Definitely Pages! You can't even make the font light or semibold or condensed in Word! It's just easier and completely different.
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Best word processor for Mac OS
- Thread starter skaertus
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for a large project or something that you want to be simple, professional and consistent LaTeX is the best word processor ever! It took me a year to see the real advantages so I switched to it. (To get used to it you can download LaTeXian from the Mac AppStore 
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In terms of consumer products the only two options that are feasible are Microsoft Office or Pages.
Pages is fantastic! Looks great and has some great features. I would however say that in a business environment where most people use Word and docx then Microsoft Office is best. Pages handles these no problem but I always feel your better using the real tool for the job.
)In terms of consumer products the only two options that are feasible are Microsoft Office or Pages.
Pages is fantastic! Looks great and has some great features. I would however say that in a business environment where most people use Word and docx then Microsoft Office is best. Pages handles these no problem but I always feel your better using the real tool for the job.
Sorry, but no. And I say that as a Pages user who doesn't use Word.
But my wife is a Word user, and there are a lot of things she can do with Word that I can't do with Pages. (Despite the fact that I know Pages better than she knows Word ...).However, I will agree with you that Pages is a better page layout application. I love being able to both edit the text and lay it out in the same program.
I use Pages exclusively for all my documents where I don't have to share editable documents. I use NeoOffice and Pages about the same for documents that need to be shared in an editable format.
I guess that Pages may have more desktop publishing features than Word. But Word definitely has more pure word processor features than Pages. Pages has no support for cross-references, for instance, which is a feature that Word has had for ages, and which all advanced word processors have (including Nisus Writer Pro, Mellel and OpenOffice.org/LibreOffice/NeoOffice).
I have both MS Word and Pages, but i always use Pages unless i need to take notes. another vote for Pages!
Are you sure you are not accidentally mistaking different versions of the same typeface (e.g. Helvetica vs Helvetica Neue or the copy-cat Arial)?
Whether semibold, light etc is available or not is up to what is included in the actual font family, not the application in question. It's not magic. Those weights has to actually exist in the first place. Light and semibold weights aren't even designed in most cases (they're available in the Helvetica Neue family that comes with OS X iirc).
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When it comes to writing I'll never go back to word processors. Latex through and through. Try the MacTex package if you're interested. The actual frontend or writing environment can be your favourite plain text/coding editor (if that's not an option there is one included in MacTex, called TexShop iirc). Plain-text is king.
If anyone reading has plans on trying it out make sure you go for xetex when compiling/typesetting, as it uses unicode and the fontspec package lets you use your existing ttf and otf fonts as-is.
Whether latex is a good writing environment is another issue. I'm fine with writing directly in markup but for longer passages I sometimes use something simple like Byword, iAWriter or Multimarkdown Composer. Byword and Multimarkdown Composer both export to latex so that's pretty painless.
Should I ever need office-apps Libre Office is there to help out.
If Mellel ever reaches 3.0 I might check that out, though.
Ahh that's so TRUE!! I always had to copy and paste my work to the MS words to spell check. Pages don't catch them alot!
I integrate Scrivener with Nisus Writer Pro. Only the first one for academic researches (untile I must finish up my paper), only the latter for shorter, less structured documents, or for translation work.
Nisus is well integrated with the Mac UI, is confortable to work with, has a logical menu/palette structure, and features very powerful, innovative and easy-to-use outliner and annotations.
I'm very surprised there are so few users when compared to Word and OOo, two software that seem to fight against the Mac's philosophy.
Paolo
Nisus is well integrated with the Mac UI, is confortable to work with, has a logical menu/palette structure, and features very powerful, innovative and easy-to-use outliner and annotations.
I'm very surprised there are so few users when compared to Word and OOo, two software that seem to fight against the Mac's philosophy.
Paolo
I write everything in plain text using Markdown in Byword.
I like Byword because it syncs to the iPad and iPhone app through iCloud seamlessly. It's a very good distraction free editor with a convenient 'quick view' of the Markdown. It will export to full HTML for web use.
When I need extra formatting, I'll use Pages but I really prefer to write in plain text because it's portable across platforms and applications. This is especially important because I have to write some things in Chinese and the fonts used in Word and Pages are not always compatible.
I sometimes receive .doc or .docx files and I'll use Word to deal with them but I don't like working in it much.
I think I'll give Libre Office a go and see if it can handle the Chinese fonts Word spits out.
