I was a long time Microsoft user mainly because work was Windows based and Word, Excel and PowerPoint were what we all used. Now I’ve retired, I find I’m using Pages and, to a lesser extent, Numbers. Happily, the Macmost courses are exactly what I need to show me how to use the Apple apps.
There are several differences between Microsoft Office for Mac and the Windows version people. Don't expect to do everything exactly the same way. I often lost a lot of time on the web looking for a way to do so to finally discover that the feature I needed didn't exist on Mac.
I am retired and don’t need the complexity of the Microsoft products any more. I am planning to use the Apple apps completely in future. My main reason is they are free!
Exactly. The Microsoft products are far more capable, especially Excel but Numbers is more than sufficient for most personal use. I moved to Apple when I retired. I’m on a Condo board but just export to Microsoft when needed.
I find the Microsoft 365 Personal plan, at $70/year to be a good deal, because you get 1 TB of cloud storage as well as access to all of the Office products. I still use Excel instead of Numbers, since that’s the product we always used in the business world. I have, however, gone over to Pages instead of Word, which I always found to be way too complicated.
Good summary Gary. Some things from my experience: 1. I was a big Dragon dictation user (with PC Word) for many years, and initially there was nothing that came close to this on a Mac so ended up using a Windows VM in Parallels which worked fine. Over recent years, though, Apple native dictation into Pages has become almost as good - certainly good enough for me and I am a hard core writer. I also find that PDFs generated by pages somehow look nicer than those from Word. 2. I still use a Parallels Win VM for Excel though. This is to support a range of 10-15 year old VB macros that run very slowly in native Excel on the Mac if the there is a lot of number crunching involved. For day-to-day spreadsheet stuff though, I actually find Numbers more pleasant to use. Apple has done a good job replicating most of the Win Excel keyboard shortcuts. As a tip, I find mapping the modifiers to behave like a native Mac if you have to use Parallels (which is pretty easy to do) 3. We do a lot of charting of data for reporting purposes and Keynote is massively better for that, both in terms of chart creation and the quality for the final output (I would never embed a chart from PowerPoint into a published document, but Keynote graphics are fine). 4. I get sent a lot of PowerPoint presentations by other people (outside the company), but I find PowerPoint itself horribly cluttered, messy and intrusive nowadays, so I generally just open files once and save them as PDFs for general access. If I need to edit the content for my own purposes, then I generally convert it to Keynote and tidy it up. Lastly, as a general comment, when we (mostly) ditched MS Office, we were concerned about exchanging documents with clients for review. We found, however, that providing clients with drafts in PDF format works really well. Everyone can mark up a PDF and best of all, clients can’t tamper with (and screw up) your content - they can only comment :) Summing up (based on my and my teams’ experience): MS Office does more, but once you switch to a simpler environment, it seems unnecessarily complex and clunky when you go back, and the output doesn’t look as good.
As a professional I used MS Office from inception until 2010 (retirement.). There is no need to give MS your personal data if you don't have to use MS Office due to employment related reasons. I am perfectly happy wiht Apple's apps. Some features I missed at first, and felt awkward trying to learn a new system, but, overall Apple does everything I need.
I couldn't agree more. I only use Windows because I have to for work. I'll be buying another Mac soon after not using one for over two decades. Word for Mac is better than Word for PC, but Pages is better than Word altogether. Microsoft is downright creepy with all the personal info they want just to use their inferior products. Not worth it.
I've found that Pages scales a lot better on my 13 inch M1 Macbook Pro when I tile it to the right while doing research with Safari tiled on the left. I also find it a lot more aesthetically pleasing and less cluttered than Word.
For the last two decades I was a MS user. Now I have transitioned to Pages and Number , and I find them much better because they lack the frills, and are absolutely user friendly.
Thanks for the video Gary. I finally pulled the plug on MS OneDrive and Office apps this months after years of using MS. Once I switched to all Apple a few years ago I use Pages and Numbers exclusively. I’m not a power user of office apps for personal use and the Apple office apps are more than powerful enough for what I need.
Hi. I found Numbers to be the most different to office suite, namely Excel, than the other ones. For small documents, I like the fact that in numbers you can easily arrange different tables and graphs. This is less aesthetic in Excel with the spreadsheet that covers the whole page.
@@Erin-Thor Although OpenOffice is technically still available, the project has been on "life support" for several years and is likely to be shut down. LibreOffice is a fork of OpenOffice and also its replacement.
Having recently retired, I don't have to worry about sharing files with colleagues, so Apple's apps work great for me - they've got more than enough features for my needs, are simpler to use and easier on the eye. I keep LibreOffice as a standby in case I get sent any problematic MS Office attachments/forms, but so far I've not needed it.
I have used Microsoft Office for over 20 years on Windows. I was doubly surprised when I installed my Office 2019 pack on my very first Mac in 2021 (a 24-inch iMac). 1) my one-time Office 2019 license for Windows is perfectly compatible, I was able to download my purchase from my Microsoft account and import my license without having to buy a new license and 2) unlike Office on Windows, Office updates frequently in the background on my Mac. However, I prefer to use the mail app rather than Outlook because I find Outlook less well integrated on Mac and more complex to set up. The mail app is so much easier to use!
After 30 years of using Excel for work, I recently started using Numbers. Now, my colleagues are commenting on why my documents look "SO PRETTY". Numbers is amazing when you need to do more with your spreadsheets than just math, and when your documents get posted publicly and you don't want them to be ugly. Numbers is a revelation. And, your tutorials made the transition easy.
A good summary. For the last 10 years of working life ( MS based) I used both systems when needed but one you didn’t mention is Keynote. I used it exclusively ( mainly because you were presenting with it rather than sharing.) I found it far superior to PowerPoint.
First computer: Osbourne. First GUI OS: Windows 2.0. However, this loooong time user of Microsoft is now totally fed up with them. I have switched to Mac. I will ONLY use Mac software and no longer be held hostage by Microshit. Love your tutorials, dude.
What I tend to find as someone well within the walled garden who also works in a small business, Apple apps for personal use, Microsoft for professional. Numbers is perfect for my home finances, pages for CV/resume writing, and since work pays for the Microsoft apps I use them strictly for work-related business.
As usual, Gary, you are one of the most objective and clearest explainers on RUclips. I am trying to transition to Pages after years of using Word and am doing so with the "crutch" of LibreOffice. My eventual goal is to do everything in Pages and save files in different formats in the end. I am now getting through your great Playlist of Pages Tutorials.
2:08 ".. the most powerful .. on the market." That is very subjective, and might not be true. LibreOffice is a very good, maybe the best alternative 'app'.
