When people create presentations, make charts or write something usually they use Office suite. We can freely say that Office is the standard because of its simplicity and familiarity. Over the years many alternatives came out, but the question is which one to use? Should you stick with something familiar or try something new? That’s why we are going to compare Office’s Word, Excel and PowerPoint with iWork.
PowerPoint vs Keynote;
When it comes to PowerPoint;
- The main advantage is the usability and reputation. It is longer around than Keynote and people trust it.
Another thing is that it is completely compatible with PC and Mac.- It has a friendly interface and it is easy to incorporate pictures, graphs, animations, or whatever you like, as well as find a lot of ideas or suggestions online, especially on Youtube.
- Lastly, this program is created to support various text formats and manages presentations more effectively when compared to Keynote.
When it comes to Keynote;
- The biggest disadvantage is that it doesn’t integrate well with other programs, you can transfer them but there is a possibility that your graphs or animations won’t work properly.
- As we mentioned it is not compatible with Microsoft but PowerPoint is with Mac, which gives you more freedom.
- Lastly, Keynote is not capable of supporting Visual Basic, unlike PowerPoint.
Excel vs Numbers;
Now when it comes to spreadsheet programs, the most used is of course Excel, but Apple created one as well called Numbers.
- There are many differences but Excel is more popular because it has been around longer and people are used to using it.
- Excel is great for business because it can easily sort out a great number of inventories, find patterns, and do a different analysis.
- When it comes to managing finance people usually prefer Excel over Numbers because it is so versatile and ideal for accounting.
Same as regarding PowerPoint Excel is compatible with PCs and Mac while Numbers can function only if you are using Mac, which can be limiting if you need to share something with colleagues, boss, or whoever.- Another thing is that Excel offers 138 more functions when it comes to performing convoluted financial calculations as well as more charts and plotting features.
- Functions or preconfigured formulas in spreadsheets are also different, Excel offers 400 functions which spread across 11 categories, while Numbers has 262 functions which spread across 10 categories.
Same as regarding Excel always keeps things more simple, and visually people might like Numbers better, but when it comes to functionality they need more improvement.
Word vs Pages;
Lastly, when it comes to writing we have two major rivals; Word and Pages. They are similar but if you start using Pages you will need some time to get used to it and if you try to import to Word later, you will encounter many obstacles.
- Like Excel and PowerPoint, Word is compatible with both, while Pages can only be used on Mac.
- Differences are obvious everywhere including the fonts, they are not the same so there is a possibility that Word won’t recognize it. Apple will import your tabs into Pages but it needs adjustment and they don’t look the same.
- When it comes to the text itself, you should know that Pages don’t support text effects or vertical text, unlike WordArt.
- Numbers, symbols, and formatting are also different so you might need adjustments because there is a possibility that your format won’t convert.
- One of the biggest issues is that Pages supports images, but not all the types and if you maybe used SmartArt Graphics, you should know that they won’t transfer over.
- It is the same when it comes to borders, backgrounds, watermarks, equations, citations or bibliographies. You can redo them of course in Pages manner but it can be a huge inconvenience.
Even though there is a strong rival to Microsoft’s Office it looks like iWork should do few more improvements and offer more variety in order to become more popular than Office. You can buy Microsoft Office Home & Business 2016 for Mac from 23,80€ here and Office 2016 Professional Plus for Windows from 26,90€ here.
