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TwitterI’m trying to determine which one I should buy please don’t let cost come into your answer, I just want to know which one is better.
what is better iwork or Microsoft office for mac?
July 15th, 2010 
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Posted in Microsoft Office for Mac Review 
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I’ve heard good things about iWork, but the main issue I think would be compatibility. If you’re sharing files, the majority of people use Office. Other than that, you can get an iWork trial and you can compare them yourself.
MS office. plus it’s pretty universal, depending on job duties, it’s what employers will want you to have experience in. colleges use it, when submitting a paper they’d like it to be in that file type.
MS Office is universal and pretty good. Open Office is more universal and better. (And it’s free and you’ll be supporting the open software initiative.) http://porting.openoffice.org/mac/
Microsoft Office has the largest feature set – it’s easy enough for a beginner but you could write a book for publication with it. Microsoft Office is the most compatible suite for Windows office. Microsoft Office is a Macintosh application as is iWork. OpenOffice is not as robust, and is a Windows application that is ported to the Mac. iWork does not include such things as Project Gallery, Project center, advanced graphing tools, and hundreds of other features included in Microsoft Office.
I use both. If you aren’t going to think about cost, you should also get both.
If you can’t afford both, get iWork. It can export files as Office compatible file types. I do it day after day and share them with Windows users (my students and fellow teachers) who have no problems using the files. In my Keynote presentations, some of the amazing transitions are way beyond what Powerpoint knows how to do, so it plays them with substitute, simple transitions. The features of iWork are generally much better and more intuitive than those of Office. Even so, I find a few quirks of iWork that make me use Word or Powerpoint at times. I probably use Pages for 80 percent of my word processing and Keynote for 99 percent of my presentations.
Even if a Windows user does not have Microsoft Office installed, the basics of any iWork file are exported as a package file (in iWork ’08) or as a zip archive (in iWork ’09). That means they appear as a simple folder or as a zip file in Windows. Inside are the various basic components, such as “filename.jpg”, “filename.mp3″ or “filename.pdf” that the Windows (or Linux) system can display with simple and free applications, such as Adobe Reader. It lacks the dynamic qualities of the full PowerPoint presentation, but it provides the basic info for free.
I am amazed that anyone would think Office has the largest feature set. Any competent comparison will show that there are dozens of ways you can create presentations in Keynote that can’t be done in PowerPoint. I am also amazed that anyone would think iWork isn’t compatible with Office. Those folks just don’t know how to export Word compatible and PowerPoint compatible files from iWork or how to open Word and PowerPoint files with iWork. Using tables in Word has always been like roping a wild calf in a rodeo, but it is very straightforward in Pages.
Quote from the Apple article linked below:
“Can I open Microsoft Office documents in iWork ‘09? What about saving my iWork ‘09 documents in Microsoft Office format?
Yes, Pages, Numbers, and Keynote can open and save Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents. If you use a PC at work , or if you exchange documents with PC users, sharing documents with iWork ‘09 is no problem. You can also use iWork.com (currently in Beta) to share your documents with others for viewing or downloading, using a Mac or PC. Microsoft Office does not share some of the layout and multimedia features found in iWork ‘09, so you may find dissimilarities between your original iWork ‘09 documents and exported Microsoft Office documents. iWork ‘09 can read the new Microsoft Office Open XML documents.”