I like Byword because it syncs to the iPad and iPhone app through iCloud seamlessly. It's a very good distraction free editor with a convenient 'quick view' of the Markdown. It will export to full HTML for web use.
When I need extra formatting, I'll use Pages but I really prefer to write in plain text because it's portable across platforms and applications. This is especially important because I have to write some things in Chinese and the fonts used in Word and Pages are not always compatible.
I sometimes receive .doc or .docx files and I'll use Word to deal with them but I don't like working in it much.
I think I'll give Libre Office a go and see if it can handle the Chinese fonts Word spits out.
I am not so surprised. Switchers from PC to Mac usually search for the Mac version of the same software they used under the Windows platform. Most of them are not even aware that quality software such as Scrivener or Nisus Writer even exist.
I'm amazed that Word ranks as highly as it does. It does some things well but it's crashy and ugly, and the keyboard shortcuts that make it nice on Windows didn't come over to OS X. But mostly it's the one piece of software that can be relied-upon to crash when I can least afford it. Expensive, too.
Pages is much, much better, IMHO. I converted my resume and c.v. to it, and they're both rather complicated documents. Pages made it easy and the results look spectacular.
But I'm a writer and voted for Scrivener. Its ability to collect reference material into a binder for offline access is just a boon for me. It plays well with Zotero too, for citation management. See http://unvexed.blogspot.com/2012/07/how-to-use-zotero-to-make-citations.html
Scrivener is something rather different from a "word processor" though. If your focus is on creation rather than secretarial crank-turning and formatting, it's for you.
Pages is much, much better, IMHO. I converted my resume and c.v. to it, and they're both rather complicated documents. Pages made it easy and the results look spectacular.
But I'm a writer and voted for Scrivener. Its ability to collect reference material into a binder for offline access is just a boon for me. It plays well with Zotero too, for citation management. See http://unvexed.blogspot.com/2012/07/how-to-use-zotero-to-make-citations.html
Scrivener is something rather different from a "word processor" though. If your focus is on creation rather than secretarial crank-turning and formatting, it's for you.
I'm a big fan of the LaTeX environment, particularly Latexian because of its nice live preview feature. Though it isn't free, it is still much cheaper than Word or Pages. The learning curve is a bit steep, but if you are particular about formatting or need to write anything involving maths, it is totally worth it.
That being said, it probably isn't worth the time or effort to learn for the average user. My vote would have to go to Word, but that is only because I received a free license from my university.
That being said, it probably isn't worth the time or effort to learn for the average user. My vote would have to go to Word, but that is only because I received a free license from my university.
Scrivener got my vote, because of the way it supports non linear writing processs and the excellent ways in which you can view all kinds of sources and data, as well as previous versions of a document, next to the draft your are writing.
My second in use is Microsoft Office, but this is primarily because I work in a windows environment, so all co writing and joint presentations are done in Word and Power Point. If it wasn't for this, I'd probably switch to Pages since it syncs with my iPad.
My second in use is Microsoft Office, but this is primarily because I work in a windows environment, so all co writing and joint presentations are done in Word and Power Point. If it wasn't for this, I'd probably switch to Pages since it syncs with my iPad.
I agree. But everybody out there using Windows (and which are about 90% of the computer users worldwide) will most likely use Microsoft Word as their word processor. If you need full compatibility (and lots of people do), Word is not the best, but the only option.
Pages is good enough for those kinds of documents. But Pages lacks some useful features (for advanced users) such as cross-references.
Scrivener is good for writers, IMHO. Not a standard word processor, but I see it is popular in some groups.
I want to try Page for email attachment (Cover page and Resume) but most employers prefer Word .doc so I go with MS Office instead.
I want to try Page for email attachment (Cover page and Resume) but most employers prefer Word .doc so I go with MS Office instead.
You can export to Word format in Pages.
Which, from personal experience, doesn't always convert formatting 100%.
I'll go with Word because it's more versatile. It has more features and if I'm working on a huge document involving a ton of different formatting, Pages doesn't even compare. The only negative is that it is slooow to load. For basic word processing either is fine.
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Scrivener seems to be a good choice for this kind of work. You may also try other alternatives such as StoryMill.
I'm not a published author, but I have been using Scrivener for work project and amateur novel writing (NaNoWriMo). It is by far the best software I have used for collating research documents and compilations.
