Everyone Favorite Office Suite?

Started by YungKnowledge July 20th, 2012 9:19 PM
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  • 19 replies

Hybrid Trainer

Age 28
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«UK»
Seen April 12th, 2023
Posted January 27th, 2022
2,096 posts
14.5 Years
I use the latest stable release of Microsoft Office on my windows partition because that's the most commonly used so I won't have to worry about anything going wrong when I save a file. I know that you can save as .doc and sometimes .docx in other office suits but in most of my work I tend to format it in certain ways and place images in places using the above text position setting and there is always the chance that something will go wrong when I open it back up somewhere else and I'll have to spend another hour or so tweaking where everything is placed. I also have Libre Office on my Xubuntu partition, but I hardly use that unless I want to save a document that is password protected and that usually isn't often.

Gerri Shin

  

Male
Burbank, CA
Seen February 17th, 2014
Posted April 13th, 2013
3,575 posts
15.9 Years
I've got both; Microsoft Office 2010 on win 7 and iWork on Mac. For every day things and stuff I need special formatting on, I use iWork. (If I truly need special formatting and I'm working with a fair few images, I'll fire up Adobe InDesign)

I've use Open Office in the past, and I still recommend LibreOffice to anyone looking for a good full featured free office suite, but for my usage, I've found that the commercial suites work for my purposes. I'm actually Apple certified to teach iWork and I got MSoffice for free, so that's why it's listed.
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Archer

NSW, Australia
Seen January 26th, 2020
Posted January 5th, 2020
3,956 posts
16.6 Years
I'm actually Apple certified to teach iWork and I got MSoffice for free, so that's why it's listed.
So out of the two, which do you prefer? I found iWork a little bland and limited, but maybe that's just because I didn't give it a fair shot. In terms of Pages vs Word for Mac vs Word for Windows, how do they all compare?

Cheers.

At the moment, I'm using Office 2011 on Mac and Office 2010 on Windows (trying out 2013, though)

Tsutarja

Age 28
he / him
Florida
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Posted 14 Hours Ago
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13.2 Years
I loved the preview of Office 2010 when it came out, but unfortunately, I didn't have the money to get 2010 (nor do I to this day, really). I don't use Office too much to always need the latest builds, so for now, I use Office 2007 Student (Word, Powerpoint, Excel and OneNote (which I dont even use)). I may consider trying the Office 2013 beta on my laptop later on, though and possibly consider an upgrade towards the end of the year.

Archer

NSW, Australia
Seen January 26th, 2020
Posted January 5th, 2020
3,956 posts
16.6 Years
I loved the preview of Office 2010 when it came out, but unfortunately, I didn't have the money to get 2010 (nor do I to this day, really). I don't use Office too much to always need the latest builds, so for now, I use Office 2007 Student (Word, Powerpoint, Excel and OneNote (which I dont even use)). I may consider trying the Office 2013 beta on my laptop later on, though and possibly consider an upgrade towards the end of the year.
If you're happy using Office 2007, then there's no real reason to upgrade to 2010. It was nowhere near the leap that 2007 was from 2003. From what I've found, 2013's biggest selling point is integration with SkyDrive. That's pretty irrelevant for me, as I write directly to my Dropbox.

Gerri Shin

  

Male
Burbank, CA
Seen February 17th, 2014
Posted April 13th, 2013
3,575 posts
15.9 Years
So out of the two, which do you prefer?
It really depends on the task[s] you want to do. iWork has the best integration with Mac so it gets points for that, and the simplicity of formatting (once you figure out the Inspector pane) is second to none. I'd probably recommend iWork if all you're really going to be using it for school/University work or need something on a reasonable budget for Mac. (though, as I said in my previous post, if all you need is a basic office suite, LibreOffice is free and still pretty good.)

If you're absolutely needing true cross-platform compatibility and work with Windows systems or you need to do serious business work, then Microsoft still has the Office suite that works great. It has a few more features and options that Pages lack, but you're only going to need/utilize them in a corporate setting (much better Exchange integration than Mac OS) However you pay the MS premium for it.
Also, I've Found that Microsoft support for their Mac products tends to lackluster, at best, in getting timely updates out. You also get more programs with the Windows versions of the software, Mac users only get Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Messenger, & Outlook.