I used MS Office (mainly Word) when I was working because I had a copy supplied by my employer. I continued to use it (along with Apple's apps) after I retired until changes in OS/X meant I had to get a new version. I didn't want to pay the stupid subscription so I switched over entirely to Pages and Numbers. I find that they are more than adequate for my needs and, as you say, much easier to use (especially Numbers). I also have LibreOffice for those rare occasions when I need some bit of functionality that Pages or Numbers doesn't have.
I just started this week to migrate from Excel to Numbers. The current Office license I have comes to an end. I think that for my purposes Numbers is a good alternative for Excel.
A very comprehensive overview. I handle the accounts reporting for our residents assn using Excel because I know it so well from using it daily at work. I tried hard to do the same with Numbers (for free of charge) but it didn’t have all that I needed. It did however create charts more easily but overall I stay with Office which incidentally is also compatible with iPhone and iPad, and couldn’t be happier.
One plus to MS is scripting. It is easy to just record your actions to reuse, you can’t do that on an apple. We import automated data, what we call ROP (Routine Output Printer) logs that you have a large simple text file that are kicked out by cellular systems. We need to parse the data to see trends, call failures, dropped calls, handoff failures, etc. Excel and Word are easy to script on, numbers and pages are not.
Our family is all Mac/Apple. When my kids went to university I subscribed to Office365 Family for the Office Apps and the cloud storage. Nowadays its Apple One Premier. The reason I still subscribe to Microsoft365 Family is for the enhanced email. We all have Outlook email addresses and I like the enterprise grade security.
I like that you you state that MS Word and MS Excel are the most powerful. I am using MS office on my Mac Mini, iPad and iPhone. I do use Apple Numbers for converting my contacts to CSV for transfer to the Apple Contacts. I cannot get Excel to convert the contacts to CSV properly. contacts will not recognize the CSV files from Excel. (i.e. I have both Numbers and Excel). Overall a very non partisan view of MS office vs the Apple Apps.
I like Google Sheets and Pages. Your videos are really making my transition from windows to Mac bearable. Keep coming back for the stuff I'm forgetting. Thanks dude.
Yes, you should have Office for Mac if you intend to engage with the big, wide world. Otherwise, I think Pages is a lot easier to use than Word and just as good if not better in some ways. It's improved exponentially through the years, and it will only get better. Keynote blows PowerPoint out of the water. As a company Apple does a far better job of respecting user privacy than Microsoft.
That would only matter if you and another person both wanted to work from the same document which to be honest is not that often for moat people. It is more simple to just produce your master document in word or pages and the pen convert to a pdf or some other format if you need to circulate it.
I use Numbers and Pages for my private documents because it's much easier to use it for me and for all the other reasons (Handoff, Collaboration with others etc.) At work because we use Windows Machines I'm stuck there with the MS Office Apps. The Problem between MS Office on Windows and on the Mac is, they are 2 different Programms. So lot of functionality that you have on windows doesn't mean you have them also on the Mac version.
Thanks bunches. When I first got my Mac, I installed Office 360. But you talked me into learning Apple apps. I have found once the learning curve has passed, I so much more enjoy Apple apps. The subscription of 360 automatically renewed a couple of months ago. Next year, I will not renew.
I don’t like windows, but love Excel … so use it on my Mac. Even if it’s only 80% of the Win-version. I tried Numbers but it’s not the same. Don’t need Word or PowerPoint ; for that I use the Apple versions.
Great video Gary. One comment regarding that Apple Apps are free. If you need cloud storage, with Office 365 family, you get 6x1TB for $99 per year, which is way cheaper than iCloud + free Apps.
Thanks Gary for this really helpful video. I’ve been a Mac user for 10 years+ and always used MS apps. I’m now going to give Pages and Numbers a go. Your insights are always encouraging.
When I was a windows user my office program was Libre Office. And that I still use on my Mac Mini and MacBook. Works great. So I can work on the same documents with other people, for instance in DropBox and I don’t have to have two files (pages and docx) of the same document. As converting all the time is not ideal. That’s why I still haven’t managed to learn to work with pages and numbers and keynote. Problem is that I haven’t found a good app for my iPad. Advise is welcome.
I agree! I used to do a lot of work in Word and Excel. I still have them on my Mac, but now that I'm retired, I prefer to use Apple apps. Yes, Excel is more powerful, but there is one very important thing I can do in Numbers that I can't do in Excel. They both have tabs, which I make extensive use of, but in pages, I can have multiple tables in the same tab. In Numbers, each table has its own column and row bars. I can change widths and heights in one table, and it doesn't mess up the layout of a table next to it. In Excel, you're stuck with one set of width and height bars for the entire tab. Maybe there's a way to do this in Excel, but I've never seen an example of it.
When I was a university student, I relied on Pages for note taking bc of how simple it is and its uncluttered look. It’s easy to hide the formatting panel. I noticed a lot of students were using Pages as well. I’ve never liked Numbers so I use Excel bc I’m more familiar with it. I have a hard time with Numbers for some reason.
I've had MS Office 2019 on both my MacBook and iMac for over 3 years after obtaining a volume license that cost me something like $50 (no subscription). I needed it to support old legacy version of data/files I had prior to my Macs when I ran Windows and found it easier to use over the Mac native versions (Pages, Numbers, etc.). I'll probably never upgrade them, nor will ever need to, as they do everything I need. I would, however, give my right leg for a cheap full version of Visio! I miss it so much and was an expert at doing so for my job (network & data center engineering documents).
After MS basically abandoning Publisher, I switched to pages. Word is brutal when it comes to inserting and editing images precisely in documents. There is definitely a learning curve but it’s well worth it.
I have a sub to office 365 but I've been trying to learn the Mac versions. Numbers in particular I like for smaller tables and graphs since the tables can be resized. Makes for a good print.
I was a MSWord expert since the 80s, until Windows 11 They now have an issue with their onedrive, it disappears and then you cannot save! Besides that, it is taking too much Ram and too much CPU power. I even switched to Mac with 16 GB Ram , and installed Office, just to be able to work with Word, and then I got a spinning wheel on almost every click. It was draining all my brain processing power. I am now using Pages and I'm finding more functions than MSWord, for 10% of the processing power. Anybody can do a test by looking at the Activity monitor with both Pages and Word open. I am finally saying goodbye to Word . I'm finding Your videos very useful for the transition. Thank you Gary!
Thanks for this subject you have touched upon. One of the reasons for me to be tied to Mojave has been this: I am used to Microsoft Word. Tried to shift to Pages but found but was dissuaded from adopting it because I learned that the file sizes are more with Pages than Word documents. Regards.
I work in a corporate setting that is MS centric and I use Apple (numbers, pages, keynotes) exclusively and import in and export out to the MS format seamlessly. I was. a MS user for years but like the usability and some of the features within the Apple suite better.
