I was a long time Microsoft user mainly because work was Windows based and Word, Excel and PowerPoint were what we all used. Now I’ve retired, I find I’m using Pages and, to a lesser extent, Numbers. Happily, the Macmost courses are exactly what I need to show me how to use the Apple apps.

I am retired and don’t need the complexity of the Microsoft products any more. I am planning to use the Apple apps completely in future. My main reason is they are free!

I find the Microsoft 365 Personal plan, at $70/year to be a good deal, because you get 1 TB of cloud storage as well as access to all of the Office products. I still use Excel instead of Numbers, since that’s the product we always used in the business world. I have, however, gone over to Pages instead of Word, which I always found to be way too complicated.

Good summary Gary. Some things from my experience: 1. I was a big Dragon dictation user (with PC Word) for many years, and initially there was nothing that came close to this on a Mac so ended up using a Windows VM in Parallels which worked fine. Over recent years, though, Apple native dictation into Pages has become almost as good - certainly good enough for me and I am a hard core writer. I also find that PDFs generated by pages somehow look nicer than those from Word. 2. I still use a Parallels Win VM for Excel though. This is to support a range of 10-15 year old VB macros that run very slowly in native Excel on the Mac if the there is a lot of number crunching involved. For day-to-day spreadsheet stuff though, I actually find Numbers more pleasant to use. Apple has done a good job replicating most of the Win Excel keyboard shortcuts. As a tip, I find mapping the modifiers to behave like a native Mac if you have to use Parallels (which is pretty easy to do) 3. We do a lot of charting of data for reporting purposes and Keynote is massively better for that, both in terms of chart creation and the quality for the final output (I would never embed a chart from PowerPoint into a published document, but Keynote graphics are fine). 4. I get sent a lot of PowerPoint presentations by other people (outside the company), but I find PowerPoint itself horribly cluttered, messy and intrusive nowadays, so I generally just open files once and save them as PDFs for general access. If I need to edit the content for my own purposes, then I generally convert it to Keynote and tidy it up. Lastly, as a general comment, when we (mostly) ditched MS Office, we were concerned about exchanging documents with clients for review. We found, however, that providing clients with drafts in PDF format works really well. Everyone can mark up a PDF and best of all, clients can’t tamper with (and screw up) your content - they can only comment :) Summing up (based on my and my teams’ experience): MS Office does more, but once you switch to a simpler environment, it seems unnecessarily complex and clunky when you go back, and the output doesn’t look as good.

There are several differences between Microsoft Office for Mac and the Windows version people. Don't expect to do everything exactly the same way. I often lost a lot of time on the web looking for a way to do so to finally discover that the feature I needed didn't exist on Mac.

As usual, Gary, you are one of the most objective and clearest explainers on KZfaq. I am trying to transition to Pages after years of using Word and am doing so with the "crutch" of LibreOffice. My eventual goal is to do everything in Pages and save files in different formats in the end. I am now getting through your great Playlist of Pages Tutorials.

I haven't used Microsoft Office for 15 years, and I don't miss it one bit.

But one could also use LibreOffice, and I'd like to see a comparison here. Many thanks for the concise explanation!

As a professional I used MS Office from inception until 2010 (retirement.). There is no need to give MS your personal data if you don't have to use MS Office due to employment related reasons. I am perfectly happy wiht Apple's apps. Some features I missed at first, and felt awkward trying to learn a new system, but, overall Apple does everything I need.

For the last two decades I was a MS user. Now I have transitioned to Pages and Number , and I find them much better because they lack the frills, and are absolutely user friendly.

I use LibreOffice on all my machines, Linux, macOS, and Windows.

I've found that Pages scales a lot better on my 13 inch M1 Macbook Pro when I tile it to the right while doing research with Safari tiled on the left. I also find it a lot more aesthetically pleasing and less cluttered than Word.

A good summary. For the last 10 years of working life ( MS based) I used both systems when needed but one you didn’t mention is Keynote. I used it exclusively ( mainly because you were presenting with it rather than sharing.) I found it far superior to PowerPoint.

Hi. I found Numbers to be the most different to office suite, namely Excel, than the other ones. For small documents, I like the fact that in numbers you can easily arrange different tables and graphs. This is less aesthetic in Excel with the spreadsheet that covers the whole page.

