iWork '09 Family Pack [OLD VERSION]

I'd be hard pressed to find anyone who hasn't used the Microsoft Office suite, so I can't help but compare iWork to it...and by doing so, I can't help but feel like Office does a lot of things better. That's not to say that iWork is bad, or you can't be productive with it, but I just still feel like I'd prefer to use Office for most of my big document creation projects. Here's everything broken down:SHORT VERSION OF REVIEWGet it if you prefer to stay in the Apple environment--it will do pretty much everything you'd ever need out of a document creation app like this. But if you're heavy on document creation and used to Office, I think you'll feel like iWork is quirky at times, and can be annoying/counter-productive.LONGER VERSIONEach of these bundled apps (pages, keynote and numbers) are really very good. Like I said, you can easily feel productive with them. I do most of my document creation using them and it works pretty well. These apps also benefit from being tightly knit into the Apple ecosystem, so you get an experience that feels in-line with everything else on your Mac. Personally, that's a big plus for me--I love feeling like my OS is all one single experience, without having to think much about why one application does one thing, and another doesn't.OFFICE/IWORK FILE FORMATSThey play pretty nicely with one another. I'm 90% sure Office won't open native iWork file types, but you can easily save all your iWork documents as the older 97-2003 file formats (no x at the end) and open them up in the respective Office app. The conversions are usually spot-on. Typically I find that fonts don't work (not a big surprise) and sometimes it may complain about a special type of formatting, but other than that, it plays real nicely between the two programs. It also always tells you when a document is opened that things were changed/missing, and lets you review those changes--so you at least get a heads up on anything that may be quirky.Finally, one other thing that is somewhat annoying about the iWork application is that if you open up a word document, for example, and then edit it, and try to save it--it more or less forces you to save it as a .pages. Sure, you can click "save as Word copy" and save it and that'll work. But if you then try to exit the application, it'll prompt you again to save it, because it wants you to save it as a .pages document. That's annoying--I usually end up having to maintain two copies of everything. One as a word document, and one as a .pages document.ONLINE DOCUMENT SAVINGSo right now there is an online documents beta that is integrated into iWork. I personally love this feature, and it's so much easier to use than any current implementation of Office online. You just click 1 button, and check a few settings, and it uploads it to their site--you can even have it send out an email to people you want to share the document with. They can add comments, make changes, download it in 1 of 3 formats that you specify (.pdf, .pages, .doc for Pages application), etc. It's still beta, so there are a lot of missing features I'd love to see implemented, but it works real great for easy document sharing.IPADI also own an iPad, and so being able to work with native format documents between the iPad version of iWork and the full blown desktop version is nice. I can easily move documents, edit them, etc, using iTunes. The iPad version also lets you upload to online to Apple's iWork site, which is real nice.TIMES WHEN I LIKE OFFICE BETTERThis is the one time so far when I had to simply switch into Windows and use Office--for document editing/change tracking, etc, in Word. I really prefer the way Office handles document changes and change tracking. Pages does it by adding a huge stream of comments on the left side that indicate what all was changed, instead of doing in-line markup like Word does. That may be fine for a few changes here and there, but if you heavily edit a document and open it up in Pages, your screen will feel crammed with comments, and it's hard to trace them to the changes being made. It feels messy, and not very productive.Other times when I prefer Office (but don't feel the real need to switch to it) is when I'm doing outlines in Pages. Word does a fantastic job of working with outlines, and properly predicts/changes the outline according to changes you make. Pages does an okay job--creation it works, but once you begin editing or making changes to the outline, you will typically end up doing a lot of manual work to update tabbing, indents, etc.SUMMATIONIf you're looking to stay inside the Apple ecosystem, I would recommend this purchase. The family pack pricing is also pretty great. I have it installed on two macs, which was a breeze. Also, of note, is that if you are still on the fence about this application, they have a downloadable trial that you get for 30 days. I'd highly recommend doing that before committing to any purchasing. (available on Apple's site)

