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ecrispy

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 27, 2013
187
29
Just want to open and save doc/docx files so that they can be exchanged with other users on pc. Pages 5 is getting bad reviews from what I can see and Apple removed the compatibility matrix with Word.

This will be for a new Mac I'm planning to buy, new user here. The word processing needs are fairly basic. I've been told that LibreOffice is buggy and causes problems exchanging files.

I wouldn't mind not having support for 90% of the complex features in Word, as long as basic docs can be opened and edited.
 

MacDawg

Moderator emeritus
Mar 20, 2004
19,823
4,503
"Between the Hedges"
Just want to open and save doc/docx files so that they can be exchanged with other users on pc. Pages 5 is getting bad reviews from what I can see and Apple removed the compatibility matrix with Word.

This will be for a new Mac I'm planning to buy, new user here. The word processing needs are fairly basic. I've been told that LibreOffice is buggy and causes problems exchanging files.

I wouldn't mind not having support for 90% of the complex features in Word, as long as basic docs can be opened and edited.


I just opened a .docx file in Pages 5 with no problem
I saved it as a Pages document
I reopened it and exported it as a .docx with no problem

Did I mention no problem? :)
 

ecrispy

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 27, 2013
187
29
Is it possible to open a .doc/.docx file in Pages and save it back to same format without creating a Pages file? I'm guessing this is not possible.
 

JoeRito

macrumors 6502a
Apr 12, 2012
505
155
New England, USA
Just want to open and save doc/docx files so that they can be exchanged with other users on pc. Pages 5 is getting bad reviews from what I can see and Apple removed the compatibility matrix with Word.

This will be for a new Mac I'm planning to buy, new user here. The word processing needs are fairly basic. I've been told that LibreOffice is buggy and causes problems exchanging files.

I wouldn't mind not having support for 90% of the complex features in Word, as long as basic docs can be opened and edited.

Buy Word and life wil be eaiser for you. Pages just lost a bunch of features FYI.
 

bakechad

macrumors member
Jan 4, 2008
38
1
. The word processing needs are fairly basic. I've been told that LibreOffice is buggy and causes problems exchanging files.

My son uses Libreoffice on Lion and my wife uses it on Mountain Lion. They move .docx files back and forth to Windows machines nearly every day with no problems. While they are by no means power users of Libreoffice, I haven't heard them complaining about any bugs.

You sure can't beat the price to try it out. And from what I hear, it sure is a better option than the new version of iWork.
 

exegete77

macrumors 6502a
Feb 12, 2008
529
6
I bought MS Office 2011 a few months ago(special promotion so much cheaper). But I had exchanged files using LibreOffice / OpenOffice, and rarely had a problem. The major issue I ran into was tables. Sometimes the margins were not exactly the same. But for 95% of my work, that combination worked well.

I had been a power user (in corporate analyst position) of MS Word and Excel since 1990, but Office 2007 and forward has been a downward spiral. For true work on the Mac side I use a combination of Scrivener, Mellel, and Nisus Writer Pro. If I didn’t have MS Office, I would get along fine with LibreOffice for cross-platform work.
 

roadbloc

macrumors G3
Aug 24, 2009
8,784
215
UK
If you need 100% compatibility, buying Word is advised. If not and you only need basic features, then Pages will probably work fine.
 

firedept

macrumors 603
Jul 8, 2011
6,277
1,130
Somewhere!
Just want to open and save doc/docx files so that they can be exchanged with other users on pc. Pages 5 is getting bad reviews from what I can see and Apple removed the compatibility matrix with Word.

This will be for a new Mac I'm planning to buy, new user here. The word processing needs are fairly basic. I've been told that LibreOffice is buggy and causes problems exchanging files.

I wouldn't mind not having support for 90% of the complex features in Word, as long as basic docs can be opened and edited.

If you still have the old version of Pages, then use it. If you downloaded the new iWorks, then the old iWorks should be in a folder in your Applications. It still works just fine. Just another option.
 

ecrispy

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 27, 2013
187
29
Thanks all. The path seems clear -

1. try LibreOffice, if it works then no need for anything else
2. buy Office 2011 for Mac

Since it will be a new Mac, it won't have old version of Pages. I guess there's no way to buy/download it either.
 
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