cannot offer. I agree that there needs to be a free option out there for Access, but I am fully aware that database programs are a bitch to construct – especially once you get into the hairy world of relational databases and queries. Maybe someday, but I can wait.
@ maddog:
NeoOffice *is* OpenOffice. It’s just a friendly wrapper for it that makes it into a native Mac app.
@ But
Yes Filemaker has it’s own built-in scripting language, which is actually very easy to use. It also integrates well with applescript, so you can create workflows across apps.
Filemaker is probably the easiest to use program for setting up complex databases. Access isn’t even in the same league.
I prefer for serious writing LaTeX. There is an excellent package for the Mac called Texshop. It’s free and compatible with almost any platform, Windows, Linux, Unix and OS X.
Thanks, TFB. I’ll have to look into it once I get my Mac.
Access is great in that you can create an entire database application for a business pretty easily using just its forms and VBA code for the GUI. If Filemaker has similar or better capabilities, that’d be awesome.
I’m with David Fraser … a) iWork isn’t yet 100% ready and b) many environments require – for reasons good or bad – the use of Office.
Don’t think for a second that I don’t expect each of these good reasons to change … they very much will. While Pages is not up to snuff to replace Word for many uses, and while Numbers isn’t nearly ready to knock off Excel, Keynote is already there and Pages is making progress – Numbers … Numbers shows great promise.
but asks: “Does FileMaker allow for built-in coding, like Access does with VBA? If so, what language is it in?”
VBA is not so much a programming language as a security loophole. FileMaker can do whatever Access can do, and much more. Consider it the equivalent of SQL rather than the more-limited Access. That said, Apple needs something to replace the DB in AppleWorks and compete with Access. FileMaker is not that program, IMHO. Pages, Keynote, and – especially – Numbers are a generation ahead of the Office equivalents when it comes to presentation.
Real Deal, sometimes that’s a sad fact of life. Changes, significant changes, must be made. Changes that break what went before. Office does this all the time!
My View: I love iWork’08, as does my wife. I putz around with Pages and Numbers, she works with Pages a couple hours most days.
DLMeyer – the Voice of G.L.Horton’s Stage Page Pod-Cast
@DLMeyer
Equivalent of SQL Server?? Isn’t that, in turn, pretty much equivalent to Oracle? So you’re saying FileMaker is on par with Oracle?
I’m not familiar with the AppleWorks DB. Sounds like it’s pretty crappy, though, if it can’t compete with Access.
@but
Filemaker has not on par with Oracle regarding scale and speed. However, I have used Filemaker for several large database, and can guarantee that Access can not hold a candle to Filemaker for ease of use, extent of capabilities, speed, or cross platform compatability.
Keynote is my favourite application. Ever! Even pages is quite good now, BUT, why isn´t it WYSIWYG fonts in the font menu ?!?
Thats why I still use Word…
Pages won’t read some of the more complicated Word pages – NeoOffice will however.
I’m want to Dump Office and never have it on my Mac again.