1/5/23
9:00 am

Should You Use Microsoft Office or Apple Apps on Your Mac?

Do you need to purchase and use Microsoft Office? Free Apple apps like Pages and Numbers are good alternatives to Word and Excel. But some people may still be better off buying Microsoft Office and having both sets of apps available.

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Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Should you install Microsoft Office on your Mac or just use Pages, Numbers, and Keynote.
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A question I'm often asked, and that I often see online, is do you need to install the Microsoft Office apps on your Mac. In particular apps like Word, Excel, and Power Point. The alternative, of course, is to use Apple's apps Pages, Numbers, and Keynote. Pages and Word are both word processors. Numbers and Excel are both spreadsheet apps. Keynote and Power Point are both presentation apps. But they all do look and word differently. So, which one should you use?
 You can get Microsoft's apps from the Mac App Store. They're all available to download for free. But, you're going to need a subscription to use them. You can choose from a couple of different subscription plans from the Microsoft site and then in those apps you login to be able to access your account and then unlock the app. There's also the option to do a one time purchase. You can still do that from Microsoft but it's going to cost more. Of course that is not going to include major updates. So at some point in the future you may find that you need to buy a new version to replace the aging one that you have. 
Now the main reason to use Microsoft Office apps is if you're used to them. Say you've come from the Windows world, you're now on the Mac, and you have years of experience and knowledge for using Microsoft Word and Excel and you don't want to stop using them now and use something new. Well you can simply use the Mac versions of those and continue on doing things the way that you've always done. The Mac versions do look a little bit different. They are a little more attuned to the Mac interface. But you're going to find it a pretty easy transition to go from the Windows version of Word to the Mac version of Word. Another reason you may want to use Microsoft's apps is that they are without a doubt the most powerful. I love the Apple apps and I use the Apple apps myself but there is no doubt that Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel are the most powerful word processor and spreadsheet app on the market. They've been around for a long time and have tons of features packed into them. Most people, of course, don't need all of these features and some of them are really obscure and have very specialized uses. But there is definitely more features packed into Word and Excel than Pages and Numbers. 
Another reason to stick with Microsoft Office apps is for compatibility. If you work with people or collaborate with people that are also using Microsoft Office apps it's much easier to pass the same documents back and forth. Not converting them all the time back and forth to other formats. If that is even going to save you a little bit of time and frustration it's probably worth the entire price of using Microsoft Office apps. Also, another type of compatibility is document compatibility. If, say, you've come from the Windows world and you have years and years worth of Microsoft Word doc files and Excel XLS files well then having Microsoft Office around to be able to open those old files is really useful. Of course you can open them in Pages and Numbers as well. But there may be compatibility issues. It could be nice to have the official Microsoft Office apps there to be able to access all your files without any problems. 
Now how about the Apple Apps, Pages, Numbers, and Keynote. Well, the main advantage to those, without a doubt, is that they are free. If you've got a Mac you can install Pages, Numbers, and Keynote on your Mac. Just get them from the App Store if you don't already have them on your Mac. It doesn't cost you anything. In fact even if you have Microsoft Office you should probably have those apps installed anyway. They could be useful for some tasks when you don't need all the power that is in the Office apps. 
Now also I believe that the Mac Apps are easier to use. For instance, take a look at Pages here. This is a blank document. In Pages you've just created a document and you're ready to start writing. You could see some buttons here at the top. You can see controls for things like font, and styling here on the right. Now look at Microsoft Word. It definitely looks more complex. Maybe only marginally so though. Instead of having things on the right everything is here at the top. This is just a portion of the controls. You have to switch between these different ribbons here at the top to actually access everything. It's really not that different from having the right sidebar there. But I think if you really wanted to compare them you would have to come to the conclusion that Word is more complex. Which makes sense since it's more powerful. 
 The same thing with Excel and Numbers here. Here is Excel and you can see all the different ribbons here at the top. Here's Numbers. You still have a lot of that complexity here in the right sidebar if you even want to have that visible. But I think everything looks a lot cleaner and it's a little bit easier to understand as long as you're not already deeply entrenched in Excel. Of course it is going to be hard to transition from Excel to Numbers. But if you haven't really used Excel I think starting in Numbers is going to be easier than starting in Excel. 
Also keep in mind that with Pages, Numbers, and Keynote there are also free versions for the iPhone and iPad. So if you have multiple Apple devices and you learn to use Pages, say, on the Mac, you can use some of those skills to actually use Pages on your iPhone or your iPad as well and there are no compatibility issues. Plus, of course, the Apple Apps work really well in the Apple Eco System. For instance, if you save a Pages document to iCloud you can go to the Share Menu here and easily collaborate with other Mac users using Pages. It just kind of works seamlessly. There's really not too much to learn. You're just both working on the same document. 
Now that is also true on Microsoft Office apps. You can collaborate as long as you save to Microsoft One Drive. If all of your coworkers or collaborators are using Microsoft Office then it might be better to stick with Microsoft Office. But if they are not, if in fact they are all using Macs, then it may be better to collaborate with them using Apple's apps. 
Another thing about Pages, Numbers, and Keynote is you can still work with Microsoft Office documents. So this comes really handy if you don't necessarily need to work with those documents but you do need to view them. So, for instance, here in Pages I could open up a Microsoft Word file. No problem. It will simply convert it and it will give me warnings if there is anything that is not compatible. But if my goal here was to just read the document, like someone in the group I'm in insists on distributing basic information on Microsoft Word docs, you could still open it up in Pages to read it. If you ever want to give somebody a document to work on and you're in Pages and they are using Microsoft Word, you can always go to Export and then Export As Word and give them a word document. 
So now some final advice. First, you can use both. If you paid to have Microsoft Office there is no reason you shouldn't have Pages, Numbers, and Keynote also on your Mac. In fact, I did this for years when I had to work in Microsoft Word for writing computer books, that's what my publisher used. But I did everything else in Pages. As a matter of fact this is a good strategy if you slowly want to wean yourself off of using Microsoft Office apps. You can use Pages for some things, Word for things you need to use Word for, and then as you get more experience with Pages you may find at some point you decide to ditch the Office apps. In the end the decision has got to be yours and there is no right or wrong answer. You certainly don't have to stick with the same answer. You could subscribe to Microsoft Office for a year to see how it goes and decide to move completely to Apple Apps next year. You could just use Apple Apps for now and if you find out you can't get by working with your colleagues with the Apple Apps you can then get Microsoft Office and start using that. But I do hope you found this information useful. Thanks for watching.