There is one glaring issue with the MS suite for Mac: not all functions of the Windows version of the suite are available on the Mac versions. Would running Windows on the Mac solve this issue? It’s an added cost, but you do not have to have a Mac/Windows setup.
I downloaded a csv of my credit card transactions to use as the format for a budget, which I created both in Excel and Numbers. I found Excel to be the more efficient and straightforward of the two. The category grouping with totals in Numbers did not work as well as Excel table dynamic totals and weren’t very intuitive (as a Developer, I can speak to intuitive)
Good summary. Thank you. After a lifetime of Windows at work we subscribe to Office. However I have found Keynote to be better and more creative than Powerpoint. Some of that may be because most people are overloaded with Powerpoint presentations and Keynote’s look is fresher for them.
If there is another application out there that offers a navigation pane feature like MS Word’s, I haven’t found it. I spent the last few years trying to organize my writing in apps like Pages and Scrivener and the frustration was immense. I gave up and put MS Office on my Mac and my productivity is back where it needs to be. NOTHING organizes long documents as well as Word. If you create heading styles in Word the right way, then the navigation pane (formerly Document Map) shows you the indented heading hierarchy, which keeps your material organized as you’re writing it. If you’re a serious writer and your work involves more than stream-of-consciousness journaling then Word is a necessity. For that feature alone.
@@macmost I tried so hard to make that work but it doesn’t allow enough levels and once three or so deep you can’t indent any further. Word allows up to nine I think, which is super useful even if they don’t all appear as such in the finished manuscript. And you can collapse them and reveal only the headings in the sections you’re working on. It’s weird because Word also has outline view of course. But even that doesn’t work as well as the document map/navigation pane.
Did you know that the venerable WordPerfect, which is technically still available, is purported to be superior for extended, text-dense documents? Unfortunately--indeed, regrettably--WordPerfect has received no meaningful development for twenty years. There's also Nota Bene; it's designed for use in academic settings to create and manage book-length projects
Used to have Microsoft Office but somewhere in a Mac OS upgrade, lost or it wouldn't recognize my license. Wasn't going to do a subscirptiion. Went to Pages and Numbers, the more I used Numbers the better I liked it and FREE with any upgrades !!!
I bought office in 2013, spending 150€ and soon it was the old version. And other people i knew were still working with the even older doc format. So I had to export using doc instead of docx. Using Apple Numbers and Pages just made my life so much easier, if necessary for work I export to xlsx and docx, mostly I provide pdf. Privately I like making spreadsheets now and have a much better understanding of my finances.
Long time follower of Gary. Switched away from MS everything and PCs in 2010 when I retired. Now exclusively on MBAir, Studio monitor etc. I use Apples office quite happily after a long career on MS Office and cut my teeth on WordPerfect and Lotus! I’m that old!
Happy New Year Gary! Actually I think Microsoft Office (now Microsoft 365) increased Mac’s use in the businesses community. It happened to me. I really enjoy my Mac computers but also make intensive use o Microsoft 365 including Outlook because it is very easy to have a logo signature in it. Microsoft 365 for Mac and optimized for Apple Silicon is really great. It is a beautiful and powerful combination! Cheers!
I've never used Microsoft apps on my Mac, but I gave up on them on previous OS systems. The apps were not full featured in comparison to their operation in Windows. In addition, the apps were programmed to default to their OneDrive, whereas, with the MacBook, my Pages or Numbers files reside ONLY on my personal NAS and I don't have that fight with ICloud. Apps are usually anemic because they must adapt to portable devices with limited storage and battery drain concerns. I get it. And, it's not just Microsoft, it's ALL companies. Therefore, there's nothing better, in my opinion, then using a full featured application software product made specifically for that one OS. Word or Excel ARE powerful products on a Windows OS, but, in my opinion, not when operating through other OS's. I fell in love with Pages and Numbers on my Mac specifically for their powerful, easier to use features that I found were either non-existent or difficult to use on Microsoft products. Pages is actually one of the main reasons I purchased a Macbook, specifically because of it's ease of operation, and I would not return to Word or Excel. That said, it should be mentioned that the standard of the world in terms of documents and compatibility appears to be MS Office file formats. Although Pages and Numbers can export to MS Office file formats, there's no default setting to do this automatically, which is a little painful. While I consider the MacBook to be far superior to any other laptop on the market, it's, in my opinion, the issue with compatibility to the worlds adopted standards that continually holds Apple back from world market domination. I appreciate the way Pages is designed, which is why I use it. Do I really care whether it's saved file format is Docx vs. Pages? No, I don't, but it's a problem with the rest of the world. Apple needs to provide the user with a programmable default so that our Pages will automatically save to the most common file format instead of using the exporting feature to do this.
Here is my take on Office and „iWork“. - Numbers is no match for Excel. When you deal with big data files, the page format of numbers is hindering any effective work with your data - and the hole way of working and formatting is much easier in excel. Writing letters in word has not the same advantage as excel over numbers but formatting headings and paragraphs gives word an advantage. But pages does have own features that are handy, placing of fotos, figures and videos and export to epub for ebooks. - If you have office work to do or have to work together with people who use MS-Office, MS-Office should be your choice over pages and numbers. But if this is not on your plate, you should cut your ties with MS-Office. Do every thing with the apple programs and deal with their shortcomings. Writing letters, using templates, that can easily be done with pages. For small tables numbers is sufficient. - It is no pleasure to have more than one tool for a certain task. - Meanwhile although this is another topic I switched to markdown programs like Ulysses for writing, especially for developing ideas.
In general, sure. But Numbers handles large tables very well too. Not sure what you mean by "the page format of numbers is hindering any effective work with your data." What "page format?" Are you referring to printing? Otherwise, you can have huge tables without a problem and there are no "pages."
I’ve had the Microsoft 365 for 5 people for about 15 years. I share it with my kids. Over 20 years ago I became certified in Office as part of my CE. I loved it found it very easy to learn. When I switched from Windows to Mac OS I tried Pages and Numbers. I found them very watered down and of no use to me.
Loved the video and I would definitely class myself a pro-pages person. I really enjoy pages and find it much more compatible with the way my brain works. I wrote my masters and doctorate portfolios in it and then converted to a word document with no hassle. It also became the main programme for word processing and desktop publishing at my last work place because of its ease of use and handling of objects such as tables. I've since learned how to use LaTex and now try to use this, however that's more of a personal challenge and hobby.
For me it's Pages and Keynote for documents and presentations due to their ease and friendliness of use. Excel for spreadsheets because it's just more powerful than Numbers.