Thanks for the video Gary. I finally pulled the plug on MS OneDrive and Office apps this months after years of using MS. Once I switched to all Apple a few years ago I use Pages and Numbers exclusively. I’m not a power user of office apps for personal use and the Apple office apps are more than powerful enough for what I need.

Having recently retired, I don't have to worry about sharing files with colleagues, so Apple's apps work great for me - they've got more than enough features for my needs, are simpler to use and easier on the eye. I keep LibreOffice as a standby in case I get sent any problematic MS Office attachments/forms, but so far I've not needed it.

I second the notion of using LibreOffice!

A very comprehensive overview. I handle the accounts reporting for our residents assn using Excel because I know it so well from using it daily at work. I tried hard to do the same with Numbers (for free of charge) but it didn’t have all that I needed. It did however create charts more easily but overall I stay with Office which incidentally is also compatible with iPhone and iPad, and couldn’t be happier.

I use libre office, it's free, compatible with Microsoft Office files and can do everything both options do.

I have used Microsoft Office for over 20 years on Windows. I was doubly surprised when I installed my Office 2019 pack on my very first Mac in 2021 (a 24-inch iMac). 1) my one-time Office 2019 license for Windows is perfectly compatible, I was able to download my purchase from my Microsoft account and import my license without having to buy a new license and 2) unlike Office on Windows, Office updates frequently in the background on my Mac. However, I prefer to use the mail app rather than Outlook because I find Outlook less well integrated on Mac and more complex to set up. The mail app is so much easier to use!

I like Google Sheets and Pages. Your videos are really making my transition from windows to Mac bearable. Keep coming back for the stuff I'm forgetting. Thanks dude.

What I tend to find as someone well within the walled garden who also works in a small business, Apple apps for personal use, Microsoft for professional. Numbers is perfect for my home finances, pages for CV/resume writing, and since work pays for the Microsoft apps I use them strictly for work-related business.

Thanks Gary for this really helpful video. I’ve been a Mac user for 10 years+ and always used MS apps. I’m now going to give Pages and Numbers a go. Your insights are always encouraging.

Yes, you should have Office for Mac if you intend to engage with the big, wide world. Otherwise, I think Pages is a lot easier to use than Word and just as good if not better in some ways. It's improved exponentially through the years, and it will only get better. Keynote blows PowerPoint out of the water. As a company Apple does a far better job of respecting user privacy than Microsoft.

Great video Gary. One comment regarding that Apple Apps are free. If you need cloud storage, with Office 365 family, you get 6x1TB for $99 per year, which is way cheaper than iCloud + free Apps.

One plus to MS is scripting. It is easy to just record your actions to reuse, you can’t do that on an apple. We import automated data, what we call ROP (Routine Output Printer) logs that you have a large simple text file that are kicked out by cellular systems. We need to parse the data to see trends, call failures, dropped calls, handoff failures, etc. Excel and Word are easy to script on, numbers and pages are not.

I used MS Office (mainly Word) when I was working because I had a copy supplied by my employer. I continued to use it (along with Apple's apps) after I retired until changes in OS/X meant I had to get a new version. I didn't want to pay the stupid subscription so I switched over entirely to Pages and Numbers. I find that they are more than adequate for my needs and, as you say, much easier to use (especially Numbers). I also have LibreOffice for those rare occasions when I need some bit of functionality that Pages or Numbers doesn't have.

First computer: Osbourne. First GUI OS: Windows 2.0. However, this loooong time user of Microsoft is now totally fed up with them. I have switched to Mac. I will ONLY use Mac software and no longer be held hostage by Microshit. Love your tutorials, dude.

I just love the way you explain things Mr. Gary. I have seen this clip number of times. Thanks.

Our family is all Mac/Apple. When my kids went to university I subscribed to Office365 Family for the Office Apps and the cloud storage. Nowadays its Apple One Premier. The reason I still subscribe to Microsoft365 Family is for the enhanced email. We all have Outlook email addresses and I like the enterprise grade security.

2:08 ".. the most powerful .. on the market." That is very subjective, and might not be true. LibreOffice is a very good, maybe the best alternative 'app'.

When I transitioned to mac from windows world, I had issues getting Microsoft office to function correctly. I do not subscribe to Office 365. But, having said that, I did install LibreOffice, the old open office. I found out it was easy to transition from Microsoft Office to LibreOffice. Plus, LibreOffice maintained the format of my files and document.

