We currently use Office 04 on our Mac. It's ok, but I find it's interface clunky and inconsistent. I also notice that it loads slower and seems to use more memory than native apps on our MBP. Also, my wife and I are PC users at work, and the interface in mac office is quite different so that's a pain. In fact, the only thing going for it is it's compatiblity with all our existing documents.

My question is, if we buy IWork, will it handle our word and excel documents, and allow us to work on our office work documents at home.

Can I flick office and just get IWork and banish MS off this machine?

It will open your word and excel documents fine, including the new .docx and .xlsx formats that MS is yet to make fully compatible on mac.

I haven't tested opening documents saved from pages and numbers in word or excel yet, however. perhaps someone else has?

a good move would be to download the trial as well and try it out...

I think some formatting and functions in Excel won't translate. My very simple spreadsheets opened without issues in Numbers. I prefer Numbers' interface over Excel by a huge margin.

Pages opens Word documents fine. Again, some formatting goes wild but that is to be expected.

I am also planning on using iWork as a substitute for MS Office. Keynotes just blow Powerpoint away in terms of 'Wow' factor. Important in presentations at conferences when EVERYONE uses the same PowerPoint template. Only problem is I have to lug around a Mac laptop.

Macros won't work either.

I'm transitioning from MS Office to iWork, and have been making headway for about 6 months. The recent upgrade to Pages has helped me out significantly and I think is now a much better competitor to Word than it was previously.

Keeping in mind however that I mainly use Pages for uni work and don't expect it to be a workhorse. I've had no problem opening Word Doc's with pages and hope to have Office gone by the end of the year.

I think if the plan is to import and export to and from Office on a really regular basis and if formatting and some of the advanced features are critical, then there's a chance you'll be disappointed.

As for me though... I used Numbers for the first time on a real job yesterday and it was great for what I needed.

I don't think there's much comparison between Office and iWork for the type of things I do... Keynote eclipses Powerpoint, and Pages is nicer than Word. As for Numbers and Excel... I'm not sure yet.

I use iWork and Office simultaenously. Unfortunatley, (and this will never be resolved), files generated in Windows Office just don't open in iWork (or anything that isn't Microsoft Office) properly.

If I'm making something that will go direct to print, or to PDF, or is for myself, or doesn't need to be edited by anyone without iWork, iWork it is! But if I have to pass documents on to others that need editing in Windows land, I load up Office or Excel.

I agree fully with decryption on this issue.

I occasionally have to use office:mac but that has become less and less since the new iWork. It is so much nicer than office, but about the only issues you will run into are formatting, which I have had a few times transferring to uni library computers to print stuff, eg. office:mac to office windows. Hence I now use .pdf and love it

As suggested, give the trail a go for 30 days and see if you can make the switch If you can, it is highly, highly recommended

According to Macworld, Pages now exports to Word format "almost flawlessly".

Slightly off-topic, Keynote now has an etching/masking tool that puts Photoshop to shame. Apple obviously has the technology for a Photoshop killer if it decided to release one.

I've stopped using Office 2004 for the Mac in favour of iWork 08, and made the decision to distribute all documents in 'pdf' format from now on.

Although I have Office 2004 - I have little intention of starting it again or doing updates to it. I also have very little inclination, at the moment, to buy Office 2008.

I've spent a week in Numbers and KeyNote for two presentations that are to be given tomorrow, and think that they suit our needs quite well.

i bought this the day it came out, and i've been using it myself quite regularly. however my sinister reason for getting it was so i could get rid of parallels off the gf's macbook as she only uses it for Office. She is a student and very proficient with MS Office especially word and excel. While I can tell her until the cows come home about the benefits of native mac software, ease of use, great design and better integration with my home network - she is still very much using office because she knows it inside and out. And for a student who has to knock out 3-5 essays a week as well as assignments its just not feasible for her to give up on Office now and spend the time getting to know iWork, as much as I'd love her to I do understand her reasoning and I sympathise with her and all users like her that have been forced into an MS Office world.