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Apple iWork '08

Manufacturer: Apple Part number: MA790Z/A

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CNET Editor rating:
3.5 stars Very good
Average user rating: 3.5 stars out of 37 reviews

More product information:: Editors' review; User reviews; Specifications; Manufacturer info

Bottom Line:: Although Microsoft Office 2007 offers deeper features, particularly for number crunchers, Apple iWork '08 is a strong Mac productivity package and a pleasure to use.
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CNET editors' review

Apple iWork '08

price range: $69.98 - $79.99

Reviewed by: Elsa Wenzel
Reviewed on: 08/22/2007
Released on: 08/07/2007

The good: The new Numbers spreadsheet software rounds off this suite, which offers attractive and intuitive interfaces; solid new features for image editing, page layout and printing; applications integrate well with each other, with iWeb, and with Apple iLife; and they read Microsoft Office 2007 files.

The bad: Apple iWork '08 lacks an e-mail application; pivot tables and Visual Basic macros not supported.

The bottom line: Although Microsoft Office 2007 offers deeper features, particularly for number crunchers, Apple iWork '08 is a strong Mac productivity package and a pleasure to use.

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Apple iWork '08

The $79 iWork '08 is a solid deal for anyone needing an affordable office suite for the Mac. Apple has added the spreadsheet application Numbers, an elegant no-brainer for anyone migrating from Microsoft Excel. In the past, many Mac aficionados bought Microsoft Excel because iWork lacked a spreadsheet tool. However, with the addition of Numbers and the release of Microsoft's Office for Mac 2008 delayed until January, Mac users may stick to Apple's less-expensive option. We're also happy that Mac hasn't changed its file formats as Microsoft did with Office 2007. iWork applications can read Microsoft's new files, saving the work in the older format.

Setup and interface
The system requirements of iWork '08, thankfully, are gentle to users of older Macs. You'll need an Intel, PowerPC G5 or G4 machine with a 500MHz or better processor, in addition to a minimum of 512MB of RAM, running OS X10.4.10. Installation took about 10 minutes in our tests.

We like the sparse interfaces throughout the iWork package. Its features aren't as rich as those in Microsoft Office 2007, but iWork also hasn't changed radically from its last incarnation, unlike Office. iWork also covers much more than just the basic productivity tasks offered by online tools such as Google Docs & Spreadsheets or the Zoho suite, so it should be adequate for the vast majority of home and small-business users.

Pages
Apple seemingly tore a page out of Microsoft Office's book by creating a Contextual Format Bar that displays different features according to your task at hand. Select a block of text and the bar shows font options. Click on a picture and the bar displays image-editing features. Unlike the contextual formatting Ribbon interface within Microsoft Word 2007, however, Pages offers no live previews of font and image changes as you hover over them.

Pages '08 also adds Change Tracking, similar to the Track Changes feature adopted many years ago by Microsoft Word. We're glad that Pages gets this treatment rather than the often confusing revision and commenting history offered by the online Google Docs. Plus, Pages integrates tracked changes with those in Microsoft Word files.

Pages includes the usual must-have features for writers such as footnotes, bookmarks, dictionary, and thesaurus, as well as tables of content, in addition to integration with charts and functions from Numbers. Pages now detects when you're typing a list and formats bulleted points automatically. We just hope that this won't drive us batty, as it does sometimes in Microsoft Word. Plus, you can integrate Pages documents with an iWeb blog.

There are plenty of page templates for letters, resumes, reports, and the like to get started if a blank slate poses too much pressure. Page Layout mode lets you create relatively complex designs without software such as Adobe InDesign, great if you're throwing together reports for work. It lets you layer images on top of images too. The Instant Alpha feature, also found in Keynote and Numbers, lets you cut out backgrounds in images without dealing with alpha channels, a la Photoshop. And we prefer Pages' color wheel, crayons, and spectrum to Word's color options.

Keynote
Microsoft PowerPoint 2007 may be richer, but Apple Keynote '08 adds some smart features that PowerPoint lacks. It's also a breeze to figure out from the get-go. Keynote offers 39 themes for whipping together a presentation.

New Action Builds let you create basic point-A-to-B motion animation, without needing to deal with motion tweens as in complex apps such as Adobe Flash. Smart Builds enable animation, such as rotating photographs, using images you can grab from the iLife media browser. There are new between-slide transitions and slide show themes too.