I use Numbers and Pages for my private documents because it's much easier to use it for me and for all the other reasons (Handoff, Collaboration with others etc.) At work because we use Windows Machines I'm stuck there with the MS Office Apps. The Problem between MS Office on Windows and on the Mac is, they are 2 different Programms. So lot of functionality that you have on windows doesn't mean you have them also on the Mac version.

When I was a windows user my office program was Libre Office. And that I still use on my Mac Mini and MacBook. Works great. So I can work on the same documents with other people, for instance in DropBox and I don’t have to have two files (pages and docx) of the same document. As converting all the time is not ideal. That’s why I still haven’t managed to learn to work with pages and numbers and keynote. Problem is that I haven’t found a good app for my iPad. Advise is welcome.

I just started this week to migrate from Excel to Numbers. The current Office license I have comes to an end. I think that for my purposes Numbers is a good alternative for Excel.

I don’t like windows, but love Excel … so use it on my Mac. Even if it’s only 80% of the Win-version. I tried Numbers but it’s not the same. Don’t need Word or PowerPoint ; for that I use the Apple versions.

I use Pages in Mac (no 3rd party apps in it) and I have a PC laptop with MS Office if ever I want to use it.

I like that you you state that MS Word and MS Excel are the most powerful. I am using MS office on my Mac Mini, iPad and iPhone. I do use Apple Numbers for converting my contacts to CSV for transfer to the Apple Contacts. I cannot get Excel to convert the contacts to CSV properly. contacts will not recognize the CSV files from Excel. (i.e. I have both Numbers and Excel). Overall a very non partisan view of MS office vs the Apple Apps.

I agree! I used to do a lot of work in Word and Excel. I still have them on my Mac, but now that I'm retired, I prefer to use Apple apps. Yes, Excel is more powerful, but there is one very important thing I can do in Numbers that I can't do in Excel. They both have tabs, which I make extensive use of, but in pages, I can have multiple tables in the same tab. In Numbers, each table has its own column and row bars. I can change widths and heights in one table, and it doesn't mess up the layout of a table next to it. In Excel, you're stuck with one set of width and height bars for the entire tab. Maybe there's a way to do this in Excel, but I've never seen an example of it.

Thanks for this subject you have touched upon. One of the reasons for me to be tied to Mojave has been this: I am used to Microsoft Word. Tried to shift to Pages but found but was dissuaded from adopting it because I learned that the file sizes are more with Pages than Word documents. Regards.

One thing I use in Numbers is the "Checkbox" column. Excel does not have an equivalency when converting a Numbers file to Excel.

As a physics teacher, the main reason to use ppt rather than keynote is the equation functionality.

After MS basically abandoning Publisher, I switched to pages. Word is brutal when it comes to inserting and editing images precisely in documents. There is definitely a learning curve but it’s well worth it.

Thanks bunches. When I first got my Mac, I installed Office 360. But you talked me into learning Apple apps. I have found once the learning curve has passed, I so much more enjoy Apple apps. The subscription of 360 automatically renewed a couple of months ago. Next year, I will not renew.

I have a sub to office 365 but I've been trying to learn the Mac versions. Numbers in particular I like for smaller tables and graphs since the tables can be resized. Makes for a good print.

Good summary. Thank you. After a lifetime of Windows at work we subscribe to Office. However I have found Keynote to be better and more creative than Powerpoint. Some of that may be because most people are overloaded with Powerpoint presentations and Keynote’s look is fresher for them.

I miss a referencing tool in pages. Except that pages meets my other requirements.

Happy New Year Gary! Actually I think Microsoft Office (now Microsoft 365) increased Mac’s use in the businesses community. It happened to me. I really enjoy my Mac computers but also make intensive use o Microsoft 365 including Outlook because it is very easy to have a logo signature in it. Microsoft 365 for Mac and optimized for Apple Silicon is really great. It is a beautiful and powerful combination! Cheers!

The only thing I wish numbers had that excel does is the ability to highlight columns and use the tab to move around in just those highlighted areas

Really excellent, Gary. I"m stuck with one foot in each camp (Mac & Windows)

Thank you! Great information. I am looking at buying an iMac and have been wondering if I need to buy extra software and didn't realize information you shared.