I am a bit late to the discussion. But if I can add something... I teach a math intense class in college, and I started using Word and Powerpoint since I never used Pages, Number ans keynote before, despite having a mac for 10+ years. But then I had to add a lot of equations to the documents and presentations, and the eq. editor us okay for adding a couple of them, but very frustrating when you add a lot of equations and you have to edit them afterwards. Page and keynote open a box where you type an equation using Latex, and you are good to go, it is amazing! You double click on the equation and the box opens again and you can edit... Power point can do something similar using an extension called Iguana, but still is way easier in Keynote and Pages. I use both (I do not use numbers, excel only), Apple and MS office, but for my teaching docs, it is easier IMHO with the Apple apps.
I am a fan of Pages and Numbers. I haven’t used office for years. I only do fairly basic stuff. I found adding media so much better using Apple utilities. What I really like is you can export to PDF without bothering about subscriptions.
I ditched Word when they switched file formats. I mailed those things home and opened them fine in TextEdit, which had a little helper applet on the Mac servers that automatically loaded to read and write whichever MS "standard" I needed to use that day. TextEdit is an overlooked masterpiece of simplicity.
I've been a Mac user for years. Just recently purchased Microsoft 365 and am very frustrated using it. It is missing a lot of the ribbon functions, particularly in design. Customer service doesn't have the answers.
Personally I find Pages and Keynote more than ok, Numbers not so much. Probably because I am pretty experienced in Excel. Luckily I have a Windows laptop from work, where obviously it's all Office.
I never did, Open Office is free and good enough for me. I don't use Apple's Office either. When I share with a Windows user, is safe as .rtf Totally fine. Doesn't cost a penny.
Not at the moment. That is one thing that MS is SLOWLY rolling out, if at all, to the Mac version of Excel. I’m looking into buying a Windows machine/ version of Excel to do the advanced data operations.
Like many of the others commenting here I used Microsoft products at work for decades. Now that I'm retired I've adopted the motto that "Friends don't let friends use Microsoft." Partly this is a holdover from the days of the Apple "death spiral" but also because I resent having to pay a Microsoft tax each year to get software that I rarely use.
Thank you! Great information. I am looking at buying an iMac and have been wondering if I need to buy extra software and didn't realize information you shared.
If I've learned one thing hanging out in the Mac sections of reddit, it's that business people use Office the majority of the time. I've resisted subscribing because my office software needs are minimal, and the writing I do is perfectly suited to Pages, but I get the push if all of your colleagues are using a certain software. Seems a shame when Apple just gives them to you free, and many of these same people already own and use Macs themselves. But the Office suite is so prevalent, I've even seen government agencies insist written communication be in .docx format (which I satisfy with the Export option in Pages, as Gary suggests here).
In general the Apple apps are better and just as powerful to use as MS apps. The main issues are compatibility, and the lack of people who actually use the Apple apps. I like pages better than Word and used it for years. But it was a pain to export the document to Word to then see that fonts, graphics, pictures, dates, numbering etc, were off. It took more time to re-edit the word doc than it did to just use word. In addition it is very difficult to save these documents and then read them in word. There is no cross compatibility. So if I am at work and all I have is MS products and I need a letter that was composed in Pages. I couldn’t read it.
Tout à une solution. Toutes les polices ne sont pas multiplateforme mais certaines oui. On les appelles des « Polices Web ». Times, Georgia, Arial, etc…elles sont indiquées dans le Livre des polices.
Another great video Gary! I work in Microsoft environment but all my personal is in Apple. I do find that there is power in the simplicity of the Apple apps in the form of efficiency. When I have to cross over and run an excel file from work it does have some capability issues with font viewing size and formula conversion.
I had to use MS Office at work and I would rather not deal with them now that I'm retired. Yes, the iWork apps, Pages, Numbers, and Keynote do just about all I would ever need, but they're not entirely compatible with the ubiquitous Office documents. For full Office document compatibility, I've found that the free LibreOffice suits all of my needs on the Mac without having to spend any money I don't have to.
I’m a Mac user primarily, and find I prefer Pages over Word, but prefer Excel over Numbers. Numbers just seems slow and clunky to use sadly. But Pages is really good. I’d argue Pages is way better than word.
I love Apple Suite however for school there's no way I can use it most school software will not recognize the extensions resulting in professors unable to grade work. It's a hassle to export all your files in a .pdf document every time you do a change. Hopefully that changes soon
Thanks gary. I am new to mac and was really worried about not being able to open pages and keynote files in windows. I don't want to purchase Office365 and you saved my subscription.
I was a long time Microsoft user mainly because work was Windows based and Word, Excel and PowerPoint were what we all used. Now I’ve retired, I find I’m using Pages and, to a lesser extent, Numbers. Happily, the Macmost courses are exactly what I need to show me how to use the Apple apps.
There are several differences between Microsoft Office for Mac and the Windows version people. Don't expect to do everything exactly the same way. I often lost a lot of time on the web looking for a way to do so to finally discover that the feature I needed didn't exist on Mac.
Thank you, this is one of the most useful piece of information for someone considering jumping from Windows to iOS
You're welcome.
How often do features not exist? Are the Win versions way” better than the Mac versions? Thx
Mac Excel is a disaster if you want to use VBA to the point of being unusable. Also be careful before you jump if you want PowerPivot.
I do like Office better on Mac than on Windows, tbh lol
I use LibreOffice on all my machines, Linux, macOS, and Windows.
I am retired and don’t need the complexity of the Microsoft products any more. I am planning to use the Apple apps completely in future. My main reason is they are free!
And they are easy to use❤
Exactly. The Microsoft products are far more capable, especially Excel but Numbers is more than sufficient for most personal use. I moved to Apple when I retired.
I’m on a Condo board but just export to Microsoft when needed.
@@explorer7176 Well, that’s a pretty broad statement. But if you find your directors “power tripping” you can always run for the board yourself.
I just retired in January and feel the same way. Why pay for what I’m not using.
@@danharvey61 Enjoy your retirement, I certainly am!
I find the Microsoft 365 Personal plan, at $70/year to be a good deal, because you get 1 TB of cloud storage as well as access to all of the Office products. I still use Excel instead of Numbers, since that’s the product we always used in the business world. I have, however, gone over to Pages instead of Word, which I always found to be way too complicated.
I agree.... $70/year was a deal changer for me since I came from the Windows world.
Good summary Gary. Some things from my experience:
1. I was a big Dragon dictation user (with PC Word) for many years, and initially there was nothing that came close to this on a Mac so ended up using a Windows VM in Parallels which worked fine. Over recent years, though, Apple native dictation into Pages has become almost as good - certainly good enough for me and I am a hard core writer. I also find that PDFs generated by pages somehow look nicer than those from Word.