I bought the old version intentionally after learning that the newer one got some pretty bad reviews after Apple had taken several features out of the programs. They did this before on iMovie, and after one lousy version, put the features back as well as added a couple of new features, due to user backlash and dissatisfaction. It's my hope that a later version of iWork (not 11) will happen that way as well.The reason for my purchase is that I had a very OLD version of Microsoft office for Mac (2004), and after upgrading my system software, it finally broke. I don't use the office apps much (mostly Word and Excel) but had several documents I still needed and newer versions of Office only work for ONE user/system and I have three, and were VERY expensive. The alternative was to buy their new limited "one year license" which has to be renewed every year and for something I use so sparingly isn't worth the cost. I tried the free Open Office but it totally messed up the Excel documents I tried to import, so I looked for iWork options.As I stated above, the reviews of the latest version of iWork and this older one, convinced me that the older one was the way to go. I am a fairly knowledgeable user, but don't use the programs a LOT. But this imports my Excel and Word files just fine and there are some really great features in Pages that I like as well. I think this will last me for many more years before I'm forced into another upgrade.

Probably everyone who has done word processing or spreadsheets has used Microsoft Office. I finally got so fed up with Windows constantly crashing that I moved to Apple. I haven't used Explorer for ages because you couldn't run it with Vista unless you wanted to reboot every 5 minutes. Safari and Google Chrome work great. I finally made up my mind to abandon all things Microsoft (it's easier than you think). I got an 27" iMac and just recently installed iWork on it. My first document was to create an invoice. I used one of the templates and had one saved in a matter of minutes.Having bought an iPad and iPhone prior to this, I'm happy to say that the ease of use and stability of the programs is such a welcome relief. iWork has everything that most users will ever need or want. I found Microsoft Office to be increasingly hard to navigate and a bit clunky. They've tried to throw everything, including the kitchen sink, into the programs and made it a dreadful experience to work with. At least that has been my experience in the last few years. Microsoft Windows and Office is facing increasing competition, and it's about time.I'll update this review, even with negative comments, if I find anything particularly annoying, or even if something works particularly well. The bottom line is: buy this product. You will save lots of money from Microsoft's exorbitant prices, and your computing experience will be much more enjoyable. I would buy it over again. I'd give more than 5 stars if I could. Remember, you can install this on up to 5 computers. That's about $12 for each computer. What a great deal!

I'm new to Macs and I haven't used iWork before, so I can't compare '09 to anything previously. But I love the way the word processor and the numbers programs work. Coming from an Office 2003 background, I found that I was able to pick up the applications and use them right out of the box. I do have Office 2003 running in a VMWare fusion Windows XP image, but I much prefer using the iWork products to the Office ones now.My only small complaint would be the needing to remember to "save as" a Word document if you want to be able to send the files to a Windows user to work on. The pages or numbers formats are the default for the iWork applications, so working together with a windows user on the same document can sometimes mean two of the same documents (one in Word and one in Pages, for example) are floating around.All in all a great product and well worth the price!

This is a bundle of three programs for Macintosh: Pages (word processing and page design), Numbers (spreadsheet), and Keynote (presentations). None are as powerful as their Microsoft counterparts, but all are easier to use, and they look and feel better on the Mac. I have used Numbers and Keynote with no complaint, but not often. I love Pages, which I use for most of my word processing. It translates back and forth from Word with ease. A great feature is the search function, which lists in a column all the instances of the search term. Clicking on the items in the column moves you through your document. Much, much better than trolling back and forward through the document with "find next". I would give this five stars, except Pages lacks a keyboard shortcut for adding a footnote, which can only be done with the mouse and a pull-down menu.

Having recently upgraded to a Mac Book Pro, I had to get this package. It was Keynote, which is Apple's equivalent to PowerPoint, that really interested me. Is it any good? How does it compare?I didn't realise how primitive PowerPoint was until I used Keynote for the first time. Its templates, animation, and transitions are simply amazing. The students that I teach photography to immediately noticed the difference, I could tell, as their jaws hit the floor. It adds a whole new dimension of professionalism to your presentations.Would I recommend it? Is the Pope Catholic!!

Having used Microsoft Office for many years, I find Iwork different.It is a good product, Apple products always are,but I still prefer Office due to my using that software for so many years. In fact, I have installed Microsoft Office for Imac to have the benefit of both software systems.

bought as part of a package of items for a family friend going to teach in China. Haven't opened it but IO am sure it will be OK

This is a GREAT product and it came fast. For anyone with a Mac, (and why would you even want a PC?), this is a must for everyone.