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Pages vs. Word

ladytonya

ladytonya

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Oct 14, 2008
924
198
I'm trying to decide whether or not to add iWork to my purchase. I'm not doing a lot of fancy documents, but I do have to submit papers to instructors in online courses in Word or rtf format. Can you save a document as a Word or rich text file in Pages? I can find responses to similar questions about Pages and Word, but I don't think I've seen anyone ask if there is "save as" function in Pages. So, is there, or should I stick with Office for Mac?
 
ladytonya said:
I'm trying to decide whether or not to add iWork to my purchase. I'm not doing a lot of fancy documents, but I do have to submit papers to instructors in online courses in Word or rtf format. Can you save a document as a Word or rich text file in Pages? I can find responses to similar questions about Pages and Word, but I don't think I've seen anyone ask if there is "save as" function in Pages. So, is there, or should I stick with Office for Mac?
Click to expand...

Add iWork. Word is soo slow on my MB Intel. iWork is built specifically for the Mac - I know Word is as well, but it's just SOO slow on mine. Not like unusable, just not to where I like it.

You can also see from this similar thread where it's a vs. for iWork and Word.
 
its a matter of preference
iworks can export word formats and stuff.
but if you have at least 2 gigs of RAM on your macbook MS office will fly real fast
i use MS office 08 right now and i have no problems even with 1GB of RAM to me its depending on whether you like the GUI of either program. they are the same really. just depending what you like. however MS office can not read the .pages and other iworks formats so thats the downfall. and entourage is really good i rather stick with mail.

to me i reccomend ms office 08
 
Ah, Tom, I guess it's cause I just have 1 GB of Ram, :p


Yes, you can save Word documents you make in Mac Word to be read on XP, Vista, Rich Text Format, Etc.
Here are two images of the dock image, and different formats you can save in:
ih17qt.png


24b4769.png
 
I have iWorks and Word and like Word better. Both run just as fast on my Macbook. I do use Word on Bootcamp though and it isn't Word 2008 for Mac. I didn't like that version so I just use Office 2007 on my Windows partition. Everyone has their preference and nobody is wrong. Get what you like the best and what will be easier to use. Compatibility wise I'm a Mac lover in a Windows world, so Word is better for that of course.
 
hogfaninga said:
I have iWorks and Word and like Word better. Both run just as fast on my Macbook. I do use Word on Bootcamp though and it isn't Word 2008 for Mac. I didn't like that version so I just use Office 2007 on my Windows partition. Everyone has their preference and nobody is wrong. Get what you like the best and what will be easier to use. Compatibility wise I'm a Mac lover in a Windows world, so Word is better for that of course.
Click to expand...

That's what I did. I am a huge lover in the classic '03 word, so I used it on my VMWare Fusion emulator for Windows, because crappy 'ol BootCamp wouldn't work. :mad:
 
I discounted OpenOffice until this last release. I absolutely hated it before, now I love it. I can save docs as OO or Office docs. Same with spreadsheets. Just wanted to throw that idea out there. And it's free.:rolleyes:
 
I use iWork. For $79 it's worth it for Keynote alone (I think, but I do a lot of presentation work) so I look at Pages as being a bonus. It does just what I need it to do.

I've said it before, I just wish Apple would continue improving on iWork. There haven't been updates in a long time.
 
ladytonya said:
I'm trying to decide whether or not to add iWork to my purchase. I'm not doing a lot of fancy documents, but I do have to submit papers to instructors in online courses in Word or rtf format. Can you save a document as a Word or rich text file in Pages? I can find responses to similar questions about Pages and Word, but I don't think I've seen anyone ask if there is "save as" function in Pages. So, is there, or should I stick with Office for Mac?
Click to expand...

I am in the same boat. I used windows and office 2003/2007 through my time while earning my BA. Now that I'm in Graduate School, I use iWork. Let me share some thoughts...

iWork has some great templets that can really be applied to a lot of papers and other things.

