Does Mac Office '08 work with iPages?

[parkpointer]

I have Parallels on my iMac so that I can utilize MS Office 2000
programming. I edit a monthly newsletter and find that MS Word and
Excel along with Publisher invaluable tools. Recently with the advent
of a new improved version of Office for Mac, I am considering getting
Mac Office '08 to be able to stay on the Apple side of the computer.
Does anyone know if Mac Office '08 is compatible with iPages '06 or
'08?

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

I'm a bit confused by your question--what do you mean by compatible?
Pages will open Word docs, I think Numbers opens Excel docs, and Keynote
opens PowerPoints. I think all three will also File | Export to the
Office formats. But Office won't open or export to iWork formats. But if
you are planning on owning both, why would you need this? It's kind of
like you asked "is an SUV compatible with a Prius?" They are different
tools to get to more-or-less the same places, and which is better for
you depends on how you intend to use them.

If you mean is it possible to have both programs installed at the same
time, yes, no problem. I've been known to have 3 or 4 word processors
open at the same time.

 

[parkpointer]

I'm a bit confused by your question--what do you mean by compatible?
Pages will open Word docs, I think Numbers opens Excel docs, and Keynote
opens PowerPoints. I think all three will also File | Export to the
Office formats. But Office won't open or export to iWork formats. But if
you are planning on owning both, why would you need this? It's kind of
like you asked "is an SUV compatible with a Prius?" They are different
tools to get to more-or-less the same places, and which is better for
you depends on how you intend to use them.

If you mean is it possible to have both programs installed at the same
time, yes, no problem. I've been known to have 3 or 4 word processors
open at the same time.

I guess what I'm asking is: can Office for Mac open or edit files
previously created in Office 2000 for pc and/or Pages files? I would
like to retain previous file documents for reference and possible re-
use.
I see that Office for Mac does not include Publisher, but recent
updates of the Word portion of Office has given some of the attributes
of Publisher to Word. Thereby eliminating the need for Publisher in
those respects. I never really used all of the capabilties of
Publisher anyways, so I probably wouldn't see the differences.
My other concern stems around the fact that Office 2000 programs are
also in need of updates, and MS hasn't issued any since later Office
Programs have been released.

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Your Word, Excel, and Powerpoint files will open fine in both MacOffice
2004/2008 and iWork (Pages is just the word-processing part of iWork).
There might be some adjustments if you used certain complex features,
and people have had problems with cross-platform graphics. But both Mac
and Win Office used the same basic file format from WinOffice 97 to
MacOffice 2004.

But you'll want to keep Office 2000 in Parallels for Publisher anyhow
(or to export the Publisher files to Word), so that will always be a
backup if necessary.

Probably better to use Pages to replace Publisher than Word, by the way.

MacOffice will *not* open your Pages/Numbers/Keynote files, but you can
use Pages/Numbers/Keynote to Export into the MacOffice format.

 

[CyberTaz]

Any updates to Office 2000 will be available from here:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/downloads/CD010224971033.aspx

Just don't expect to see any further updates released for that suite.
--
Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

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