Is Pages 2 a decent competitior to Microsoft Word

[Wes Jordan]

I am anxiously awaiting my Mac and I have been trying to decide which productivity suite I will use. I love Keynote from what I have seen and think the templates in iWork look awesome, but I write at least one paper a month and I need a decent word processor. I don't want to have to buy both Office and iWork. So, can I make do with just iWork. It would allow me to boycott Microsoft altogether.

 

[steelphantom]

I write all of my college papers using Pages, and haven't had a problem at all. You can export your Pages documents to Word format too if you are going to collaborate with others. Some people have said Pages doesn't quite stack up to Word in some respects, but as far as I've seen, Pages will do just about everything that Word can.

 

[macbaseball]

It will work. I will prefer Word for a long time, because I'm used to the way it works. You really don't need a template to write an essays. The templates are more for the publishing aspect of Pages. Theoretically you could use TextEdit as a work processor, if you're primarily using text.

 

[yoda13]

So has anyone had any problems exporting to a word file and having windows using professors or friends have problems when they try to open them?

 

[grapes911]

So has anyone had any problems exporting to a word file and having windows using professors or friends have problems when they try to open them?

The first thing I did when I got iWork '06 was convert as many files as I could to check how good it was. It was rare that a conversion didn't work in either direction. It wasn't perfect though. I stick with Word though. If someone sends me a .doc and it imports it a little off, I can fix it. If I export a file to a .doc and it is a little screwy for someone else, I'd feel embarrassed. It would be unprofessional to send a bad file to a professor (even if the conversion is just a little off). I'd rather not take my chances.

 

[kugino]

I write all of my college papers using Pages, and haven't had a problem at all. You can export your Pages documents to Word format too if you are going to collaborate with others. Some people have said Pages doesn't quite stack up to Word in some respects, but as far as I've seen, Pages will do just about everything that Word can.

while i like pages (and use it for personal stuff), word's "track changes" feature is a must for papers, especially for college, grad school, or any situation where there's collaborative writing or editing. that's why word, at least for me, is invaluable.

 

[IJ Reilly]

while i like pages (and use it for personal stuff), word's "track changes" feature is a must for papers, especially for college, grad school, or any situation where there's collaborative writing or editing. that's why word, at least for me, is invaluable.

Pages now does annotations, if that's any help.

No word processor, and that includes Word itself, is going to give you perfect file exchanges with Word -- unless by some stroke of luck everybody involved has the same fonts installed. Now that's pretty bloody unlikely unless you stick to boring and ugly fonts like Times and Helvetica. If you are at all fussy about someone viewing a document exactly the way you created it, then PDF is the only way to go.

 

[BornAgainMac]

The first thing I did when I got iWork '06 was convert as many files as I could to check how good it was. It was rare that a conversion didn't work in either direction. It wasn't perfect though. I stick with Word though. If someone sends me a .doc and it imports it a little off, I can fix it. If I export a file to a .doc and it is a little screwy for someone else, I'd feel embarrassed. It would be unprofessional to send a bad file to a professor (even if the conversion is just a little off). I'd rather not take my chances.

What about PDF?

 

[RacerX]

Theoretically you could use TextEdit as a work processor, if you're primarily using text.

... and fonts, and images, and tables, and styles.

And that is not even with the help that third party services can give TextEdit.

Some of us have been putting your theory into practice for years.

 

[kwajo.com]

I loove Pages. Not sure why but I do. I write all my academic papers with it and it works great, very stable and quick, even on the iBook in my sig. (though Pages 2 doesn't )

 

[Coolnat2004]

iWork still doesn't include a spreadsheet application. If you think you will need a spreadsheet app (ala Excel) then it seems that MS Office is the only way to go..

Unless you want to experiment with NeoOffice/OpenOffice.org.

 

[eva01]

I have iWork 06 and i enjoy it a lot.

if i need a spreadsheet or a different type of graph i just go to neo office and make the graph then edit it in photoshop to be pretty

Can't wait till I have to make a presentation

 

[yoda13]

The first thing I did when I got iWork '06 was convert as many files as I could to check how good it was. It was rare that a conversion didn't work in either direction. It wasn't perfect though. I stick with Word though. If someone sends me a .doc and it imports it a little off, I can fix it. If I export a file to a .doc and it is a little screwy for someone else, I'd feel embarrassed. It would be unprofessional to send a bad file to a professor (even if the conversion is just a little off). I'd rather not take my chances.

I just don't want to take any chances. My professors require drafts of my thesis to be submitted in word file format, so PDF is out. I guess I will stick with Word until I am done with my thesis, then make the switch to Pages.