Word has the native .doc and .docx formats. (I work in a computer lab. We still have issues opening .doc/.docx files that were created on a mac. I have no idea why, it just happens.

In iWork, you can export as .doc/.docx. You don't really need to worry about getting your paper to them.

If formating is a problem with anything, always fall back on PDF. They can accept PDFs without a problem. Just ask before you send it.

Since I work at my Grad school as well as attend, I get some pretty awesome discounts on software. My version of office 2008 cost me little over $15.00. I downloaded a trial copy of iWork to compare the two. I can honestly say that I find office to be a pain. It takes longer to load and does this annoying thing of placing a data file in your documents folder by default. (You can move it to one or two other places only.) I actually ended up shelling out the $80 for iWork. (There is no discount since the school has no campus wide license for it.)

Try the trial. If you like it, might as well use it.
 
soLoredd said:
I use iWork. For $79 it's worth it for Keynote alone (I think, but I do a lot of presentation work) so I look at Pages as being a bonus. It does just what I need it to do.

I've said it before, I just wish Apple would continue improving on iWork. There haven't been updates in a long time.
Click to expand...

I agree. I used KeyNote today, actually - SOO much better than PowerPoint. If anyone wants screenshots of that as well, reply on this thread!! :D
 
I can get iWork for $71 through the education store on apple.com. I may just go ahead and get it. I can also download Office for Mac from my school for free. If I don't like it or it's too slow, I can always remove it. I have heard lots of good stuff about Keynote.

I don't actually plan on installing Windows on my Mac. If I absolutely need to do something on a Windows computer, I can use my desktop at home. I will eventually replace it, but it's just a year old and is still running pretty good.

As far as documents for school goes, I have had professors who are all over the place on the issue. Some will accept pretty much anything, but those are the ones who are computer savy and know how to open different formats. Right now, I am taking two classes and one will only accept assignments in .doc format, period. If it's not submitted in .doc, you get a 0 on the assignment. Pretty harsh if you ask me! The other said that we can use .doc or RTF. He specifically said no .dotx because he can't open them. Gotta love flexibility! LOL!
 
ladytonya said:
I'm trying to decide whether or not to add iWork to my purchase. I'm not doing a lot of fancy documents, but I do have to submit papers to instructors in online courses in Word or rtf format. Can you save a document as a Word or rich text file in Pages? I can find responses to similar questions about Pages and Word, but I don't think I've seen anyone ask if there is "save as" function in Pages. So, is there, or should I stick with Office for Mac?
Click to expand...

Check your school's educational price on Office 2008 through the bookstore. I was able to get the Pro version of Office (the $300 one) for about $70 through my university. If you're going to be exchanging a lot of papers, I'd recommend just getting office.

The export feature works well, but at the least it's one extra step and you'll have two files: one .rtf and one .pages.

edit: never mind. I missed the "free" part.
 
thomahawk said:
its a matter of preference
iworks can export word formats and stuff.
but if you have at least 2 gigs of RAM on your macbook MS office will fly real fast
i use MS office 08 right now and i have no problems even with 1GB of RAM to me its depending on whether you like the GUI of either program. they are the same really. just depending what you like. however MS office can not read the .pages and other iworks formats so thats the downfall. and entourage is really good i rather stick with mail.

to me i reccomend ms office 08
Click to expand...

Um, i have 4gb of ram, the 7200rpm hd, and 2.5GHz of processor power, but word is still very slow. However pages is nice and fast. I would say get pages.
 
fleshman03 said:
I am in the same boat. I used windows and office 2003/2007 through my time while earning my BA. Now that I'm in Graduate School, I use iWork. Let me share some thoughts...

iWork has some great templets that can really be applied to a lot of papers and other things.

Word has the native .doc and .docx formats. (I work in a computer lab. We still have issues opening .doc/.docx files that were created on a mac. I have no idea why, it just happens.

