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If that's all you need, there's no sweeter word than free.When Apple released the 2013 edition of the productivity suite formerly known as iWork, it represented a radical departure from iWork '09 and earlier versions. Nonetheless, iWork is a good option for personal documents that don't require a lot of sharing. And stories I wrote in iWork had to be pasted into a generic format for editing. Numbers replaced some complex formulas I had in Excel with static numbers.īecause of this, and the fact that there are no stand-alone Windows apps, iWork isn't ready yet as a replacement for Office.Ī colleague in Korea had some trouble opening a Pages document I tried to share through the Web, so I had to copy text into an email message. It's easy to convert Office files to iWork and back, but you might lose formatting and formulas.

This is one shortcoming I hope Apple addresses before the online version leaves its test phase.

It's not automatic with Office, but at least it works. With Docs and Office, each side gets the other's changes. When two people try to change the same iWork document at the same time, everything stops until the document's creator chooses which version to keep. It's not as smooth or as versatile as the offerings in Google Docs. Microsoft wants to preserve Office as a selling point for its Windows tablets.

#Iwork for mac review android

And there's no Office app at all for iPads and Android tablets you're limited to a Web version that requires a constant Internet connection. With Office, the smartphone app is so bare-bones, I've hardly used it. Apple promises to bring some of the features back in the coming months. Some features, such as using files in Rich Text Format, went away. In fact, many long-time iWork users have complained that Apple adapted the Mac version too much to achieve consistency with iOS. The main change: Instead of finding options to the right, you tap various buttons to access them. The app will automatically calculate the results using five of the most-used formulas - such as 108 for 'SUM' and 18 for 'AVERAGE'.Īlthough some options and templates are missing from iPhones and iPads, Apple does a good job of keeping the iOS apps consistent with the Mac applications. I'm then shown where to enter the number to round and the number of decimal places to use.Īnother neat feature: Select a column of numbers - let's say, 4, 8, 15, 16, 23 and 42. With Numbers, I choose one from a list - let's say, 'ROUND'. With Excel, I use no more than a half-dozen formulas, mostly because I don't know about the others or can't be bothered to figure out the syntax.

#Iwork for mac review full

Click on any one for a full description of what it does and how it works. With spreadsheets, the palette on the right side presents all 267 options for formulas and calculations, arranged in categories. In a sense, the available features come to you, and you're invited to explore. Drag and drop a photo onto a Pages document, and you get image-editing tools such as cropping and color adjustment. Insert a chart, and you can adjust the gap between columns. For basic text, you get basic formatting options such as font and size. More importantly, those options change depending on context. With iWork, many of those options are moved to a palette on the right, which fills in the computer's horizontal screen much better. That's where you go to change fonts or adjust line spacing. With both Office and Google Docs, you primarily deal with a toolbox of options at the top. To use Office on multiple devices, Microsoft charges $100 a year. Otherwise, each of the three apps costs $20 for Macs and $10 for mobile devices, or $90 for everything.

#Iwork for mac review install

Once you get it, you can install iWork on older devices.

#Iwork for mac review free

The best part: iWork is free with the purchase of new Apple devices (the Mac version with new Macs and the iOS apps with new iPhones or iPads). It became my primary way of writing news stories at last week's Mobile World Congress wireless show in Barcelona, Spain. But after using iWork for a few months, I've come to appreciate the ways it simplifies work.

#Iwork for mac review update

Last fall, the iWork applications for the Mac - Pages for word processing, Numbers for spreadsheets and Keynote for presentations - got their first major update since 2009 and now work better with iPhone and iPad versions.Īpple also developed an online version that can work on Windows computers and let several people collaborate on a single document more easily.Īpple's iWork won't replace Office, and Google Docs is better in some ways.