2. I still use a Parallels Win VM for Excel though. This is to support a range of 10-15 year old VB macros that run very slowly in native Excel on the Mac if the there is a lot of number crunching involved. For day-to-day spreadsheet stuff though, I actually find Numbers more pleasant to use. Apple has done a good job replicating most of the Win Excel keyboard shortcuts. As a tip, I find mapping the modifiers to behave like a native Mac if you have to use Parallels (which is pretty easy to do)
3. We do a lot of charting of data for reporting purposes and Keynote is massively better for that, both in terms of chart creation and the quality for the final output (I would never embed a chart from PowerPoint into a published document, but Keynote graphics are fine).
4. I get sent a lot of PowerPoint presentations by other people (outside the company), but I find PowerPoint itself horribly cluttered, messy and intrusive nowadays, so I generally just open files once and save them as PDFs for general access. If I need to edit the content for my own purposes, then I generally convert it to Keynote and tidy it up.
Lastly, as a general comment, when we (mostly) ditched MS Office, we were concerned about exchanging documents with clients for review. We found, however, that providing clients with drafts in PDF format works really well. Everyone can mark up a PDF and best of all, clients can’t tamper with (and screw up) your content - they can only comment :)
Summing up (based on my and my teams’ experience): MS Office does more, but once you switch to a simpler environment, it seems unnecessarily complex and clunky when you go back, and the output doesn’t look as good.
That's MS in my experience: "Unnecessarily complex and clunky".
Unfortunately, I do not agree with the complexity idea... I prefer having options and not needing them rather than needing and not finding them
@@abdelhakhadji9992 depend how are the options.
@@abdelhakhadji9992I agree
As a professional I used MS Office from inception until 2010 (retirement.). There is no need to give MS your personal data if you don't have to use MS Office due to employment related reasons. I am perfectly happy wiht Apple's apps. Some features I missed at first, and felt awkward trying to learn a new system, but, overall Apple does everything I need.
I couldn't agree more. I only use Windows because I have to for work. I'll be buying another Mac soon after not using one for over two decades. Word for Mac is better than Word for PC, but Pages is better than Word altogether. Microsoft is downright creepy with all the personal info they want just to use their inferior products. Not worth it.
I am a VBA programmer. It s not really available in Excel for Mac.
Thank you This helped me
I've found that Pages scales a lot better on my 13 inch M1 Macbook Pro when I tile it to the right while doing research with Safari tiled on the left. I also find it a lot more aesthetically pleasing and less cluttered than Word.
I also love using a MacBook along side an iPad.
For the last two decades I was a MS user. Now I have transitioned to Pages and Number , and I find them much better because they lack the frills, and are absolutely user friendly.
Thanks for the video Gary. I finally pulled the plug on MS OneDrive and Office apps this months after years of using MS. Once I switched to all Apple a few years ago I use Pages and Numbers exclusively. I’m not a power user of office apps for personal use and the Apple office apps are more than powerful enough for what I need.
Hi. I found Numbers to be the most different to office suite, namely Excel, than the other ones. For small documents, I like the fact that in numbers you can easily arrange different tables and graphs. This is less aesthetic in Excel with the spreadsheet that covers the whole page.
That is true, but only for sheets with little data. And the whole point of excel is to analyze big tables with filtering, pivot and powerquery.
But one could also use LibreOffice, and I'd like to see a comparison here. Many thanks for the concise explanation!
Open office too!
@@Erin-Thor Although OpenOffice is technically still available, the project has been on "life support" for several years and is likely to be shut down. LibreOffice is a fork of OpenOffice and also its replacement.
@@bcarr1122 - Good to know! I’ll try it, Thanks!
Best option. Will open office docs. LibreOffice #1 Microsoft bad stay away!
Having recently retired, I don't have to worry about sharing files with colleagues, so Apple's apps work great for me - they've got more than enough features for my needs, are simpler to use and easier on the eye. I keep LibreOffice as a standby in case I get sent any problematic MS Office attachments/forms, but so far I've not needed it.
When sharing files pdf is easy to use and not that much of a big deal.
I have used Microsoft Office for over 20 years on Windows. I was doubly surprised when I installed my Office 2019 pack on my very first Mac in 2021 (a 24-inch iMac).
1) my one-time Office 2019 license for Windows is perfectly compatible, I was able to download my purchase from my Microsoft account and import my license without having to buy a new license and 2) unlike Office on Windows, Office updates frequently in the background on my Mac. However, I prefer to use the mail app rather than Outlook because I find Outlook less well integrated on Mac and more complex to set up. The mail app is so much easier to use!
After 30 years of using Excel for work, I recently started using Numbers. Now, my colleagues are commenting on why my documents look "SO PRETTY". Numbers is amazing when you need to do more with your spreadsheets than just math, and when your documents get posted publicly and you don't want them to be ugly. Numbers is a revelation. And, your tutorials made the transition easy.
I second the notion of using LibreOffice!
A good summary. For the last 10 years of working life ( MS based) I used both systems when needed but one you didn’t mention is Keynote. I used it exclusively ( mainly because you were presenting with it rather than sharing.) I found it far superior to PowerPoint.
he actually did !!!
First computer: Osbourne. First GUI OS: Windows 2.0. However, this loooong time user of Microsoft is now totally fed up with them. I have switched to Mac. I will ONLY use Mac software and no longer be held hostage by Microshit. Love your tutorials, dude.
I haven't used Microsoft Office for 15 years, and I don't miss it one bit.
Snap!
What I tend to find as someone well within the walled garden who also works in a small business, Apple apps for personal use, Microsoft for professional. Numbers is perfect for my home finances, pages for CV/resume writing, and since work pays for the Microsoft apps I use them strictly for work-related business.
As usual, Gary, you are one of the most objective and clearest explainers on RUclips. I am trying to transition to Pages after years of using Word and am doing so with the "crutch" of LibreOffice. My eventual goal is to do everything in Pages and save files in different formats in the end. I am now getting through your great Playlist of Pages Tutorials.
Gary does have a gift!
I’ve learned more from Gary then I ever thought possible, so I agree.
2:08 ".. the most powerful .. on the market." That is very subjective, and might not be true. LibreOffice is a very good, maybe the best alternative 'app'.
I used MS Office (mainly Word) when I was working because I had a copy supplied by my employer. I continued to use it (along with Apple's apps) after I retired until changes in OS/X meant I had to get a new version. I didn't want to pay the stupid subscription so I switched over entirely to Pages and Numbers. I find that they are more than adequate for my needs and, as you say, much easier to use (especially Numbers). I also have LibreOffice for those rare occasions when I need some bit of functionality that Pages or Numbers doesn't have.
I just started this week to migrate from Excel to Numbers. The current Office license I have comes to an end. I think that for my purposes Numbers is a good alternative for Excel.