 

[bobert1985]

.

 

[eva01]

I just don't want to take any chances. My professors require drafts of my thesis to be submitted in word file format, so PDF is out. I guess I will stick with Word until I am done with my thesis, then make the switch to Pages.

Man it feels nice to be in a state with the open format so the teachers are actually ok with other file formats. And a lot of my teachers know about Macs and ask me questions about them.

 

[rye9]

I have Pages 2 on my iBook and it works fine. I have no problems with it as a word processor.. although I havent had to export yet.. Also, I need to make tables a lot for lab reports and Pages 2 has a built in table creation thingy which works great. I say to get iWork '06 because Pages 2 is awesome and I doubt you'd have export related problems.

 

[IJ Reilly]

I say just download NeoOffice and open up your thesis in it and see if there are any changes that are major before buying a full version of Microsoft Office.

Why would you recommend NeoOffice for this instead of Pages? Neither support Word documents natively, but both can import and export them. So what's the difference?

I just don't want to take any chances. My professors require drafts of my thesis to be submitted in word file format, so PDF is out. I guess I will stick with Word until I am done with my thesis, then make the switch to Pages.

Export the drafts from Pages into Word format. Unless your professors are planning on actually editing your thesis, then I doubt they'd even know what you were using to write it.

 

[bobert1985]

Why would you recommend NeoOffice for this instead of Pages? Neither support Word documents natively, but both can import and export them. So what's the difference?

I didn't make myself clear. I personally don't recommend NeoOffice instead of Pages. NeoOffice has annoying bugs for features I need; I just use it in case I have Office files that I need to open that I can't open elsewhere. iWork is definitely worth the money, especially for that use, but if he is going to buy Microsoft Office anyways because of fears that the programs will mess up formatting or whatever, then he should at the very least download the free NeoOffice and see if this really is the case or if his fears are unfounded. And I pointed out that the computer comes with the iWork trial version for testing too.

But again, get iWork!

 

[geese]

For a cheaper alternative to Pages and Word try /Nisus Writer Express (Link fixed!)

Its only $39 on academic discount, and its nice and quick. Its perfect for academic writing and you can export as a Word document. You can also use reference tools like Sente and Bookends with it.

I like it as the interface is nice and simple, yet its very nicely featured and not bloated like Word. Download the free trial.

 

[bobert1985]

Nisus is another good one supposedly, though I never tried it. But if he were to need a presentation software, iWork sounds like the better choice pricewise. And don't forget Mariner Write and Calc, which again I've never tried. Don't get AbiWord because the font-rendering is too awful. BTW, the link for Nisus is broken.

 

[Bern]

I tried to replace Word with Pages 2 I honestly did, but some of my College papers just don't export to Word very well. For example I'm working on a paper that incorporates images with subtitles and various chapter headings throughout. When Pages 2 exports to Word the images are all over the place and in some instances the subtitles don't even match up.

Oh well.

 

[neocell]

I have the first iWork, love Keynote, do all my presentations with it now, and I like Pages, but I CAN'T stand doing references by hand. As a few in this thread, including the OP, said they use it, or will use it, for academic writing, does anyone know of a reference manager that works with Pages? I currently use EndNote and Word (office X) and thesis time is upon me. I'd go to Pages only if I could work out the referencing. Thanks

 

[Josh]

I think Pages does well for standard papers. I mean standard essays and such that are not using fancy layouts, odd fonts, etc could be written in absolutely anything.

Standard essays need no more than bold, italics, tabs etc - simmple stuff that can be saved as an RTF (or converted to PDF).

Nicer essays with diagrams, more stylistic templates and professional appearances - like a thesis or a book, should be written in neither Word nor Pages (IMO). Something like LATEX would be better (though most of the text content could be written in anything, then moved to LATEX). Again, best to save as PDF as well, I think.

 

[IJ Reilly]

Nicer essays with diagrams, more stylistic templates and professional appearances - like a thesis or a book, should be written in neither Word nor Pages (IMO).

Not sure why you think this. I've done some quite complex professional reports in Pages. It handles graphics very well -- better than Word at least.

A book, now that's another matter entirely.

 

[eva01]

I have the first iWork, love Keynote, do all my presentations with it now, and I like Pages, but I CAN'T stand doing references by hand. As a few in this thread, including the OP, said they use it, or will use it, for academic writing, does anyone know of a reference manager that works with Pages? I currently use EndNote and Word (office X) and thesis time is upon me. I'd go to Pages only if I could work out the referencing. Thanks

what do you mean by references?

like MLA?

you could go to this page.

http://landmark-project.com/citationmachine.net/