I've had MS Office 2019 on both my MacBook and iMac for over 3 years after obtaining a volume license that cost me something like $50 (no subscription). I needed it to support old legacy version of data/files I had prior to my Macs when I ran Windows and found it easier to use over the Mac native versions (Pages, Numbers, etc.). I'll probably never upgrade them, nor will ever need to, as they do everything I need. I would, however, give my right leg for a cheap full version of Visio! I miss it so much and was an expert at doing so for my job (network & data center engineering documents).

Loved the video and I would definitely class myself a pro-pages person. I really enjoy pages and find it much more compatible with the way my brain works. I wrote my masters and doctorate portfolios in it and then converted to a word document with no hassle. It also became the main programme for word processing and desktop publishing at my last work place because of its ease of use and handling of objects such as tables. I've since learned how to use LaTex and now try to use this, however that's more of a personal challenge and hobby.

When I was a university student, I relied on Pages for note taking bc of how simple it is and its uncluttered look. It’s easy to hide the formatting panel. I noticed a lot of students were using Pages as well. I’ve never liked Numbers so I use Excel bc I’m more familiar with it. I have a hard time with Numbers for some reason.

You're right Gary, I admit it is a habit and sadly I live surrounded by Windows Eco system here in Peru. So it's office for me...

I am a fan of Pages and Numbers. I haven’t used office for years. I only do fairly basic stuff. I found adding media so much better using Apple utilities. What I really like is you can export to PDF without bothering about subscriptions.

Microsoft Office is the primary tool for business. Without it being fully functional on an iPad, it's not much use.

I use both. I use iSuite for personal use and Office for work as that’s what we use there.

I work in a corporate setting that is MS centric and I use Apple (numbers, pages, keynotes) exclusively and import in and export out to the MS format seamlessly. I was. a MS user for years but like the usability and some of the features within the Apple suite better.

Excellent video tutorial today and very useful! Thank you, Gary! 👏🏻❤️

Great video that clearly explains two top options for an office suite on the Mac. One issue I have with the macOS version of Microsoft apps is that there are two sets of menus: one along the permanent menu bar and the other inside the Office app. To me, it's super confusing. I think the macOS versions of Office apps should not have any options in the menu bar at the top of the screen, other than the Apple menu and a Preferences menu for the app. Thank you kindly.

Excel over Numbers all day if you make paper output (printing). Especially for more than one page.

Another great video Gary! I work in Microsoft environment but all my personal is in Apple. I do find that there is power in the simplicity of the Apple apps in the form of efficiency. When I have to cross over and run an excel file from work it does have some capability issues with font viewing size and formula conversion.

Very nice and concise comparison, so useful!

Gary, love you, been watching for over a decade! Have you ever covered alternatives for MS Access on a Mac??

This video was very helpful. Answered my long time questions and more. Very wise, practical and thorough coverage of this topic. Thanks Gary.

Very helpful video...now to actually get them installed and use them. I have not used any document program in about 10 years!

I bought office in 2013, spending 150€ and soon it was the old version. And other people i knew were still working with the even older doc format. So I had to export using doc instead of docx. Using Apple Numbers and Pages just made my life so much easier, if necessary for work I export to xlsx and docx, mostly I provide pdf. Privately I like making spreadsheets now and have a much better understanding of my finances.

Here is my take on Office and „iWork“. - Numbers is no match for Excel. When you deal with big data files, the page format of numbers is hindering any effective work with your data - and the hole way of working and formatting is much easier in excel. Writing letters in word has not the same advantage as excel over numbers but formatting headings and paragraphs gives word an advantage. But pages does have own features that are handy, placing of fotos, figures and videos and export to epub for ebooks. - If you have office work to do or have to work together with people who use MS-Office, MS-Office should be your choice over pages and numbers. But if this is not on your plate, you should cut your ties with MS-Office. Do every thing with the apple programs and deal with their shortcomings. Writing letters, using templates, that can easily be done with pages. For small tables numbers is sufficient. - It is no pleasure to have more than one tool for a certain task. - Meanwhile although this is another topic I switched to markdown programs like Ulysses for writing, especially for developing ideas.

