Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Why use Pages over Word?
- Thread starter jwolf6589
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I've always been a bigger fan of Pages' overall elegance and functionality in a simplistic design than Word's – granted, I don't think I've used Word since before its graphics were anti-aliased. It's also great with iCloud if working from various devices is your thing.
I agree, far from perfect, Word is superior in most respects. The biggest challenge is the fluidity of paragraph styles when working with large multi-part documents. I mourn the loss of Framemaker for Mac for those, but that is ancient history.
In October 2017 we had a lengthy conversation thread on the size of Pages files and the use of iWorks.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/why-are-pages-files-so-large.2079291/
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/who-uses-iworks.2079065/
As for the advantages of using Pages over Word, it essentially comes down to (a) personal preference and (b) functionality required.
I can create the documents that I need (that use very specific formatting) more effectively and efficiently using Pages than with Word. There are some quirky defaults within Word that I find irritating, like copying and pasting a numbered list causes the pasted list to "continue numbering".
I greatly rely on the cross-platform parity of iWork over MS Office. Whether I'm editing documents on my Macbook Air, iPad, iMac, or via the web (when working on a Windows system), there is great consistency in functionality. MS Office on the other hand, is pretty scattered. The iOS version of Office is quite inferior to the Mac OS, Windows, or online version. That causes issues when I expect a function to be available and it isn't.
Having said that, there are many times that I need to use MS Office. My preference is to use Pages whenever possible and if there is something that I can't do in Pages, I'll try Pages '09, and only go to Word as a last resort.
I agree with member @sracer. I used MS Office for years - Windows and macOS. And unless I have to exchange documents with someone or some business that absolutely needs it in Office format, I will use Pages. In my opinion MS Office has devolved into bloatware and numerous updates that just seem to cause problems. I do have Office 2011 that I keep handy for those times when it is necessary. My copy of Office 2016 is sitting on the shelf over my desk along with other no longer used software. I suppose I may be forced to install it if Office 2011 should not function with the next version of macOS.
Same here. I'll open a .docx in Word if I have to, but only long enough to get the info I need. Word is just too bloated, slow and erratic for me. Pages is very smooth and has (near? total?) feature parity with the iOS version, so I can easily pop open a .pages file on my phone if I need to. I guess if I needed more Word-specific features or collaborated in a Microsoft-centric environment more I'd use it.
As for more advanced formatting, well, I'll open InDesign for that, thanks
As for more advanced formatting, well, I'll open InDesign for that, thanks
Better designed for Mac, and free.
Install Office 2016 its much better than 2011 and runs better as well.
[doublepost=1527206753][/doublepost]
Same here. I'll open a .docx in Word if I have to, but only long enough to get the info I need. Word is just too bloated, slow and erratic for me. Pages is very smooth and has (near? total?) feature parity with the iOS version, so I can easily pop open a .pages file on my phone if I need to. I guess if I needed more Word-specific features or collaborated in a Microsoft-centric environment more I'd use it.
As for more advanced formatting, well, I'll open InDesign for that, thanks
To me Office files take forever to launch because I am using a spinning HD. Pages files open MUCH faster.
Even on my SSD-based MacBook, Word takes longer than it should to open. Maybe this has something to do with it:
Word's subscription model has been known to leave people stranded without access to their docs.
OTOH 6 years down the line when Apple comes out with "Paragraphs" you won't be able to read Pages Docs either.
Apple has long strings of abandonware.
For my limited needs, I go with LibreOffice, which at least has an open document format.
Plain text, as from BBEdit, has a nice long file-usability lifetime. So that's good too.
With cell phones displacing most computers, this is a bad time to rely on what may very well turn out to be ephemeral file formats.
OTOH 6 years down the line when Apple comes out with "Paragraphs" you won't be able to read Pages Docs either.
Apple has long strings of abandonware.
For my limited needs, I go with LibreOffice, which at least has an open document format.
Plain text, as from BBEdit, has a nice long file-usability lifetime. So that's good too.
With cell phones displacing most computers, this is a bad time to rely on what may very well turn out to be ephemeral file formats.
Definitely that's it. I have suspected that Microsoft is using some sort of WINE-like wrapper around some Windows-based code for it's Mac version of Office. File size was one clue. At one point in time, fonts used by MS Office for Mac were separate from OSX fonts, that was another.
