Pasting graphics into Pages vs. Word

[Sandy Santra]

I've used Word for years on the PC, now I'm using Office 2004 on the Mac. What I can't figure out is this: if I create some kind of graphic in a Mac app like OmniGraffle or MindManager that has pictures, when I paste it into MicroSoft Word 2004 for Mac, it looks like crap. When I paste it into Pages or some other "native" Mac app, it looks gorgeous.

I'm trying to figure out: is this because I'm missing a setting in Word 2004? Or because the code architecture in Word 2004 was never built out correctly to accept pasting of graphics?

Any experts in Word vs. Pages out there, I'd really appreciate your thoughts and opinions! Thanks. (It's stuff like this that makes me want to convert my 1000s of Word docs to Pages, despite the fact that it's not as "powerful" as Word.)

 

[SnowLeopard2008]

Pages is much more powerful than Word will ever be. Office should stay on Windows. MS fails when it comes to doing anything that works on a stable platform. Anyway, I think it's just the way that Word handles those pictures. I would screenshot the picture and drag the screenshot to Word. That might make it look better. Lastly, Word and the entire Office suite for Mac sucks.

 

[Sandy Santra]

Pages is much more powerful than Word

Don't get me wrong--I love my Mac, and iWork's apps, and all the OmniGroup apps.

But after using Word for 15 years, I pretty much know it inside and out; and I don't think that Pages has anywhere the number of features (or the power). Stability, yes; graphics robustness and ease of use, yes. But Pages is just not a hugely powerful and feature rich program like Word on any platform (or Logic Pro on the Mac). That's OK, I guess.

I still use Excel and Word when I need them for something super complex.

And if Pages had the history and longevity of Word, I'd convert everything over in a heartbeat. But l worry that the file format won't be as widely recognized (as Word) in 5 or 10 years.

 

[IJ Reilly]

Don't get me wrong--I love my Mac, and iWork's apps, and all the OmniGroup apps.

But after using Word for 15 years, I pretty much know it inside and out; and I don't think that Pages has anywhere the number of features (or the power). Stability, yes; graphics robustness and ease of use, yes. But Pages is just not a hugely powerful and feature rich program like Word on any platform (or Logic Pro on the Mac). That's OK, I guess.

I still use Excel and Word when I need them for something super complex.

And if Pages had the history and longevity of Word, I'd convert everything over in a heartbeat. But l worry that the file format won't be as widely recognized (as Word) in 5 or 10 years.

Some older versions of Word documents don't open in newer versions of Word anyway. Built in obsolescence is a fact of life, so you should choose what works for you now and not worry too much about the future, since you can really only predict that you can't predict it. For years now, I've been routinely converting all of my important documents into PDF, which has been the most stable format over many years. I don't think we'll have to worry about PDF files becoming unreadable for a long, long time. This method has the added advantage of preserving the documents as you created them when you created them. I only wish I started doing this sooner.

As for "power" -- how is that defined, anyway? By feature count, or the quality with which the features are implemented? I've always found the second definition to be the better one for my purposes.

 

[Sandy Santra]

For years now, I've been routinely converting all of my important documents into PDF, which has been the most stable format over many years.

Yes--brilliant! I'm still converting over PaperPort documents that I should have scanned in pdf (maybe they didn't have that option in the beginning). One of these days I should be finished, and then I can get them into Yep!