In iWork, you can export as .doc/.docx. You don't really need to worry about getting your paper to them.

If formating is a problem with anything, always fall back on PDF. They can accept PDFs without a problem. Just ask before you send it.

Since I work at my Grad school as well as attend, I get some pretty awesome discounts on software. My version of office 2008 cost me little over $15.00. I downloaded a trial copy of iWork to compare the two. I can honestly say that I find office to be a pain. It takes longer to load and does this annoying thing of placing a data file in your documents folder by default. (You can move it to one or two other places only.) I actually ended up shelling out the $80 for iWork. (There is no discount since the school has no campus wide license for it.)

Try the trial. If you like it, might as well use it.
Click to expand...

+1
I use and love iwork.
 
I have had and used both. While I would love to be able to stay with pages, and apple only, I have found Word much better, followed by open office. I do hope, Apple continues to work with iWorks, and if some more changes happen, I will switch.
 
Sure can save in RTF and Doc. :cool:
Pages is even nice and quick on my old iMac G4. I use it all the time and would easily recommend it.
 

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redwarrior said:
I discounted OpenOffice until this last release. I absolutely hated it before, now I love it. I can save docs as OO or Office docs. Same with spreadsheets. Just wanted to throw that idea out there. And it's free.:rolleyes:
Click to expand...

I've been using Neo Office, it's open office optimized for Mac. Haven't done any presentations with it, but so far word processing and spreadsheets are working fine with co-workers using Office.

I also have iWork, Pages is ok, Keynote is awesome, Numbers just fair.
 
Between Oo_O and iWork ($39 at my univ's computer showcase), I find there is no need for MS Office. I can open and save in .doc no problem, as well as many other formats.
 
In my opinion

Word > Pages
Excel < Numbers
Powerpoint < Keynote

Word is better at the task of word processing, and has more tools at it's disposal, including typing in other languages. However, it is not as good of a "Mac" app as Pages, as if existing in it's own little world.
So overall, I think iWork is a better purchase. Considering price, integration with OS X and the abundance of templates for iWork. iWork is much easier to get going than Office and is better able to take advantage of OS resources.

I loves it.
 
I have both. I find myself using office more often than iWork - mostly for guaranteed compatibility.
 
Pages is a truly wonderful program. Unlike Word, I never really feel like I am fighting the interface to get work done. It just works. I will never go back to Word....ever.

There's only one shortcoming I have found with Pages though. And that is no built-in Word-Art like tool to bend text around objects and such. That annoys me as I think something from Apple ought to do this on all Macs. Yet there isn't such a tool without resorting the 3rd party apps. Annoying!!!

Other than that, Pages is a stellar program. Numbers is just okay (currently) and Keynote is pretty darn powerful. Definitely worth the 30 day download to see if you like it.
 
I'm currently trying to decide between Word and Pages. I'm on a G4 Digital Audio (PPC) with 1.25 Mb ram, and I run Tiger (10.4.11).

Both Word and Pages (as well as NeoOffice) have the functions I need. My only concern is responsiveness -- cursor lag, and stuff. I often work with documents that are upwards to 300 pages long. They usually have lots of tables and graphics (imported images).

I'm a fairly recent convert from OS9 (yes, I'm dinosaur), where I use Word, and it works perfectly. Instant cursor responsiveness. The pages scroll in perfect synshronization with the mouse wheel, not half-a-second later.

I tried NeoOffice, but the sluggishness and (non)responsiveness is something I can't live with.

I have a good price for a copy of Word 2004, which I'll probably buy. But should I also be looking for Pages? I suppose iWork 08 is better suited for the PPC architecture than iWork 09.

Anyway, is there any general consensus about difference (in terms of sluggishness) between Word and Pages on a PPC machine? There doesn't seem to be any when browsing though threads on various Mac forums. Should I take that to mean that it doesn't matter which I go for?
 
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