A very comprehensive overview. I handle the accounts reporting for our residents assn using Excel because I know it so well from using it daily at work. I tried hard to do the same with Numbers (for free of charge) but it didn’t have all that I needed. It did however create charts more easily but overall I stay with Office which incidentally is also compatible with iPhone and iPad, and couldn’t be happier.
That has more to do with your own skills developed through experience.
I use libre office, it's free, compatible with Microsoft Office files and can do everything both options do.
I also use it bro it's almost same as Microsoft office
One plus to MS is scripting. It is easy to just record your actions to reuse, you can’t do that on an apple. We import automated data, what we call ROP (Routine Output Printer) logs that you have a large simple text file that are kicked out by cellular systems. We need to parse the data to see trends, call failures, dropped calls, handoff failures, etc. Excel and Word are easy to script on, numbers and pages are not.
I just love the way you explain things Mr. Gary. I have seen this clip number of times. Thanks.
Our family is all Mac/Apple. When my kids went to university I subscribed to Office365 Family for the Office Apps and the cloud storage. Nowadays its Apple One Premier. The reason I still subscribe to Microsoft365 Family is for the enhanced email. We all have Outlook email addresses and I like the enterprise grade security.
I like that you you state that MS Word and MS Excel are the most powerful. I am using MS office on my Mac Mini, iPad and iPhone. I do use Apple Numbers for converting my contacts to CSV for transfer to the Apple Contacts. I cannot get Excel to convert the contacts to CSV properly. contacts will not recognize the CSV files from Excel. (i.e. I have both Numbers and Excel). Overall a very non partisan view of MS office vs the Apple Apps.
I like Google Sheets and Pages.
Your videos are really making my transition from windows to Mac bearable. Keep coming back for the stuff I'm forgetting. Thanks dude.
Yes, you should have Office for Mac if you intend to engage with the big, wide world. Otherwise, I think Pages is a lot easier to use than Word and just as good if not better in some ways. It's improved exponentially through the years, and it will only get better. Keynote blows PowerPoint out of the water. As a company Apple does a far better job of respecting user privacy than Microsoft.
That would only matter if you and another person both wanted to work from the same document which to be honest is not that often for moat people. It is more simple to just produce your master document in word or pages and the pen convert to a pdf or some other format if you need to circulate it.
I use Numbers and Pages for my private documents because it's much easier to use it for me and for all the other reasons (Handoff, Collaboration with others etc.) At work because we use Windows Machines I'm stuck there with the MS Office Apps.
The Problem between MS Office on Windows and on the Mac is, they are 2 different Programms. So lot of functionality that you have on windows doesn't mean you have them also on the Mac version.
Thanks bunches. When I first got my Mac, I installed Office 360. But you talked me into learning Apple apps. I have found once the learning curve has passed, I so much more enjoy Apple apps. The subscription of 360 automatically renewed a couple of months ago. Next year, I will not renew.
I don’t like windows, but love Excel … so use it on my Mac. Even if it’s only 80% of the Win-version. I tried Numbers but it’s not the same. Don’t need Word or PowerPoint ; for that I use the Apple versions.
I use Pages in Mac (no 3rd party apps in it) and I have a PC laptop with MS Office if ever I want to use it.
Great video Gary. One comment regarding that Apple Apps are free. If you need cloud storage, with Office 365 family, you get 6x1TB for $99 per year, which is way cheaper than iCloud + free Apps.
Thanks Gary for this really helpful video. I’ve been a Mac user for 10 years+ and always used MS apps. I’m now going to give Pages and Numbers a go. Your insights are always encouraging.
When I was a windows user my office program was Libre Office. And that I still use on my Mac Mini and MacBook. Works great. So I can work on the same documents with other people, for instance in DropBox and I don’t have to have two files (pages and docx) of the same document. As converting all the time is not ideal. That’s why I still haven’t managed to learn to work with pages and numbers and keynote. Problem is that I haven’t found a good app for my iPad. Advise is welcome.
Like I recommend in the video, you can use both. So maybe when you need to write on your iPad, use Pages.
I agree! I used to do a lot of work in Word and Excel. I still have them on my Mac, but now that I'm retired, I prefer to use Apple apps.
Yes, Excel is more powerful, but there is one very important thing I can do in Numbers that I can't do in Excel. They both have tabs, which I make extensive use of, but in pages, I can have multiple tables in the same tab. In Numbers, each table has its own column and row bars. I can change widths and heights in one table, and it doesn't mess up the layout of a table next to it. In Excel, you're stuck with one set of width and height bars for the entire tab. Maybe there's a way to do this in Excel, but I've never seen an example of it.
When I was a university student, I relied on Pages for note taking bc of how simple it is and its uncluttered look. It’s easy to hide the formatting panel. I noticed a lot of students were using Pages as well. I’ve never liked Numbers so I use Excel bc I’m more familiar with it. I have a hard time with Numbers for some reason.
I've had MS Office 2019 on both my MacBook and iMac for over 3 years after obtaining a volume license that cost me something like $50 (no subscription). I needed it to support old legacy version of data/files I had prior to my Macs when I ran Windows and found it easier to use over the Mac native versions (Pages, Numbers, etc.). I'll probably never upgrade them, nor will ever need to, as they do everything I need.
I would, however, give my right leg for a cheap full version of Visio! I miss it so much and was an expert at doing so for my job (network & data center engineering documents).
One thing I use in Numbers is the "Checkbox" column. Excel does not have an equivalency when converting a Numbers file to Excel.
After MS basically abandoning Publisher, I switched to pages. Word is brutal when it comes to inserting and editing images precisely in documents. There is definitely a learning curve but it’s well worth it.
I have a sub to office 365 but I've been trying to learn the Mac versions. Numbers in particular I like for smaller tables and graphs since the tables can be resized. Makes for a good print.
I was a MSWord expert since the 80s, until Windows 11 They now have an issue with their onedrive, it disappears and then you cannot save! Besides that, it is taking too much Ram and too much CPU power. I even switched to Mac with 16 GB Ram , and installed Office, just to be able to work with Word, and then I got a spinning wheel on almost every click. It was draining all my brain processing power. I am now using Pages and I'm finding more functions than MSWord, for 10% of the processing power. Anybody can do a test by looking at the Activity monitor with both Pages and Word open. I am finally saying goodbye to Word . I'm finding Your videos very useful for the transition. Thank you Gary!
I miss a referencing tool in pages. Except that pages meets my other requirements.
Thanks for this subject you have touched upon. One of the reasons for me to be tied to Mojave has been this: I am used to Microsoft Word. Tried to shift to Pages but found but was dissuaded from adopting it because I learned that the file sizes are more with Pages than Word documents. Regards.
The only thing I wish numbers had that excel does is the ability to highlight columns and use the tab to move around in just those highlighted areas
I work in a corporate setting that is MS centric and I use Apple (numbers, pages, keynotes) exclusively and import in and export out to the MS format seamlessly. I was. a MS user for years but like the usability and some of the features within the Apple suite better.