Comments: 21 Responses to “Should You Use Microsoft Office or Apple Apps on Your Mac?”

Jonathan

5 months ago

Unfortunately Excel has some features that Numbers doesn't have :( same is true of pages vs. Word as you have noted, but are common and not esoteric. Having said that Word is horrible and it can't handle my autobiography, which Affinity Publisher can with no problems. You didn't mention OpenOffice ? I wish numbers would allow for unlimited header columns and macros. Unfortunately many people on windows assume everyone has word and they send a docx file instead of sharing as a pdf file.

Jim Teasley

5 months ago

As a very recent convert from windows I am excited to learn the apps that I receive free from apple with my MacBook. I plan to never give Microsoft another dime based on their attitude and lack of customer service. Your videos are a breath if fresh air and have become my guiding light in my journey to learning my new wonderful computer. I only miss one Microsoft product. I need a database to replace access and would rejoice if I could find one at a reasonable price. All suggestions are welcome.

Jackie MacDonaod

5 months ago

I had to install MS Word to be consistent with my publisher. and had to use it to make corrections and changes. I found it difficult to make the change. I had a big problem - Using Canadian Eng., it kept changing to American English. I had to get Am. Eng. deleted. In writing in French, MS Word doesn't let you put accents on capital letters. I have to write using pages, then convert to Word where the accent remains.

John F.

5 months ago

Thing is, Microsoft resolutely refuses to use some of the best MacOS universal functions. Try looking up a word in Word, for instance. You'll be forced to use Microsoft's less elegant built-in. And drag and drop for graphics into Office apps stinks. That said, while Apple's apps look good, they've gotten a little worse over the years. I still have no idea why they got rid of descriptive URLs. And nobody else seems to care, including at Apple.

nick

5 months ago

Gary: do you know if Excel can be purchased as a stand alone app? It looks like the only way to get it is to purchase an Office subscription. thx

Michel

5 months ago

Outlook is just great !!

Gary Rosenzweig

5 months ago

Nick: Not stand-alone, it must be purchased with Office. But you can use the non-subscription option I show in this video. Or, if you use the subscription, you can choose to only download Excel from the Mac App Store.