New voiceover recordings enable you to, say, narrate podcasts with pictures--but with few controls. If you mess up a narration, you'll have to rerecord it. At least if that error comes on slide 5 of 10, you can start the rerecording from slide 5 and on rather than from the start.

Numbers
Our early look at the new Numbers reveals ease-of-use novelties that competitive tools don't provide. Microsoft Excel 2007 is more robust, particularly for number crunchers such as scientists, accountants, or engineers. Yet the majority of users who rely upon spreadsheets as one-size-fits-all tools for household and light office work should be pleased to have a new option for Macs. Apple has succeeded in getting Numbers to help you think outside the grid. With Numbers, you can pop little table grids and pictures onto a blank canvas instead of trying to fashion a canvas from a grid background.

Numbers comes with plenty of templates, including travel planners, business expense sheets, and school science lab reports. Of course, it can also save and export Excel-readable files. This application pleases the eye and can make attractive spreadsheets. We dragged around text boxes, images, and tables using alignment guides without a hitch. You can add 3D bar, pie, and other charts and even integrate maps into a spreadsheet.

The controls for working with tables were extremely user-friendly in our early tests. Slider bars allow you to adjust the numeric values within cells, handy if you're looking to add a range of values or make quick calculation estimates. Resizing columns and rows appears to be less of a hassle than with Excel. You can drag data from a file of contacts or into a Numbers table that will automatically partition information into the appropriate columns. And sorting a table smartly leaves the headers alone. Some 150 formulas appear to be the same as those in Microsoft Excel, but Numbers also has easy-to-find natural language shortcuts for common calculations, such as sums and averages.

The Interactive Print View offers more controls than in Microsoft Excel, which easily leads to unwieldy spreadsheet printouts. Numbers shows where a stray column might take up an unnecessary extra page. You can eliminate the overlap with a slider bar that instantly scales the tables, charts, and images on a page.

On the downside, Numbers doesn't support pivot tables from Excel spreadsheets. If you open these tables in Numbers, the data will remain intact, but they won't continue to pivot. You cannot use Visual Basic macros, either.

Service and support
We found the searchable help menus within iWork '08 to be thorough and to the point, and the video tutorials are good. Forums to interact with other users may be the fastest route to support. iWork buyers receive 90 days of unlimited free telephone support for installation, launch, or reinstallation. Three years of telephone support is offered for a hefty $49 per incident through AppleCare. Users can also seek help at the Genius Bars of Apple stores or attend free workshops offered by stores.

Conclusion
The inclusion of Numbers in iWork '08 makes this software bundle a stronger alternative to Microsoft Office for the Mac, which hasn't been updated since 2004. And although iWork lacks an e-mail application, Mail comes preinstalled on new Macs. Still, it's not as robust as Outlook. Yet unlike the iLife '08 multimedia suite, iWork does not eliminate features found in its earlier iteration. Instead, Apple has focused on making text files, spreadsheets, and presentations easy on the eyes and hands, both to create and to edit. The fledgling Numbers offers more than enough formulas for the majority of users. That said, workers who lean on heavy-duty spreadsheets for, say, engineering calculations should probably stick with Microsoft Excel.

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User reviews

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Average user rating: 3.5 stars out of 37 reviews
My rating: 0 stars

Showing opinion 1 to 10 out of 37

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5 stars

Huge Apple fan, It does some things nicely, but falls short

by reeltime on August 26, 2007

Pros: Keynote, excellent graphics

Cons: No e-mail client, Word is deeper, Excel is deeper

Summary: As a user of Powerpoint, when Keynote was released, it was a breath of fresh air. Keynote is the absolute standout in this office suite. Keynote is easier to use, ...

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Summary: As a user of Powerpoint, when Keynote was released, it was a breath of fresh air. Keynote is the absolute standout in this office suite. Keynote is easier to use, looks prettier, has better transitions, and it's easier to add photos and multimedia than Powerpoint. It's the best presentation software I've ever used.

