Don’t Waste Time! Facts Until You Reach Your Mac Office Software Choices

Mac Office Software Selection

When it comes to putting together a professional-looking document, we often rely on some office suite software. These office suite software programs have helped make writers’ tasks more accessible and made word processing and many other tasks relatively simple. Despite the advancements in technology, there are still various office suite programs that can help make your every day with the computer, Man!

Popular Office Suite Programs

We reviewed six of the most popular office suite programs available for the Apple Mac computer and found that Adobe’s suite of programs is the most recommended. Although Adobe isn’t the most well-known name in the bunch, it is the most widely used and perhaps the most well thought of. Its suite of programs includes everything you need for personal or business use, and it even comes with an “active” map, which helps to make notes on the go.

Office for Mac (Adobe) boasts security and ease of use but has minor features and tools compared to its rivals. The suite includes a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation software, and an image editor. All of its programs are planning intuitively, allowing you to branch out into new programs as you need them. All of its programs are labeled appropriately—planning on sending out your presentation via email? Try using the presentation software program. Need a database for your next presentation? The spreadsheet program will surely be handy. Perhaps you need to post your photo collection on the web? The slideshow application will be convenient for that, too. Whatever you need, it has it – and the special programs that come with the Apple software make using the Mac as a whole a more convenient experience.

Other Office Suits other than Mac Office

Google Docs, Microsoft Office, and Adobe InDesign are the other contenders in the office suite race, and for a good reason. Each has an exhaustive catalog of features and, with the Mac version of each program, you get incredible, Macintosh-like ease of use. Getting a presentation to a large audience involves PowerPoint, Excel, and Word, and each of those programs has surprising quirks that make collaboration seamless between users. (A side note: I think it’s pretty safe to say that none of these programs would make a good choice for a conventionally setting presentation that calls for a healthy mixing of text, movement, backgrounds and colors.)

Now that we’ve checked out all the office programs available for Apple Mac, what about all the alternatives?

We looked at several less popular programs as well. We found that while OpenOffice isn’t necessarily opposed to features that are “accessible” to Mac users, it doesn’t meet the ” obliging suite of A virus Clever” requirement that many PC users seem to be missing. Instead, we recommend the free alternative of Quattro Pro (a branch of the exceptional open-source developer Mozilla, but one that doesn’t allow macros, for example).

With Office for Mac, you can do all of your document creation and editing, including getting the program set up correctly for all your Windows colleagues to read. You can save files formatted in a proper way for them to read on their computers, too.

We’re big fans of the iWork suite (Office for OS X, in my case), but Mac users have had to BuY some extra bells and whistles for some programs in the last few years. Most of those can come in the form of upgraded versions that work with the Mac (iTunes), but some come in via a “Side-By-Side” Compare feature eliminating the need to download a second application. Those programs are:

Scribus is the “free” equivalent of Quattro Pro or iWork (OS X ISO) and its open-source, two-way text-to-speech engine. When rendered like Powerpoint (or PowerPoint AVI), it comes out pretty good, sounding more like audio than a mere text-to-speech product, and easy enough for anyone (hustler, courier, student, etc.) to use.

1. Productivity suite

2. Lightning Software

3. VSO

4. Scribus

So there you have it: the programs we choose as Editors’ Choice, plus a special mention to those lesser-known but worth-looking programs. Happy editing, editing, and most of all having fun!

Comments

comments