Pages, Numbers and Keynote blow Word, Excel and Power Point out of the water.
Excellent content! Thank you
There is one glaring issue with the MS suite for Mac: not all functions of the Windows version of the suite are available on the Mac versions. Would running Windows on the Mac solve this issue? It’s an added cost, but you do not have to have a Mac/Windows setup.
I downloaded a csv of my credit card transactions to use as the format for a budget, which I created both in Excel and Numbers. I found Excel to be the more efficient and straightforward of the two. The category grouping with totals in Numbers did not work as well as Excel table dynamic totals and weren’t very intuitive (as a Developer, I can speak to intuitive)
Very nice and concise comparison, so useful!
Excel over Numbers all day if you make paper output (printing). Especially for more than one page.
Good summary. Thank you. After a lifetime of Windows at work we subscribe to Office. However I have found Keynote to be better and more creative than Powerpoint. Some of that may be because most people are overloaded with Powerpoint presentations and Keynote’s look is fresher for them.
If there is another application out there that offers a navigation pane feature like MS Word’s, I haven’t found it. I spent the last few years trying to organize my writing in apps like Pages and Scrivener and the frustration was immense. I gave up and put MS Office on my Mac and my productivity is back where it needs to be. NOTHING organizes long documents as well as Word. If you create heading styles in Word the right way, then the navigation pane (formerly Document Map) shows you the indented heading hierarchy, which keeps your material organized as you’re writing it. If you’re a serious writer and your work involves more than stream-of-consciousness journaling then Word is a necessity. For that feature alone.
Pages did add a "Table Of Contents View" feature not too long ago. Haven't compared them though. ruclips.net/video/bkoT64COwx0/видео.html
@@macmost I tried so hard to make that work but it doesn’t allow enough levels and once three or so deep you can’t indent any further. Word allows up to nine I think, which is super useful even if they don’t all appear as such in the finished manuscript. And you can collapse them and reveal only the headings in the sections you’re working on. It’s weird because Word also has outline view of course. But even that doesn’t work as well as the document map/navigation pane.
Did you know that the venerable WordPerfect, which is technically still available, is purported to be superior for extended, text-dense documents? Unfortunately--indeed, regrettably--WordPerfect has received no meaningful development for twenty years. There's also Nota Bene; it's designed for use in academic settings to create and manage book-length projects
@@bcarr1122 I didn’t know that, no. I haven’t even thought about Word Perfect in decades. I’ll look at Nota Bene though, thanks 👍
Used to have Microsoft Office but somewhere in a Mac OS upgrade, lost or it wouldn't recognize my license. Wasn't going to do a subscirptiion. Went to Pages and Numbers, the more I used Numbers the better I liked it and FREE with any upgrades !!!
I bought office in 2013, spending 150€ and soon it was the old version. And other people i knew were still working with the even older doc format. So I had to export using doc instead of docx. Using Apple Numbers and Pages just made my life so much easier, if necessary for work I export to xlsx and docx, mostly I provide pdf. Privately I like making spreadsheets now and have a much better understanding of my finances.
Really excellent, Gary. I"m stuck with one foot in each camp (Mac & Windows)
Thank you Gary 🙏
Long time follower of Gary. Switched away from MS everything and PCs in 2010 when I retired. Now exclusively on MBAir, Studio monitor etc. I use Apples office quite happily after a long career on MS Office and cut my teeth on WordPerfect and Lotus! I’m that old!
Happy New Year Gary!
Actually I think Microsoft Office (now Microsoft 365) increased Mac’s use in the businesses community. It happened to me. I really enjoy my Mac computers but also make intensive use o Microsoft 365 including Outlook because it is very easy to have a logo signature in it. Microsoft 365 for Mac and optimized for Apple Silicon is really great.
It is a beautiful and powerful combination! Cheers!
I've never used Microsoft apps on my Mac, but I gave up on them on previous OS systems. The apps were not full featured in comparison to their operation in Windows. In addition, the apps were programmed to default to their OneDrive, whereas, with the MacBook, my Pages or Numbers files reside ONLY on my personal NAS and I don't have that fight with ICloud.
Apps are usually anemic because they must adapt to portable devices with limited storage and battery drain concerns. I get it. And, it's not just Microsoft, it's ALL companies.
Therefore, there's nothing better, in my opinion, then using a full featured application software product made specifically for that one OS. Word or Excel ARE powerful products on a Windows OS, but, in my opinion, not when operating through other OS's.
I fell in love with Pages and Numbers on my Mac specifically for their powerful, easier to use features that I found were either non-existent or difficult to use on Microsoft products. Pages is actually one of the main reasons I purchased a Macbook, specifically because of it's ease of operation, and I would not return to Word or Excel.
That said, it should be mentioned that the standard of the world in terms of documents and compatibility appears to be MS Office file formats. Although Pages and Numbers can export to MS Office file formats, there's no default setting to do this automatically, which is a little painful. While I consider the MacBook to be far superior to any other laptop on the market, it's, in my opinion, the issue with compatibility to the worlds adopted standards that continually holds Apple back from world market domination.
I appreciate the way Pages is designed, which is why I use it. Do I really care whether it's saved file format is Docx vs. Pages? No, I don't, but it's a problem with the rest of the world. Apple needs to provide the user with a programmable default so that our Pages will automatically save to the most common file format instead of using the exporting feature to do this.
Here is my take on Office and „iWork“. - Numbers is no match for Excel. When you deal with big data files, the page format of numbers is hindering any effective work with your data - and the hole way of working and formatting is much easier in excel. Writing letters in word has not the same advantage as excel over numbers but formatting headings and paragraphs gives word an advantage. But pages does have own features that are handy, placing of fotos, figures and videos and export to epub for ebooks. - If you have office work to do or have to work together with people who use MS-Office, MS-Office should be your choice over pages and numbers. But if this is not on your plate, you should cut your ties with MS-Office. Do every thing with the apple programs and deal with their shortcomings. Writing letters, using templates, that can easily be done with pages. For small tables numbers is sufficient. - It is no pleasure to have more than one tool for a certain task. - Meanwhile although this is another topic I switched to markdown programs like Ulysses for writing, especially for developing ideas.
In general, sure. But Numbers handles large tables very well too. Not sure what you mean by "the page format of numbers is hindering any effective work with your data." What "page format?" Are you referring to printing? Otherwise, you can have huge tables without a problem and there are no "pages."
I’ve had the Microsoft 365 for 5 people for about 15 years. I share it with my kids. Over 20 years ago I became certified in Office as part of my CE. I loved it found it very easy to learn. When I switched from Windows to Mac OS I tried Pages and Numbers. I found them very watered down and of no use to me.