Pages is Word... lite. If I'm typing a letter, I'm going to use word. If I'm typing a paper, Word's formatting is stronger. Apple does have great templates, and on-line video help is strong. But Word really rules the word-processing world. The notebook in Word is fantastic, and I use it often, especially when keeping notes on a meeting. I love its audio recording capabilities. If I were Apple, I'd strenthen Pages in specific areas. Word is a very poor environment to write a script for video or film. I'd make Pages very script friendly. Allow a user to access columns independent from each other. Apple has stong video apps, allowing script integration through Pages, linking scripts to Final Cut or iMovie easily would make Pages more acceptable. Pages just falls short in a lot of areas.

Numbers is missing templates, there are only a few. The charts look great, but for basic spreadsheets, Excel is wonderful, and I'm not certain of where Apple is trying to place these apps in the market. Perhaps they have better small business and hope application than in an actual office setting.

Entourage. Where's the Apple answer? Certainly Mail is nowhere near as fleshed out as Entourage, and I still can't bring myself to switch.

Where's the project management software? Entourage is great at keeping documents and e-mails, addresses and phone numbers pertaining to a project linked up for easy access. To do the same in just an Apple environment, I'd be opening iCal, Address Book, Mail, and Pages, just to do the work of Entourage.

So it gets a 5, because the select things it does it does well, but it's not an Office killer. Keynote is the really the best entry and worth the 80 bucks. I love Apple, I work exclusively on the Mac, but these apps are more like toys and amusement than actual productive applications... except, of course, Keynote.

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6 out of 7 users found this user opinion helpful.
4 stars

Bring back AppleWorks!

by Stephen Reese on August 26, 2007

Pros: Keynote is the best presentation software available

Cons: Totally lacking the intuitive Macintosh user interface

Summary: I bought the original iWork '06 and the new iWork is a dramatic improvement. One noticeable difference is the speed improvement in using Pages. Commands are snappier. However, the entire "...

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Summary: I bought the original iWork '06 and the new iWork is a dramatic improvement. One noticeable difference is the speed improvement in using Pages. Commands are snappier. However, the entire "Inspector" pallet paradigm is poor as it leaves some formatting only available in the menu. Apple could really learn from Microsoft's floating transparent pallet that keeps you from going to the menu bar. Also it is insane that the Font selection dialogue box does not display the fonts in addition to their names. This is interface 101. What gives? The same is true in iMovie and the rest of the iLife suite of applications.

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5 out of 6 users found this user opinion helpful.
9 stars

Perfect?. No, of course. Still fabulous compared to Office

by damonr on September 6, 2007

Pros: Makes doing presentations, docs and spreadsheets easy and fun

Cons: No windows version, some interoperability issues

Summary: Compared to Office this whole package is a joy to use. Sutre it has a learning curve - it's not actually Office so it does things a little different. ...

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Summary: Compared to Office this whole package is a joy to use. Sutre it has a learning curve - it's not actually Office so it does things a little different. However the interface has been designed from the ground up based on how people (certainly ike me) actually do things. If you're a power user for any of the Office apps, then no, this probably isn't for you. For everyone else though, this is one hell of an improvement. Bring on a Windows version.

It's a pity the opening and saving of Office docs isn't a little better and more streamlined though.

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3 out of 3 users found this user opinion helpful.
8 stars

Actual a good review

by Swiss in Zurich on August 24, 2007

Pros: Good value for money

Cons: No Open Office compatibility

Summary: Have used iWork since inception, this is clearly the best version yet.

Pages:
P: I like the new split between page layout/word processor.

C: I would prefer that you

...

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Summary: Have used iWork since inception, this is clearly the best version yet.

Pages:
P: I like the new split between page layout/word processor.

C: I would prefer that you could save as a document rather that export.

Keynote:
P: Great transitions and special effects.

C: Files sizes can easily become large.

Numbers:

P: Easy of use, great layout and print view.
C: No password protection of sheets

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2 out of 2 users found this user opinion helpful.
8 stars

Excellent, intuitive, package that does most things Office users want, and some things better

by Rod Hagen on September 3, 2007

Pros: Clean, intuitive, interface. Makes tricky things easy.

Cons: No database or direct interchange with Filemaker or Endnotes.

Summary: I started using MS Word with version 1 and stuck with it through to Office 2004. I had a lot of "investment" in knowing how to do things with it....

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Summary: I started using MS Word with version 1 and stuck with it through to Office 2004. I had a lot of "investment" in knowing how to do things with it.

