h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I've got some presentation work to do for university and am all but persuaded to go and buy iwork 08 to do the jobon my itnel imac. Howver, I'm not *quite* convinced as for all it's splendidness I'd still have to contend with running the files ona PC via powerpoint (lest I cart the imac in to university which isnlt going to happen) and though compatable I'm certain to loose some of the amazing transitions, which while they do not a presention make, do make it awfully pretty to look at.

Amazon are selling iwork 08 for a mere £44 of your earth pounds and like I say I'm tempted but need to have these niggling doubts squashed.

Any takers?

Clive.

I purchased iWork '07 for my boss last year, and I wasn't impressed ... but that was because of one thing we really needed. The program lacked a database/spreadsheet application. iWork '08 seems to remedy that problem. Now, you have three programs instead of two -- a word processor, a presentation program, and a database. Essentially, it contains the equivalent of Word, Power Point, and Excel. That's it.

I worked more with "Pages" than anything. It was easy and intuitive to use. The layouts were impressive and highly professional in appearance. There were templates for anything you might need and room to customize to your heart's content. All in all, it was a kick-*ss word processing program with an easy interface. Everything opened easily in Word as well. It did not work well with Microsoft Works ... so be aware of that limitation. The iWorks programs are compatible ONLY with the specific programs as advertised. Nothing else.

Don't get the impression that iWork is a substitute for Microsoft Office. It isn't. Some elements of the Office suite are missing. However, if you're looking for an inexpensive way to make some excellent-looking documents, spreadsheets and presentations, you're fine.

I hope that's enough to help.

*hugs*

I have office already. I was looking to expand. And the nifty templature might come in handy when I'm teaching.

I've got iWork 08, but I have to admit to not using it very much. I do like Keynote better than Powerpoint though, and I think if I needed to do more word processing I would prefer Pages to Word - but as it is I rarely need to use Word either.

And yes you will lose those nifty transitions if you show your presentation in powerpoint. You could also save it as a Quicktime movie or Flash file and that preserves some of them, but there are tradeoffs to each format.

The worst part about Keynote is that it causes you to send *all* your time playing with fantastic transitions. I spend about a day making my slides swirl in all different ways, and then throw together the actual content in a few minutes.

save as a quicktime file? I hadn't thought of that.

Presumably though it'd play as an animation rather than a presentation you can control the pace of?

Don't quote me on this, but from what I remember of QuickTime v3/v4 development there was the option to put "pause points" in a video file where it would hold the presentation until you clicked to continue.

that sounds like the quicktime you purchase not the freebie download version, though am right?

It's the QuickTime creation tools, not the free player. Having said that, once the QT video has been created with pause markers it should work on the free player. I've got a 2"-thick book on the subject somewhere... But I'm too lazy to look for it. ;-P

Is it fair then to describe the reviews I've received so far as 'mixed' neither negative nor glowing. This seems to be the constant theme of the reviews on amazon and some on the apple store too. and it's enough to make me pause before I hand over any cash.

Why don't you download OpenOffice and give that a try first? It's free...

http://www.openoffice.org/product/impress.html

If you are a student or a teacher ou can get MS Office for less than £100 and get Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Entourage and MSN Messenger.

Whether you want to support Micro$oft or not is a different question.

turvy

I already have the student/teacher version of office thanks.

I just want to start capitalising on what my mac can do (and while I have the added benefit of the education discount! ) and am pondering the iworks package, (particularly keynote) but just when I've about convinced myself it looks worth spending the money on I hesitate so I've not just gone and done it yet.

Honestly, if you already have Office, then you already have much of the capability of the programs you'll get with iWorks. All you'll be getting are some snazzy new Apple templates for the money. If you search online for PowerPoint background videos and animations, you'll get the same thing ... for free.

All you're really looking at is the artistic side of Mac use ... with this interest, maybe what you're really wanting is an introduction to creative graphic programs. I'd look to Adobe Systems for these enhancements if I were you.

ah. hmm good point.

Swings and roundabouts. I'm coming I'm going...

Ah! There's a free demo of iWork at http://apple.com/iwork

Problem solved, you can try for yourself for free.

Wot a good idea.

Have been playing about with the free version since yesterday. it is rather good. Thanks for the practical suggestion.

Excellent suggestion, d'Elaphant.

Aye, t'was.

I've been diddlign around making the presentation for university - most fun I've had in a while. I think I'll be buying it after all.

Especially since the save as quicktime format, preserves most of the transitions.

New problem.

Want to have an audio file play part way through a slide (or at my prompt) keynote keeps playing it automatically on the transition into the frame. Any idea how to set it to trigger manually or on a specific time frame or build?