Howard Brazee

5 months ago

Other alternatives allow Office compatibility including macros. NeoOffice on the Mac and Collabora Office on the iPad are free. So if a couple of documents with macros are keeping you subscribed to MicroSoft office, these applications are worth looking into.

Lawrence Moskal

5 months ago

I started in the Apple world at school, then the district changed over to Windows. So, I have learned both systems. I taught Professional Development courses on PowerPoint. After retiring from teaching, I went back to my Apple environment, but still use Word and Excel primarily. I do think that Keynote has some advantages over PowerPoint so I prefer making presentation in Keynote.

Virginia Roy

5 months ago

Excel & Word features my preferred choices Sadly Microsoft cancelled me 6 months early without explanation: PLUS froze existing Word & Excel files. Had to purchase brand new membership 6 months early, but still cannot access past Excel Files. Now print every Microsoft work product JUST IN CASE! Inability to contact Microsoft is not business friendly!

Rick Isaacs

5 months ago

I have used Word and Excel starting with the earliest versions up to the most recent. When I decided to switch to the Apple world, I decided to not add any third party apps to MacOS. Learning to use Pages and Numbers took awhile, but with a little extra time, patience, and some help from your videos, I find that the Apple Office apps are a good replacement for MS Office.

Robert Gramling

5 months ago

What Apple app to choose if one needs an app that will accept changes later on? How does one choose to have things sorted by date within the app, say for instance a lifeline type doc that will always have additions? Keep up the great work. My new MBP 16" M1 and I greatly appreciate it. Bob

Gary Rosenzweig

5 months ago

Robert: I'm not sure from your description what you are trying to DO. "Accept changes later on" is vague. Any document can be changed. But your request to have "things sorted by date" makes me think you are looking for a spreadsheet, maybe. That would be Numbers. I don't know what "a lifeline type doc" is.

Robert Gramling

5 months ago

Gary: Life line:

20 APR 1944 Born
09 DEC 1970 Married
05 MAR 1972 Jimmy born
31 DEC 1971 Fell down & broke my arm

Notice the last one is not in sequence. Im looking for a way to create a personal history that will allow me to auto-sort things I think of at a later date and want to add in its correct place chronologically. Tried it on an iPad Pro 12.9 and put it Files where it froze, not letting me edit at all. Hope this M1 MBP will allow me to do this.
Again, we thank you. Bob

Gary Rosenzweig

5 months ago

Robert: I'm confused about why you are saying "files." If you just want some information in a document with dates and a description, use Numbers.

Swapnil W

5 months ago

Afraid Gary, this video of your is biased towards Apple Apps. MS Office apps especially Excel is way better than Numbers. I have tried to use numbers so many times and the functionality and UI is so inferior to excel.

Gary Rosenzweig

5 months ago

Swapnil: Really? I say "Microsoft's apps ... are without a doubt the most powerful. I love the Apple apps and I use the Apple apps myself but there is no doubt that Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel are the most powerful word processor and spreadsheet app on the market."
Doesn't sound biased toward Apple to me. But I guess that is subjective.

Sheryl S. King

4 months ago

I used Word when I worked. When I retired, my family convinced me to switch to Apple, so I learned Pages and came to love it. Years later I still do. But then I agreed to take the minutes in a group to which I belong, and, guess what—Word required. So I bought it and relearned it. It is really confusing and way more complicated than is needed. I like the usability of Pages!

Louis Martin

4 months ago

I have installed Rosetta 2 on my Mac mini M1 and was wondering if my Microsoft Office 2011 (mostly Word and Excel) would be recognized and work ? I own this suite and do not want to subscribe either monthly or annually for the latest version. If not, would a later standalone version work ? Thanks.

Gary Rosenzweig

4 months ago

Louis: You can always try it, though using such an old version will probably present other problems. Why not just buy the current standalone version?

Bill Scheerer

3 months ago

I've been converting to the Apple apps for a couple of years. Mail merge with Word and Excel is much easier than anything Apple has. What really surprised me was that when I converted a personal finance spreadsheet from Excel to Numbers the file size went from 101 KB in Excel to 1.1 MB in Numbers, an order of magnitude larger. I have no idea why Numbers is so much less space efficient.

Should You Use Microsoft Office or Apple Apps on Your Mac?

Comments: 21 Responses to “Should You Use Microsoft Office or Apple Apps on Your Mac?”

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