Today, though, I find I pretty much always use Pages for word-processing unless I have a powerful reason for sticking with Office. The new version has pretty much completed my "conversion".

Simply put:

1) if you are putting together a substantial document requiring extensive integrated graphics, neat text wrap, variable formatting and the like, it is easier and faster to do with Pages than with Word.

2) If you want to simply whip out a simple few pages some purpose, Pages still wins because of the clean, simple, user interface.

"Keynote" has always had the edge over Powerpoint. Even PC "hard noses' that I work with usually prefer me to whip their stuff into Keynotes and then use it from my Mac rather than leaving it in Powerpoint.

"Numbers" is new, and still needs the addition of some bells and whistles for full "compatibility" and "functionality", but it, too, makes good presentation a breeze compared with Excel. Not for the hardest nosed number crunchers yet, perhaps, though it is still a very powerful program for such things, with an excellent set of functions, but it beats the pants off Excel if you want to produce something quickly with numbers or tables that actually looks good.

I'd still like to see proper integration with Filemaker, or perhaps a Filemaker compatible database component added, though

All in all, I'm very impressed. For many Mac users it really makes sense as the "first choice" for a work package, not because it is cheaper than MS Office, but because it actually does many things better and more intuitively.

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2 out of 3 users found this user opinion helpful.
9 stars

80% of Microsoft Office's features is what we need 100% of the time

by LinuxAddict2010 on August 26, 2007

Pros: Fantastic documentation, improvement over previous version, compatible with MSO '07

Cons: Pages is unstable; Numbers is lacking in features for scientists (or science students)

Summary: As a user of iWork '06, I felt that the suit lacked polish and could use an overhaul, especially in the word-processing/page-layout part, Pages. When I saw that Apple ...

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Summary: As a user of iWork '06, I felt that the suit lacked polish and could use an overhaul, especially in the word-processing/page-layout part, Pages. When I saw that Apple did the Right Thing? and split the functionality into two modes of Pages, I was overjoyed. As a heavy Pages user on both ends (word processing for university, page layout for most everything else), I was glad to see that the parts of the program I needed were there when I, well, needed them, and the parts I didn't need were safely tucked away.

And I'm even happier to see that there's the addition of a spreadsheet with many of the same layout features as Pages. Numbers is a refreshing change from Excel, which I used before. I'm not a statistician, nor am I a scientist or engineer or accountant, so I don't need (likely) 75% of what Excel does. A fancy table with the functionality of a four-function calculator and a bit more is all I need 75% of the time, and Numbers offers a healthy dose of functionality in an easy to use package.

As for Keynote, it's been my only presentation software since I started using it. Its presentations are gorgeous, a large improvement over the templates included with PowerPoint '04. And being able to cobble together a presentation, complete with graphs, charts, images, and movies, within the space of an hour (plus time spent coming up with ideas) is certainly a boost.

The suite offers the experience of using a stripped-down version of Microsoft Office, which isn't to say that anything essential is incapable of being done by iWork -- if you need to do it, it can be done in iWork most of the time -- just that it's not the bloatware that is Microsoft Office. One thing I would like to see added is an image editor along the lines of The Gimp, only Aqua-native, and a database application along the lines of the one in AppleWorks, so that I don't have to use Excel or Numbers as my personal database (for cataloging software, DVDs, and suchlike things).

It's excellent software, and the value cannot be beat.

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2 out of 3 users found this user opinion helpful.
9 stars

Vastly better than Office 2004 for Mac

by keithlucas on October 4, 2007

Pros: Superb presentations and beautiful documents

Cons: No email/project centre application

Summary: I have been using iWork06 and, more recently, 08 since switching from PC to Mac a year ago. I was disappointed to find that every MS Office programme was systematically ...

