First, count your blessings.

I’m very, very, very lucky to have access to two of the best work suites available to Mac users. First up, there’s iWork — Apple’s own suite that includes Numbers, Keynote and Pages. For many of the PC loyalists out there, Pages is Steve Jobs’ answer to MS Word; Numbers is Excel; and Keynote is Powerpoint.

Putting it like that, though, seems a little off. I’m not saying that they’re exactly alike. In fact, there are gazillions of differences between what iWork and Office for Mac 2008 can offer. I experienced both suites first hand, though, so I suppose I can give at least a brief comparison of the two. So, deep breath, and here goes.

I switched to Mac early this year. My baby, MacLovin, is not even a year old. I loved it immediately, and wanted nothing more to do with Windows-based applications. After all, Mac has everything, too. Almost all, of course, since some programs are still entrenched in Windows, but at the very least, my needs and some wants are covered.

However, since a lot of my clients are using Windows, I have no choice but to find a way to convert my documents. I downloaded Neo Office and it did do the trick, but I hated the interface. It was absolutely difficult to change the page set-up and settings just messed themselves up time and again.

So I finally found a way to get my hands on a copy of iWork and Office for Mac 2008, and promptly deleted my Neo Office installation.

First up, Office for Mac 2008. New switchers will love Office for Mac, simply because it offers familiarity. It’s almost entirely similar to Office XP, so using it won’t be a problem. Plus, I suppose Microsoft got inspirited a bit, hence the lovely and colorful interface that made the suite aesthetically-aligned with Apple’s usual layout and design.

With Office for Mac 2008, you get MS Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Messenger and the unique Entourage. It works a lot like Outlook, but without the usual glitches. With an easy to use layout and an interesting dashboard assistant, I found Entourage the most fascinating of the bunch. I’m used to Word, etc., so it was really Entourage that got to me. I promptly added my gmail account and dealing with junk mail has been a non-existent issue since.

On the other hand, there’s iWork — Apple’s superior response. I say “superior”, not just because I’m a fangirl, but because it really is. We get Keynote, Numbers and Pages, three excellent services that combine writing with publishing. With MS Word, it’s all about encoding, and that’s that. With Pages, the goal is to be able to present your document in the best way possible, so you hit two birds at once. And oh, Keynote just wins hands down. Transition is seamless, more options for slide layout and presentations — it trumps Powerpoint by a mile. Lastly, Numbers is the best I’ve seen so far. It has several layouts to choose from, ranging from Personal to Business. Can’t figure out how to keep a budget record? No need to think about it. Numbers has got you covered.

What interested me most was the Grade Calculation sheet. I’m hoping to teach by next, next year, so seeing this grading sheet really tickled me. All you have to do is select the template, enter the data and it calculates final grades for you. How’s that for cool?

The only thing that defeats iWork? It’s completely incompatible with Windows. I wouldn’t really mind that if my clients (and my workplace) didn’t still use Windows, but on that matter I really have no choice. My documents need to be client-accessible; otherwise it’s all pointless.

So verdict? iWork wins, but you do have to take Windows-integration into consideration. Right now I’m using MS Word a lot (since I’m a freelance writer), but I’m working on my personal budget using Numbers’ template. I’ll also be using Keynote for my school presentations soon.

It’s a bit of both for me, really, though I much prefer iWork.

Until everyone switches to Mac, though, I have no choice but to plod on.

Tags: apple, iWork, keynote, microsoft, neo office, numbers, office for mac 2008, pages