Is Apple Numbers worth it?

DrJohnZoidberg

DrJohnZoidberg

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I'm trying to work with some Excel spreadsheets, they're big but not huge but MS Excel for Mac is pitifully slow (due to it not supporting multithreading). I tried to paste about 160k of formulas now and it took about 15 minutes to finish. I did the same paste using Kingsoft Office on a Windows machine in the office and it took a few seconds to finish.

Unfortunately Kingsoft don't do a Mac version and I don't feel like doing this all over RDP as it's going to be a bit of work.

Is Numbers worth the $20? How does it compare to Kingsoft Office?
 
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Pages is the equivalent of word, you're looking for numbers.

Isn't kingsoft free? Why don't you give that a go and if it suffices no need to look further? I've used Numbers a bit (budget and cost tracking sheets) but not serious formulas, so can't comment on performance.
 
phiber said:
Pages is the equivalent of word, you're looking for numbers.

Isn't kingsoft free? Why don't you give that a go and if it suffices no need to look further? I've used Numbers a bit (budget and cost tracking sheets) but not serious formulas, so can't comment on performance.
Click to expand...

Yep, sorry I realised now I had the wrong app name.

I would be using Kingsoft, but they don't have a Mac version.
 
DrJohnZoidberg said:
Okay, so one vote for Numbers so far. How extensively have you used it?
Click to expand...

Almost exclusively until I had to start dealing with people using Excel. Nowadays, far less. But it is pretty decent, considering the price. I have had it since iWork 05 so I have seen it grow. DISCLAIMER: I barely - if at all - use it these days (but that is because I send/receive Excel)
 
LibreOffice is rubbish. Numbers is pretty great, but I'm not sure if it will run better than Excel:Mac.
 
I used Numbers for a bit. Switched to Excel. Despite the lack of multi-threaded support on the Mac, I still prefer Excel.
 
You can get iWork for free if you had a version that did not come from the App Store. Then the App Store will do a free upgrade to the latest version. This means that if you wanted to download a Linux distro and accidentally downloaded iWork from somewhere or other and then installed it, then you will get a free upgrade to the latest version of iWork that will forever be linked to your Apple ID and will be installable on up to 5 Macs.
 
Numbers and all the other programs are free in the app store anyway. Except for the ZA app store where they want to charge.
Register a US app store ID, and you can get Numbers, Pages etc for zero.

***** the ZA app store with charging for stuff thats free in every other country.
 
vinodh said:
You can get iWork for free if you had a version that did not come from the App Store. Then the App Store will do a free upgrade to the latest version. This means that if you wanted to download a Linux distro and accidentally downloaded iWork from somewhere or other and then installed it, then you will get a free upgrade to the latest version of iWork that will forever be linked to your Apple ID and will be installable on up to 5 Macs.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately I don't have any of the iWork stuff.

lsheed_cn said:
Numbers and all the other programs are free in the app store anyway. Except for the ZA app store where they want to charge.
Register a US app store ID, and you can get Numbers, Pages etc for zero.

***** the ZA app store with charging for stuff thats free in every other country.
Click to expand...

I'm using the US app store at the moment, list price is $19.99. Any ideas why it's not free for me?
 
lsheed_cn said:
Numbers and all the other programs are free in the app store anyway. Except for the ZA app store where they want to charge.
Register a US app store ID, and you can get Numbers, Pages etc for zero.

***** the ZA app store with charging for stuff thats free in every other country.
Click to expand...

You're thinking of iLife
 
There's a cheap trick to get it for free.

Download the iWork '09 Trial and install it but don't run it.

Now go on the AppStore and try to update the Apps. It will ask for your Apple ID and ta da magically you've purchased and own the Apps for the latest version.

Mahala.

Apple is also fully aware of this exploit I believe. Haven't done a thing about it so I can only imagine they approve.
 
Oh I see vino already mentioned it.

Numbers is great for certain thing and handles large files much better than Excel.

However it doesn't do pivot tables and a few things works very differently to what you expect.

I've fully switched now only keep Excel installed for the odd issue.

Done away with Word and PowerPoint and dropped Outlook years ago. When it was still Entourage It was great, now it's as **** as on Windows.
 
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