Apple Apple iWork ’08 – Old Version

Although I once worked on a G4, I’ve been primarily a PC user for years, as that is what my employer has for me. We purchased an iMac for our home a few years ago, as Apple products have such a great reputation for reliability, and they claim to be more “intuitive” than PCs. Some Mac-users we know claim they are too. However, if you are used to using PC software, primarily Microsoft, you will find Mac programs are not so intuitive. In fact, you may find them extremely limited. I feel I have to jump through more hoops with the iMac to accomplish the same things (if I can do it at all) that I would do on the PC more easily. When you want things to happen fast, even one extra step or click required can be maddening. Even if the iMac is less prone, or immune, to viruses a PC may get, and even if it is less likely to freeze up, I’m not as happy with the way the Mac software functions.

I don’t use Numbers or Keynote at home, so I can’t speak for those. I work mostly with word processing software, and Pages just doesn’t offer the same easy access to funtions that Word does (although with the new Word 2007, I’m disliking that in some respects too). There are fewer printing options available, and printing documents in Pages or off the Internet is an exercise in frustration. Forget about printing selected areas of pages off the Internet, or formatting web pages to fit onto single pieces of paper, or printing with black ink only on a color printer (not sure if the last problem is our new Snow Leopard OS, as we used to be able to print only in black ink). Pages does not allow you to display many function buttons in your tool bar, and those available are extremely limited. They offer about 50 (of which you may display about 32 if your screen spans across the whole monitor), most of which I would never need, whereas Word offers a couple hundred to choose from. There’s not even a Save or Save As button for the iMac toolbar, and everyone uses that! To access most formatting functions, you have to open a submenu, called the Inspector, but that is an extra step I don’t wish to go through.

I haven’t tried anything creative with Pages, but judging by how unhappy I have been with simple text formatting, I don’t even want to bother. At least Pages recognizes Word documents and will open them, but it’s inconvenient to have Pages documents when someone you want to forward it to doesn’t have Pages to open it. I wish I could save documents as .doc files in Pages. If I wanted to forward a resume to a potential employer, I wouldn’t send a Pages file, so I’d have to get it to a PC to convert and send it. What an inconvenience. I looked into getting Word for Mac, but it’s expensive, which is why we went with iWork. Now that I’ve tried Pages, I’m going to have to get Word and forget about using Pages.

Apple store had given me the wrong advice, I actually needed the iWork ’09 for what I was trying to get. So the ’08 was basically a waste of money since Apple ended up having to send me the ’09, since it was their mistake.

Good

I sure needed this because my Mac didn’t have a word processor or ways to do presentation. Price was right

I bought this item after purchasing it on e-bay. It came from e-bay without a box, without instructions, without help from Apple. True it was only $20, but I learned a lesson. Never again will i buy from any source if Amazon has it. From Amazon it came in a box with reg. #. I was able to install it easy, and even update it from Apple without a hitch. Excellent Price, excellent software.

It couldn’t to run on OS 10.9.3 Maverick. I had to upgrade to iWorks 09. Like all old software it needs to be upgraded also. I wouldn’t up grade to Maverick again, Leopard and Snow Leopard work just fine if your Mac is 5 years old or older.

Soddisfatto, articolo arrivato puntuale. Software completo come suite d’ufficio con un approccio intuitivo ma non semplicistico tale da poter soddisfare le mie necessità.