Over the last few calendar month I have been looking for a worthy replacement for Microsoft Office on my Mac . This really has nothing to do with the fact that I ’m a Mac user — which means that by legal philosophy , Imusthate Microsoft intersection , right?—but more to do with the fact that the cost to upgrade is fairly high for the belittled amount of use I get out of it , and that the current version play like a pawl on my Mac Pro . The reasons I must have an office entourage are wide-ranging , but even as clothes designer and content Creator , we are in a domain that live on Office , so we need something on our Macs that get us live in that world .
My independent needs were rule a successor for Word and PowerPoint , since I have to be able to open Word and PowerPoint files . After looking at several options to replace Word , such asBean , BBEditand a few other shareware and freeware apps , I happen them all to be either under - featured or otherwise unsuited for what I involve . I at long last settled on Apple ’s latterly promote iWork office suite . And , with the newly released iWork ’ 08 , I think I have finally find a solvent that fit my needs .
Pages as a simple layout tool
Pages has brought the one thing I felt was missing from the former version , which was putting all the most used features ( for me anyway ) on to the toolbar or else of swallow up deep in the exclusive “ catch - all ” Inspector pallette they were stop in before . Things such as case , flair , full point size , color , coalition , spacing , columns , list option and more are now always visible and accessible right where you ask them without cluttering the screen unnecessarily . It ’s unadulterated for write my articles forCreativeGuy , the Creative Notes blog you ’re read now and most other simple journalistic needs . But where it really strike is the page layout features .
As a professional designer , I process in Adobe InDesign . But sometimes I need to allow for pageboy layout in applications my node and my category can open . Adding image , audio and video to Pages is drop - beat simple either via the iLife integration or by round-eyed puff and drop . A fast trial run using one of Pages ’ many work up - in template shows that the papers I created in Pages count virtually identical when unfold in Microsoft Word , requiring little fussing to clean up . you’re able to see the comparison below .
It ’s sure not perfect , and if you ’re doing a lot of work back and forth with clients , you would be better off owning a transcript of Microsoft Office . But for the occasional pauperism , iWork fits the pecker just ok .
PowerPoint ≠ Keynote
PowerPoint in general just defies everything we as designer are used to doing and how we do it . Keynote just match decent in to my work flow . The power to export your Keynote presentations as a Quicktime moving picture , PowerPoint presentment , Flash data file , hypertext markup language file , or PDF assure that even those without Keynote will be able-bodied to view your introduction . This establish it perfect for build a digital portfolio to distribute on CD or DVD , or for creating presentation when you have your laptop to hook up to the exhibit and can use Keynote to power the presentation .
you could export your presentations to PowerPoint , but it ’s not really something you require to do for anything more than the most dim-witted of presentations . Transitions and animations really do n’t exchange to PowerPoint very well . Again , if you have to do this on a regular fundament — to produce a denounce presentation templet for a client , for exercise — you’ll be dependable off with a copy of Office .
Both Pages and Keynote have been feed very smoothly and have proven to be quite static no matter what I ’ve thrown at them . I do n’t desire to voice like an Apple fanboy , so I will say that there is room for melioration in both applications . nonaged tweaks here and there will eventually descend , and the apps will continue to get better . But for now , they ’re all I need and more .
You now get a spreadsheet software with iWork ’ 08 , call Numbers . I ’m not a numbers kind of guy , so I have n’t even open up the program , but my married woman has already used it and differentiate me it ’s not up to sniff to replace Excel on the business concern level . She also tell me that it is quite adequate to for most home motivation .
At only $ 79 for a single - drug user license and $ 99 for a 5 - pack , Apple has priced iWork ’ 08 sharply and I expect that it will stay that way . For a freelance designer or even a modest design firm , it ’s a perfumed deal .
[ James Dempsey runs theCreative Guyblog , which offers tips , tricks and opinion on a variety of figure issue . ]