Were there specific things that you found missing from Numbers?
I use both. I use iSuite for personal use and Office for work as that’s what we use there.
Which do you prefer?
You're right Gary, I admit it is a habit and sadly I live surrounded by Windows Eco system here in Peru. So it's office for me...
Excellent video tutorial today and very useful! Thank you, Gary! 👏🏻❤️
Loved the video and I would definitely class myself a pro-pages person. I really enjoy pages and find it much more compatible with the way my brain works. I wrote my masters and doctorate portfolios in it and then converted to a word document with no hassle. It also became the main programme for word processing and desktop publishing at my last work place because of its ease of use and handling of objects such as tables.
I've since learned how to use LaTex and now try to use this, however that's more of a personal challenge and hobby.
For me it's Pages and Keynote for documents and presentations due to their ease and friendliness of use. Excel for spreadsheets because it's just more powerful than Numbers.
Very nice video! Thank you!
I moved to mac a couple years ago, however could not get used to pages & numbers, so I kept word and excel.
I am a bit late to the discussion. But if I can add something... I teach a math intense class in college, and I started using Word and Powerpoint since I never used Pages, Number ans keynote before, despite having a mac for 10+ years. But then I had to add a lot of equations to the documents and presentations, and the eq. editor us okay for adding a couple of them, but very frustrating when you add a lot of equations and you have to edit them afterwards. Page and keynote open a box where you type an equation using Latex, and you are good to go, it is amazing! You double click on the equation and the box opens again and you can edit... Power point can do something similar using an extension called Iguana, but still is way easier in Keynote and Pages.
I use both (I do not use numbers, excel only), Apple and MS office, but for my teaching docs, it is easier IMHO with the Apple apps.
I am a fan of Pages and Numbers. I haven’t used office for years. I only do fairly basic stuff. I found adding media so much better using Apple utilities. What I really like is you can export to PDF without bothering about subscriptions.
I ditched Word when they switched file formats. I mailed those things home and opened them fine in TextEdit, which had a little helper applet on the Mac servers that automatically loaded to read and write whichever MS "standard" I needed to use that day. TextEdit is an overlooked masterpiece of simplicity.
I've been a Mac user for years. Just recently purchased Microsoft 365 and am very frustrated using it. It is missing a lot of the ribbon functions, particularly in design. Customer service doesn't have the answers.
Gary, love you, been watching for over a decade! Have you ever covered alternatives for MS Access on a Mac??
Very helpful video...now to actually get them installed and use them. I have not used any document program in about 10 years!
Very useful and practical advice. Thanks Gary!
Personally I find Pages and Keynote more than ok, Numbers not so much. Probably because I am pretty experienced in Excel. Luckily I have a Windows laptop from work, where obviously it's all Office.
I never did, Open Office is free and good enough for me. I don't use Apple's Office either. When I share with a Windows user, is safe as .rtf Totally fine. Doesn't cost a penny.
1) Does Ms excel comes with Power Query in Mac?
2) Can we Install Power BI in Mac?
Not at the moment. That is one thing that MS is SLOWLY rolling out, if at all, to the Mac version of Excel. I’m looking into buying a Windows machine/ version of Excel to do the advanced data operations.
Like many of the others commenting here I used Microsoft products at work for decades. Now that I'm retired I've adopted the motto that "Friends don't let friends use Microsoft." Partly this is a holdover from the days of the Apple "death spiral" but also because I resent having to pay a Microsoft tax each year to get software that I rarely use.
The only reason I can’t use Pages in because of citations management applications integration. Pages only supports Endnote which is expensive!
Thank you! Great information. I am looking at buying an iMac and have been wondering if I need to buy extra software and didn't realize information you shared.
If I've learned one thing hanging out in the Mac sections of reddit, it's that business people use Office the majority of the time. I've resisted subscribing because my office software needs are minimal, and the writing I do is perfectly suited to Pages, but I get the push if all of your colleagues are using a certain software. Seems a shame when Apple just gives them to you free, and many of these same people already own and use Macs themselves. But the Office suite is so prevalent, I've even seen government agencies insist written communication be in .docx format (which I satisfy with the Export option in Pages, as Gary suggests here).
In general the Apple apps are better and just as powerful to use as MS apps. The main issues are compatibility, and the lack of people who actually use the Apple apps. I like pages better than Word and used it for years. But it was a pain to export the document to Word to then see that fonts, graphics, pictures, dates, numbering etc, were off. It took more time to re-edit the word doc than it did to just use word. In addition it is very difficult to save these documents and then read them in word. There is no cross compatibility. So if I am at work and all I have is MS products and I need a letter that was composed in Pages. I couldn’t read it.
Tout à une solution.
Toutes les polices ne sont pas multiplateforme mais certaines oui. On les appelles des « Polices Web ».
Times, Georgia, Arial, etc…elles sont indiquées dans le Livre des polices.
As a physics teacher, the main reason to use ppt rather than keynote is the equation functionality.
Not sure what you mean exactly, but you can insert an equation using MathML or LaTex in Keynote.
I use both apple iPad and windows laptop, as most companies use windows it easy for me to do my work, windows easy of files
Another great video Gary! I work in Microsoft environment but all my personal is in Apple. I do find that there is power in the simplicity of the Apple apps in the form of efficiency. When I have to cross over and run an excel file from work it does have some capability issues with font viewing size and formula conversion.
This video was very helpful. Answered my long time questions and more. Very wise, practical and thorough coverage of this topic. Thanks Gary.
Very balanced and reasonable opinion. Thanks
I had to use MS Office at work and I would rather not deal with them now that I'm retired.
Yes, the iWork apps, Pages, Numbers, and Keynote do just about all I would ever need, but they're not entirely compatible with the ubiquitous Office documents.
For full Office document compatibility, I've found that the free LibreOffice suits all of my needs on the Mac without having to spend any money I don't have to.
I just recently came from microsoft and now using a macbook. I find pages very different and difficult to use. Hopefully I can persevere to learn it.
I’m a Mac user primarily, and find I prefer Pages over Word, but prefer Excel over Numbers. Numbers just seems slow and clunky to use sadly. But Pages is really good. I’d argue Pages is way better than word.
Thank you for this video, I have a pages doc and did not know I could export it as a word doc to send to others who do not have a MAC.
Thats a fair summary Gary, thanks for sharing.
I love Apple Suite however for school there's no way I can use it most school software will not recognize the extensions resulting in professors unable to grade work. It's a hassle to export all your files in a .pdf document every time you do a change. Hopefully that changes soon
Thanks gary. I am new to mac and was really worried about not being able to open pages and keynote files in windows. I don't want to purchase Office365 and you saved my subscription.