I've never used Microsoft apps on my Mac, but I gave up on them on previous OS systems. The apps were not full featured in comparison to their operation in Windows. In addition, the apps were programmed to default to their OneDrive, whereas, with the MacBook, my Pages or Numbers files reside ONLY on my personal NAS and I don't have that fight with ICloud. Apps are usually anemic because they must adapt to portable devices with limited storage and battery drain concerns. I get it. And, it's not just Microsoft, it's ALL companies. Therefore, there's nothing better, in my opinion, then using a full featured application software product made specifically for that one OS. Word or Excel ARE powerful products on a Windows OS, but, in my opinion, not when operating through other OS's. I fell in love with Pages and Numbers on my Mac specifically for their powerful, easier to use features that I found were either non-existent or difficult to use on Microsoft products. Pages is actually one of the main reasons I purchased a Macbook, specifically because of it's ease of operation, and I would not return to Word or Excel. That said, it should be mentioned that the standard of the world in terms of documents and compatibility appears to be MS Office file formats. Although Pages and Numbers can export to MS Office file formats, there's no default setting to do this automatically, which is a little painful. While I consider the MacBook to be far superior to any other laptop on the market, it's, in my opinion, the issue with compatibility to the worlds adopted standards that continually holds Apple back from world market domination. I appreciate the way Pages is designed, which is why I use it. Do I really care whether it's saved file format is Docx vs. Pages? No, I don't, but it's a problem with the rest of the world. Apple needs to provide the user with a programmable default so that our Pages will automatically save to the most common file format instead of using the exporting feature to do this.

If there is another application out there that offers a navigation pane feature like MS Word’s, I haven’t found it. I spent the last few years trying to organize my writing in apps like Pages and Scrivener and the frustration was immense. I gave up and put MS Office on my Mac and my productivity is back where it needs to be. NOTHING organizes long documents as well as Word. If you create heading styles in Word the right way, then the navigation pane (formerly Document Map) shows you the indented heading hierarchy, which keeps your material organized as you’re writing it. If you’re a serious writer and your work involves more than stream-of-consciousness journaling then Word is a necessity. For that feature alone.

I was a MSWord expert since the 80s, until Windows 11 They now have an issue with their onedrive, it disappears and then you cannot save! Besides that, it is taking too much Ram and too much CPU power. I even switched to Mac with 16 GB Ram , and installed Office, just to be able to work with Word, and then I got a spinning wheel on almost every click. It was draining all my brain processing power. I am now using Pages and I'm finding more functions than MSWord, for 10% of the processing power. Anybody can do a test by looking at the Activity monitor with both Pages and Word open. I am finally saying goodbye to Word . I'm finding Your videos very useful for the transition. Thank you Gary!

I downloaded a csv of my credit card transactions to use as the format for a budget, which I created both in Excel and Numbers. I found Excel to be the more efficient and straightforward of the two. The category grouping with totals in Numbers did not work as well as Excel table dynamic totals and weren’t very intuitive (as a Developer, I can speak to intuitive)

Used to have Microsoft Office but somewhere in a Mac OS upgrade, lost or it wouldn't recognize my license. Wasn't going to do a subscirptiion. Went to Pages and Numbers, the more I used Numbers the better I liked it and FREE with any upgrades !!!

I’ve had the Microsoft 365 for 5 people for about 15 years. I share it with my kids. Over 20 years ago I became certified in Office as part of my CE. I loved it found it very easy to learn. When I switched from Windows to Mac OS I tried Pages and Numbers. I found them very watered down and of no use to me.

For me it's Pages and Keynote for documents and presentations due to their ease and friendliness of use. Excel for spreadsheets because it's just more powerful than Numbers.

Long time follower of Gary. Switched away from MS everything and PCs in 2010 when I retired. Now exclusively on MBAir, Studio monitor etc. I use Apples office quite happily after a long career on MS Office and cut my teeth on WordPerfect and Lotus! I’m that old!

Thank you for this video, I have a pages doc and did not know I could export it as a word doc to send to others who do not have a MAC.

Thanks gary. I am new to mac and was really worried about not being able to open pages and keynote files in windows. I don't want to purchase Office365 and you saved my subscription.

Very useful and practical advice. Thanks Gary!

I’m divorcing and everyone else is using Excel, so I need to learn to do so on my Mac.