I won't get started on my views about messenger, but believe me, there's plenty of reason to loathe that specific app.
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Tsutarja

Age 28
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Florida
Seen 5 Hours Ago
Posted 14 Hours Ago
27,327 posts
13.2 Years
I wound up trying the Office 2013 beta for myself last night. Didn't like it at all, to be quite honest. It has that Windows 8 "feel" to it (the color scheme) with mostly 2D colors and 2D icons. Also, the background can be customized by choosing a set theme from inside the program, but I'm not sure if you can use your own themes for this either. With their own themes, the background is a bit white for my liking since it nearly blinded me when trying to type in a word document. Also, the smooth typing feature that it has (not sure if this can be disabled) could be a bit lagging and annoying for those who type a bit fast, such as myself.

Legendary Silke

You like dragons?

Seen December 23rd, 2021
Posted April 22nd, 2020
5,925 posts
12.5 Years
I think I really, really like Office 2013, given that I've tried out Word, PowerPoint and Outlook. I think this is actually an interface that I can get behind, seeing as everything is not that cluttered anymore, and I actually find writing blog posts using Word 2013 easy as pie, without the mess that is in-browser typing. Outlook also syncs my mail like butter.

I think when 365 Home Premium rolls out, I'll gladly get a sub for, well, at least three years, and use the 2 out of 5 to install on my computer (OS X and Windows), and another two for dad and my old desktop.

Hybrid Trainer

Age 28
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«UK»
Seen April 12th, 2023
Posted January 27th, 2022
2,096 posts
14.5 Years
I think this is actually an interface that I can get behind, seeing as everything is not that cluttered anymore.
I'm the complete opposite here, I absolutely detest the new interface they created. I can agree that it looks less cluttered, but the colours that they've used really hurt my eyes. A pure white background with black or dark grey text on it can really play havoc with some people and make it a real chore to read off of especially if it's on a computer screen since the white is illuminated more.
I haven't actually used this package yet but from what I've read and seen so far I can see that all the themes for it don't actually change the colour scheme of the package, and that is the only flaw I can see in this and the only reason why I wouldn't be buying it.

Legendary Silke

You like dragons?

Seen December 23rd, 2021
Posted April 22nd, 2020
5,925 posts
12.5 Years

I'm the complete opposite here, I absolutely detest the new interface they created. I can agree that it looks less cluttered, but the colours that they've used really hurt my eyes. A pure white background with black or dark grey text on it can really play havoc with some people and make it a real chore to read off of especially if it's on a computer screen since the white is illuminated more.
I haven't actually used this package yet but from what I've read and seen so far I can see that all the themes for it don't actually change the colour scheme of the package, and that is the only flaw I can see in this and the only reason why I wouldn't be buying it.
Microsoft Office 2013 works in tandem with Windows' own High Contrast colour schemes. Using any of the light-on-dark High Contrast themes will cause a complete colour palette change on the interface. Same goes for the black-on-white HC scheme. Do note that icons may look like they belong in Office 95, though.

Mr Cat Dog

Frasier says it best

Age 32
Male
London, UK
Seen September 29th, 2017
Posted July 12th, 2017
11,344 posts
19.1 Years
I currently have Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 and it's probably my favourite one out of all the Office Suites I've used (both for Windows and OS X). It's clean, simple to use, and has caused me the least stress out of any office suite software that I've encountered. No bugs, no crashes, nothing like that. I'll admit that I don't do an awful lot of fancy stuff with it - just basic word processing/spreadsheet stuff - but it's very good at the simple stuff, which is all right by me.

Elite Overlord LeSabre™

On that 'Non stop road'

Age 97
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Posted January 25th, 2022
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15.5 Years
MS Office 2010. Sometimes I still wish I could return to 2003 because IMO the interface (particularly for MS Word) was easier to use for me, but that might be my familiarity with Office 2003 talking there. Used it for pretty much every paper and report I had to do for college xD

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Legendary Silke

You like dragons?

Seen December 23rd, 2021
Posted April 22nd, 2020
5,925 posts
12.5 Years
Are you using Office Starter or something? Because normal versions of Office are certainly not free.
And I do believe that he is using Office 2010, too, as the Starter Edition only exists for 2010.