<p>I’m planning on using a Macbook in college, and I’m used to using iWork instead of Office as that’s what I have at home and what my high school uses. Will it really be necessary to buy Office, or will iWork suffice (especially since Pages documents can be saved in Word formats, etc.)? Do professors really ever have a preference?</p>
<p>I wouldn’t think so, since they’re not looking over your shoulder to look at your processor. They don’t care about that; they care about the end results. If it prints/sends like a typical Word doc, why not? I use Kingsoft and Google Docs (highly recommended!) and there’s never been a difference. </p>
<p>I don’t think so either. I’ve used Kingsoft ^ 
for the past two year after the free MS ran out on my laptop. Can’t even tell I don’t have MS</p>
<p>As long as it’s a format that can be sent and opened in MS Word without translation errors, there shouldn’t be a problem. I used to use Open Office, and there were a few times that I sent documents via email and opened them up in Word, and some of the formatting had gotten screwed up. I’m a physics major though, and a lot of my papers involve a lot of mathematics. That creates a much greater potential for translation errors.</p>
<p>It is important for the files to translate. A lot of professors don’t have you submit hard copies of papers. Many of them prefer electronic copies because it saves paper, reduces the amount of stuff they have to carry around, and makes it easier for them to add comments without cramming them into small spaces. </p>
<p>I’ve known other students who have had some issues with not having Microsoft office, but most issues are pretty easy to workaround. Formatting can sometimes get messed up, but if you’re turning in an assignment, you can save it as a pdf, which should preserve your formatting (unless your professor requires it to be sent as a word document for whatever reason). If you’re passing a document back and forth and editing it, you could use google docs so you don’t have to worry about compatibility issues. There were a couple times when I opened documents for friends because they wouldn’t open in the Mac versions of the programs for whatever reason, but that shouldn’t be hard to do as well. If there’s ever a situation where you absolutely need MS Office, computers at your school (in the library, computer lab, etc) will likely have it installed.</p>
<p>Get MS office, saves you a lot of headache later. Pages and Numbers are good, but since there will be a lot of compatibility issues when all your friends have MS office. </p>
<p>I agree. I’d just get MS Office. It’s basically the standard in academia. If you have it, you won’t have to worry about translation errors or other issues. </p>
<p>I have found Office to be extremely useful - in my case I would even say indispensable, and there is a huge student discount too. I highly recommend getting it.</p>