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Word processing on the retina MBP

R

roberticus70

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 27, 2012
17
20
For anyone out who wants to do word processing on the rMBP in retina resolution, I have so far come across two apps that can go beyond what TextEdit can handle:

-Google Docs (not ideal); and

-OpenOffice (a bit better).

But I'm curious to hear if anyone else has come up with other solutions. (Especially anything that can handle footnotes and export to Word.)

...It seems strange that iWorks is still MIA (as of June 26th) -- when the rMBP was touted at Macworld as ideal for both graphics people but also those who work primarily with text...
 
I think we are going to see a new version of iwork with ML's release that includes 64 bit, icloud integration, retina optimized, and a new inferface that is congruous with iOS version of iwork. It is beyond due by now.
 
OpenOffice has... issues. The real OpenOffice got moved to LibreOffice, its just they didn't own the name so had to use a new name. Its much better and better supported than OpenOffice.
 
I just don't get why they haven't updated Pages. Maybe prepping for a bigger release with Mountain Lion?
 
What's the problem again?

Hi. I don't seem to understand the problem. Are you looking for Retina optimised processor? How come you're not considering Microsoft Word?
 
I was playing with a rMBP in the Glasgow Apple Store yesterday and opened up MS Word to see what it looked like. In a word, terrible and not something I could have used on a daily basis. Very fuzzy text that would have been difficult to read for any period of time.
 
You can use Pages in limited fashion if you right click > Get Info > Un-click Open in Low Resolution. There is a bug, however, that basically cripples the app if your document is longer than one page because text doesn't show up at all on subsequent pages.
 
I have used both iWork and MS office both look heavily pixelated on the default settings of my mac display. I however found the Bean a open source word processor does wonders until both apple and Microsoft release future updates!
 
jaehlee87 said:
Hi. I don't seem to understand the problem. Are you looking for Retina optimised processor? How come you're not considering Microsoft Word?
Click to expand...

Because Word looks HORRIBLE on the retina. After seeing how bad it looked I found LibreOffice and it looks great on the retina. Plus I no longer have to deal with Microsoft's latest anti-piracy crap.
 
To get retina performance out of Word, set your rMBP to native using one of the third party scripts (I use SetRes.app, a simple apple script app). Then use Word's zoom to 200%. Boom, done, perfect text. UI is TINY, of course, so this is not ideal but at least for me, most of my Word UI use is stuff I've done a million times, I'm not really hunting through the menus much. And it takes 2 seconds to pop back into a reasonable resolution if you really need to get fancy.

Also, to everyone who thinks the text display in Word at scaled resolutions is "terrible" and "unusable," I encourage you to view Word on your rMBP next to Word on any other computer. The rMBP (scaled res) is worse, but the difference is not huge. It isn't really that Word is so bad on the rMBP, it is that you very quickly get used to the vastly superior display in retina-ready apps like Safari or TextEdit, and going back to crappy old text is jarring.

Finally, the "higher resolution" scaled settings I found produced marginally better text in Word than the "Best for Retina" but nothing approaches the native setting, which is, as I said, perfect.

EDIT: Also, a side benefit of tiny UI is that it has encouraged me to try and rely more on keyboard shortcuts, something I am always trying to get better about, but don't have the discipline to do normally. Kind of wish I'd thought of some way of impairing the UI to make myself use shortcuts earlier! Not trying to be an apologist here, working at 2880 is obviously a kludge in a lot of ways, but it isn't all bad.
 
I'am about to return to uni this week with my brand spanking new macbook pro retina, but the lack of software updates on this thing is driving me nuts I have an alternative word processor Bean which works great on the screen but what about software for presentations is there any third party powerpoint or keynote software out there.

till than i'am waiting for office 2013 or the next iWork software package if it is more promising than office which i hope will support the retina display.
 
Seconded for LibreOffice. I always used to use MSOffice on the PC because although OpenOffice did some things, it was always a bit rough around the edges and couldn't properly open or save many documents written in MSO. LibreOffice seems much better, retina text, and hasn't burped at any documents yet.
 
The fact that iWork wasn't updated for Retina to coincide with the release of the rMBP is yet another indication that this laptop was rushed to market way too quickly (as though the lag issues didn't clue everyone in on this).
 
austinguy23 said:
The fact that iWork wasn't updated for Retina to coincide with the release of the rMBP is yet another indication that this laptop was rushed to market way too quickly (as though the lag issues didn't clue everyone in on this).
Click to expand...

Having not experienced the "lag" I'm rather glad they did.
 
This is a case where people running the non HiDPI mode 2880x1800 benefit. Sure the menu's might be small but you can change the zoom in office and get retina quality text even though the app does not support HiDPI mode. Any app that does scaling/rendering is like this (like google maps, firefox, etc..).
 
I use BootCamp Win7 in 2800 X 1800 mode. Microsoft Word works fine there with system's 150% increase in DPI. IE9 also works better than Chrome. 1st time I found a reason to use IE9 other than for some outdated govt. websites.

Running in Parallel don't seem ideal, and could work. I tried a bit but couldn't be bothered spending more time as 1920x1900 is pixelated, and MacOS in 2880x1800 is too small, and I havn't spent time to try to adjust the dpi/font size.
 
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