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Summary: I have been using iWork06 and, more recently, 08 since switching from PC to Mac a year ago. I was disappointed to find that every MS Office programme was systematically inferior on Mac compared with PC. PowerPoint (which I used a lot) being particularly difficult to use without the slide view (iWork08 even has this feature on Pages). I have found the switch to iWork08 to be refreshingly easy and I am frequently surprised and delighted by discovering clever new features that had always been missing from Office. Best of all, the presentation quality using Keynote and Pages is dramatically superior -from the fine control of leading and kerning on Pages to the superb graphics, animation and transitions of Keynote.
The only thing missing is an email application. I rather liked Outlook 2007 on PC but found Entourage 2004 totally exasperating (grindingly slow, cannot edit emails with Word, poor junk email control, tiny font display size on my MacBookPro, hopeless search facility... etc, etc.) so I finally took the 'retrograde' step and switched to Mac mail/ical/address book... it's not perfect but I haven't regretted it for a second - it's so much nicer to use.
If Apple could just could create an email/project centre app to trounce Entourage (shouldn't be too great a challenge!) I can relax in the knowledge that I need never buy another (exorbitantly expensive!) MS product again!

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1 out of 1 users found this user opinion helpful.
3 stars

Most college students can buy Office Professional 2004/2008 for $69.95.

by Cyborganizer on August 24, 2007

Pros: It is $39 with a student discount.

Cons: It is not compatible with any college class in any college I attended. I would need to buy Microsoft Office also.

Summary: Most colleges sell Microsoft Office Professional 2004 for only $69.95 and Office 2008 will be the same price when it is released. Why pay $39 for iWorks to make ...

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Summary: Most colleges sell Microsoft Office Professional 2004 for only $69.95 and Office 2008 will be the same price when it is released. Why pay $39 for iWorks to make files not compatible with anything other then a few computers found in the Mac labs. It is not a good idea to send files to your professor he cannot open, unless you want to fail the class.

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5 out of 11 users found this user opinion helpful.
8 stars

Nice alternative to MS Office

by themacdaddy on August 26, 2007

Pros: Stable. Does what it's suppose to do.

Cons: None (now I have to fill in useless text since there's a 10 character minimum on these comments.)

Summary: First of all I want to say that I'm losing faith in CNET based on reviews like this one. To say that one of the drawbacks of iWork is ...

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Summary: First of all I want to say that I'm losing faith in CNET based on reviews like this one. To say that one of the drawbacks of iWork is that it lacks an email client is just painfully stupid. Apple already makes a mail program that competes very well with Outlook, and it comes free with every Mac. And "Offers no live tech support" is almost as stupid. Who needs tech support for a productivity application?? Just stupid.
iWork does what it's suppose to do, and it's 100% stable (so far). The only thing I don't like is having to re-learn an interface, after being so use to MS Office. But that's just the nature of the beast when you change programs. I'll get use to it.

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4 out of 9 users found this user opinion helpful.
10 stars

Just what you need

by Sabroson on August 23, 2007

Pros: Has everything you need for your documents to look good

Cons: It is priced too cheap?

Summary: Documents made in iWork just look way better than what you can do in Office.

Keynote presentations look far better than presentations made in Powerpoint...

The desktop publishing features in

...

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Summary: Documents made in iWork just look way better than what you can do in Office.

Keynote presentations look far better than presentations made in Powerpoint...

The desktop publishing features in Pages are far more flexible than what you can find in Word, and the new spreadsheet is more than enough for 99% of what you do on a PC.. as most of us do not use VB scripts on spreadsheets.

For $79 it is a very good deal ... and the $99 5-pack version is definitely a steal.

Add the iLife package to it and you have an awesome system.

For those that say that it lacks email... well.. let me tell you... OS-X comes with email, calendar, address books... and everything else... so it is NOT necessary for redundancy to be included with iWork.

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2 out of 4 users found this user opinion helpful.

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Specifications

Manufacturer: Apple
Part number: MA790Z/A
Description: Apple's amazing productivity suite for the Mac, iWork '08 includes three applications: Pages '08 for word processing with an incredible sense of style; Numbers '08 for powerful, compelling spreadsheets made easy; and Keynote '08 for cinema-quality presentations for everyone.

General
Category Office applications
Subcategory Office applications - word processor, Office applications - presentation
License pricing Standard
Software
License Type Complete package
License Qty 1 user
License Pricing Standard
Platform MacOS
Distribution Media CD-ROM
Package Type Retail

System Requirements
Min Processor Type 500 MHz
Peripheral / Interface Devices CD-ROM
System Requirements Details Apple MacOS X 10.4.10 - PowerPC G4 - RAM 512 MB - HD 1 GB

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