I am finally switching to MAC!

I use MS Office. I tried to use Pages and Numbers and Keynote, but the mental paradigm with how your format and interact with objects was just too much of a shift for me, and Numbers and Keynote (especially) have compatibility issues with non-Apple Office products, that MS Office on Mac do not. MS Office for Mac has come along way now, too, and is a pretty good program (2004 Office, for instance, wasn't that good). So, I'd go with the MS version. I just really wish Microsoft would release an App Store app for Word and Excel and Powerpoint, but I am not holding my breath for that one.

I understand the Mail app works wonderfully with Exchange Server, though there are differences based on which Exchange Server your company is running. You might want to find out, and Google the differences. If you're an iPad/iPhone user, the Mail apps on those devices also work wonderfully with Exchange, so on all 3 of my devices (MBP, iPad, iPhone), my e-mail is fully and seamlessly synced, which is very nice.
 
I've actually switched completely over to iWork from MS-Office. There's nothing I've needed to do that iWork didn't cover. There's probably features others need, I just haven't.
 
I've actually switched completely over to iWork from MS-Office. There's nothing I've needed to do that iWork didn't cover. There's probably features others need, I just haven't.

I couldn't get my brain to use iWork, but if you could -- what a great 1-2 combo with an iPad!
 
I use MS Office. I tried to use Pages and Numbers and Keynote, but the mental paradigm with how your format and interact with objects was just too much of a shift for me, and Numbers and Keynote (especially) have compatibility issues with non-Apple Office products, that MS Office on Mac do not. MS Office for Mac has come along way now, too, and is a pretty good program (2004 Office, for instance, wasn't that good). So, I'd go with the MS version. I just really wish Microsoft would release an App Store app for Word and Excel and Powerpoint, but I am not holding my breath for that one.

I understand the Mail app works wonderfully with Exchange Server, though there are differences based on which Exchange Server your company is running. You might want to find out, and Google the differences. If you're an iPad/iPhone user, the Mail apps on those devices also work wonderfully with Exchange, so on all 3 of my devices (MBP, iPad, iPhone), my e-mail is fully and seamlessly synced, which is very nice.

From my perspective, the one Apple productivity application that I love to the point of worship is Keynote. It is so easy, intuitive and fast to use. I have never had compatibility issues.
 
2. For your iMac, consider buying online from Apple, using the refurbished section of the store. All our recent Macs (work and home) have been purchased this way. Essentially, these machines are rebuilt to fix whatever ailed them, and they come with full warranty. Some great deals.

We bought our iMac refurbished a couple of years ago. I could see no evidence of prior use and it has not missed a beat (yet). I would definitely buy that way again.

App Store is a great idea and Microsoft Fneeds to do something similar. On the other hand, App Store interface still needs to be improved all across the board (Mac, iPad, iPhone, iTune). Apple needs to create more subcategories for the apps to make shopping easier. I also couldn't find a way to sort the apps (at least in the Mac version) based on ratings. Or price.

I couldn't agree more about the need for more subcategories in the app store, it really is quite difficult to find what you are looking for sometimes.

Do most people that use Macs run MS Word or use Pages? We use MS Word/Outlook/Excel/Powerpoint at work. But wondering if I really should invest on that or just use Pages. If I don't run Outlook on my MBA, does anyone know of any other apps that runs smoothly with a Exchange Server?

I use pages and numbers but my wife prefers to use office on the dark side (Windows via fusion software). The apple products are probably not as powerful as office but I find them easier to use.
If you already have access to windows software and a windows version of office then it would only cost you about $100 to buy fusion or parallels which allows you to create a "virtual hard drive" on your Mac that you can run windows through. This works quite well for us as our accounting software does not have a Mac version.
 
When I switched to Mac I insisted on Office mainly because I was use to it. But at the same time I retired and I didn’t have to communicate with the real world. Soon I was was relying on iWorks. First I never used Access so I never missed that. Next I was not a big user of Word but only a dabbler and once I got over the differences I found Pages so much easier to uses and while it didn’t have things like a math editor this didn’t bother me. Next was Numbers at work I was that Excel guru that had written thousands of lines of VBScript to run Excel. Once I was retired it was all about me an I never had to write another line of script and the end product with Numbers, sans script, was just awesome. Finally came Keynotes. At work I had written many presentations with Powerpoint and they were all outstanding so Keynotes had an uphill battle. My first Keynotes presentation was so easy to write and so much more striking to the audience that I never want to move back.

On the other hand my wife is or was a big Word, Wordperfect, and Coreldraw expert. I switched her to a Mac just before she had to start a group of projects. Two CDs, cover art , disk layout and a booklet for each CD and following that two 80 page booklets. She was not happy that there was no Wordperfect or Coreldraw. I asked her to try pages and if she didn’t like it I would spring for better software. She learned the program, with my help, and created her first CD in half the time she would normally have created it before. True she did some augmenting with Photoshop but not much. She is now a very happy convert and would not give up Pages if my life depended on it.

Like all software there are some limitations with iWorks but it is on h3ll of a program for the price.
 
With all software if you try something new it takes time to learn it.

As much as I am a fangirl for Apple stuff, I still have to use WORD for some school stuff, and it's pretty good on a Mac.

I Love Apple software for everything else tho, not much could beat it all and the price :)
 
When I switched to Mac I insisted on Office mainly because I was use to it. But at the same time I retired and I didn’t have to communicate with the real world. Soon I was was relying on iWorks. First I never used Access so I never missed that. Next I was not a big user of Word but only a dabbler and once I got over the differences I found Pages so much easier to uses and while it didn’t have things like a math editor this didn’t bother me. Next was Numbers at work I was that Excel guru that had written thousands of lines of VBScript to run Excel. Once I was retired it was all about me an I never had to write another line of script and the end product with Numbers, sans script, was just awesome. Finally came Keynotes. At work I had written many presentations with Powerpoint and they were all outstanding so Keynotes had an uphill battle. My first Keynotes presentation was so easy to write and so much more striking to the audience that I never want to move back.

On the other hand my wife is or was a big Word, Wordperfect, and Coreldraw expert. I switched her to a Mac just before she had to start a group of projects. Two CDs, cover art , disk layout and a booklet for each CD and following that two 80 page booklets. She was not happy that there was no Wordperfect or Coreldraw. I asked her to try pages and if she didn’t like it I would spring for better software. She learned the program, with my help, and created her first CD in half the time she would normally have created it before. True she did some augmenting with Photoshop but not much. She is now a very happy convert and would not give up Pages if my life depended on it.

Like all software there are some limitations with iWorks but it is on h3ll of a program for the price.

One thing to note on Pages -- it works MUCH more like a page layout app than a word processor. My wife was a Quark/Adobe user for page layout, and she could understand Pages better than I.
 
One thing to note on Pages -- it works MUCH more like a page layout app than a word processor. My wife was a Quark/Adobe user for page layout, and she could understand Pages better than I.

Wt

Thanks I should have pointed that out. When you first launch Pages you have many choices one is Word Processing the other is Page Layout. If you choose a Blank Template from either to the untrained eye they look almost the same and there in lies a problem as they behave differently.

My mother in law who is 85 has learned to pick the Word Processing blank template of Pages and produces scads of letters and is writing her memoirs, merrily is oblivious to the Page Layout aspect of the program. My wife on the other hand made her living as a graphic artist and is in love with the Page Layout aspect of the program and seldom uses the word processing aspects.

Both had help from me to put them on the right course and I had help from Linda.com who set me on the road to happiness.
 
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