Personally I find Pages and Keynote more than ok, Numbers not so much. Probably because I am pretty experienced in Excel. Luckily I have a Windows laptop from work, where obviously it's all Office.

Another home run, Gary. Very well explained, and you showed no partiality (even though we all know you are an Apple guy 🙂, but I digress). Like you and most people, I use office mainly because it is given to me by my employer. For me, iWork apps are much easier to use and understand. Microsoft tends to take something good and change it for no reason and complicate things as they've done with Word (ribbon) and Onenote (2016 vs. windows 10). I think that getting into the business world via software and partnerships was a brilliant move on the part of MS as, at this point, there are so many options out there that do the same thing (albeit without all of the bells and whistles) that had it not been for these partnerships I wonder how much of the market share they would have. Also, to your point, they have been around for so long that many people see no reason to switch to another platform and stick with what they know.

I never did, Open Office is free and good enough for me. I don't use Apple's Office either. When I share with a Windows user, is safe as .rtf Totally fine. Doesn't cost a penny.

Thank you Gary 🙏

Thanks Gary for the topic and the great explanation!

Excellent video. Very precise explanation. I am really thankful for this.

I use both apple iPad and windows laptop, as most companies use windows it easy for me to do my work, windows easy of files

Excellent content! Thank you

I am a bit late to the discussion. But if I can add something... I teach a math intense class in college, and I started using Word and Powerpoint since I never used Pages, Number ans keynote before, despite having a mac for 10+ years. But then I had to add a lot of equations to the documents and presentations, and the eq. editor us okay for adding a couple of them, but very frustrating when you add a lot of equations and you have to edit them afterwards. Page and keynote open a box where you type an equation using Latex, and you are good to go, it is amazing! You double click on the equation and the box opens again and you can edit... Power point can do something similar using an extension called Iguana, but still is way easier in Keynote and Pages. I use both (I do not use numbers, excel only), Apple and MS office, but for my teaching docs, it is easier IMHO with the Apple apps.

I've been a Mac user for years. Just recently purchased Microsoft 365 and am very frustrated using it. It is missing a lot of the ribbon functions, particularly in design. Customer service doesn't have the answers.

In general the Apple apps are better and just as powerful to use as MS apps. The main issues are compatibility, and the lack of people who actually use the Apple apps. I like pages better than Word and used it for years. But it was a pain to export the document to Word to then see that fonts, graphics, pictures, dates, numbering etc, were off. It took more time to re-edit the word doc than it did to just use word. In addition it is very difficult to save these documents and then read them in word. There is no cross compatibility. So if I am at work and all I have is MS products and I need a letter that was composed in Pages. I couldn’t read it.

If you're in the working world, there's no way around Microsoft. You're just going to need it, because everyone else and all the documents, spreadsheets, presentations are all on MS products. I'm no fan of MS, but this is just the reality. Trying to switch to something else just makes your life un necessarily harder. So if you're still working, just buy the MS products and forget about it.

Thank you for this video, much appreciated!

I had to use MS Office at work and I would rather not deal with them now that I'm retired. Yes, the iWork apps, Pages, Numbers, and Keynote do just about all I would ever need, but they're not entirely compatible with the ubiquitous Office documents. For full Office document compatibility, I've found that the free LibreOffice suits all of my needs on the Mac without having to spend any money I don't have to.

I’m a Mac user primarily, and find I prefer Pages over Word, but prefer Excel over Numbers. Numbers just seems slow and clunky to use sadly. But Pages is really good. I’d argue Pages is way better than word.

Stll have to use MS Word within the company I work for, but have hated it ever since they introduced the ribbon (can never remember where things I use occasionally are). Main problem I have is when I want to open a MS Word document on my Mac to send to my printer. The documents usually have images and different page layouts that Apple’s Pages can’t seem to handle properly. Still, I won’t pay for MS Word on my Mac because if there is anything I hate more than MS Word’s ribbon it is subscriptions on software and the one-off payment is far too high. Informative and nicely reasoned video, as always👍

Thats a fair summary Gary, thanks for sharing.

You may work for a large enterprise or a student at a university that has a site license. The result, is that you can have MS office for no additional cost.

I’ve used Numbers for nearly two years after being an heavy excel user for over 25 years I cannot get comfortable with Numbers and some of the option windows are just too different. I have just moved back to OFFICE for MAC.