Certainly true. It always struck me actually Numbers is more a of a 'tabulated data desktop publishing package' than an actual kilo-row number cruncher. It has adequate performance for simple datasets but it's patently not designed with massive analysis in mind. Start from the 'tables on a page' metaphor and work out - it's designed primarily to present data, not manipulate it.


To be honest with you, I don't remember ever seeing any. 99.9% of Excel users never stray beyond the basic built-in styles.


I'd say that if two people had to present a set of tabulated data in a 'paper' report and one was doing it in Excel and the other was doing it in Pages, the Pages one would end up looking better. Sometimes, that's important. Nobody actually ever presents hundred-thousand row tables to people. Different horses etc..


The definition of 'power user' is surely at least partly what I spoke of above - You're a power user if you've used the product extensively, know all it's insides and outs and can make it perform in an optimal way. I'm pretty sure there are Numbers/pages power users who can actually make it do some pretty astonishing things. Maybe not the same things but all spanners aren't meant to twist the same bolts.

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

I have never tried.

Fair enough - I think most people are like that. LO Calc is pretty good though for power usage

Only a bad workman blames his tools

Clearly it is horse for course when it comes to spreadsheets. I do have some very complex spreadsheets but having being used to Excel I can cope. I am sure that I could do it in Numbers but I struggle to cope with the differences. Not because Numbers is bad but what left of my brain cells have a hard time adjusting to the different way of working within Numbers.