Is Apple’s iWork a viable alternative to Microsoft Office? To find out, IT Business asked Jeffrey Battersby–our go-to expert on word processing programs–to use Word 2008 and Pages ’08 to create the same project, progressing from the basics (text entry and formatting) to more-advanced features. Our questions: Which program is better at each stage of the job? What are their strengths and weaknesses? Which jobs (and which users) require which tool? (And for our experts’ take on alternatives to Office and iWork, see Word Processing Alternatives.)
Battersby reports, “Microsoft Word may well be the standard for business word processing programs, but Apple’s Pages ’08 presents an excellent alternative. If you find that you’re constantly changing the way a text document looks, then Word’s document themes offer a distinct advantage over Pages. For all other types of documents, however, from basic word processing files to sophisticated page layouts, Pages is equal to or better than Word.”
Full review here.
MacDailyNews Take: Do you really need Microsoft Office? Give Apple’s free 30-day iWork ’08 trial a try and find out for yourself.