As an experiment, I took Office 2007 for Windows and encapsulated each of the apps in a WINEskin wrapper. The resulting size of the standalone executable for each component of Office was relatively comparable to their 2016 Office for Mac counterpart. Load times were similar as well.
It did the same thing with Office 2003 for Windows. The results were actually pretty good. File sizes for Word, Excel, Access, PowerPoint, and Publisher were under 700MB each. There are times when I prefer to use the Office 2003 Windows apps in a wrapper than the "native" Office 2016 for Mac.
When your Office 365 subscription expires it goes into a limited function mode. You can still read and access your documents, you just can't do anything with them.
Pages, Numbers and Keynote will import from and export to .docx, .xls and .ppt file formats -- albeit with varying degrees of fidelity.
When someone sends me a .docx I generally just open it in Pages first, just to see if that's "good enough" to read what I need to.
[doublepost=1527264025][/doublepost]
Pages is well over a decade old at this point and totally backward compatible. Any loss of compatibility would have a long lead time. But yeah, it's always important to keep an eye on this stuff. For my writing these days I'm huge on plain text, either .markdown or .fountain, and I know there's no way plain text is going away anytime soon.
Speaking of archiving, the other day I came across a weirdo .qtvr "QuickTime VR" file I'd made in like 2005. It could still be opened in QuickTime 7, which still functions for now -- but there were no viable export options to more current file formats. Fortunately someone out there had documented a (very laborious) way to resave it as one big JPEG. If I'd waited another MacOS version or two until QuickTime 7 was dead, I'd be looking at either losing the file or going to extraordinary measures to recover it.
Last edited:
Damn why pay for this crap?? These two are free and work fine..
https://www.openoffice.org/download/index.html
https://www.libreoffice.org
For those of us that work on Windows and have Mac personally - Word is essential. I love it and have used it for years now. Pages is nice - I don't like the way it does numbered lists but other than that, it's fine. I just like being able to access my data from my Work machine, OneDrive from any device, my iPhone, and my Macbook at home. Word on iPhone is actually very usable and nice. Just wish they had a tabbed version so I didn't have to have 4-5 docs to alt/tab through...
Recently tried Ulysseus and was very disappointed with the fact that I can create lists but if I insert an item, it doesn't re-order. Really? That and it's Apple only - doesn't work for me.
OpenOffice is Ok but again, I dislike how it does numbered lists. When I do 1. then hit enter and hit tab, it should be an indented a. not 1.. Why is this so hard?!?!?! Drives me nuts.
I usually prefer open source but Word is required by a lot of college courses, it's a lot easier to make a professional looking document, and I can open a 10+ year old .doc file with ease. For $99/year my wife, myself, and some other family members can all have Word/Excel/Powerpoint/Etc.., 1TB of OneDrive storage, etc... I just really like Word's integration with OneDrive (I use this heavily) and collaboration features (many people can modify a document at once like Google Docs).
Advantages of Pages?
Free. Faster to open. Much more of a minimalist design. Smaller app size. Good if you use iCloud.
Recently tried Ulysseus and was very disappointed with the fact that I can create lists but if I insert an item, it doesn't re-order. Really? That and it's Apple only - doesn't work for me.
OpenOffice is Ok but again, I dislike how it does numbered lists. When I do 1. then hit enter and hit tab, it should be an indented a. not 1.. Why is this so hard?!?!?! Drives me nuts.
I usually prefer open source but Word is required by a lot of college courses, it's a lot easier to make a professional looking document, and I can open a 10+ year old .doc file with ease. For $99/year my wife, myself, and some other family members can all have Word/Excel/Powerpoint/Etc.., 1TB of OneDrive storage, etc... I just really like Word's integration with OneDrive (I use this heavily) and collaboration features (many people can modify a document at once like Google Docs).
Advantages of Pages?
Free. Faster to open. Much more of a minimalist design. Smaller app size. Good if you use iCloud.
I don't pay for Office 365. I'm a college administrator/professor and get it and Adobe Creative Cloud for free. For just my personal use, I would only use Pages, Keynote, etc. and wouldn't pay for either of them.
My guess is if you're asking this question, then you really don't need what MS Word has to offer.
That said, you should stick with Pages, which is very good and has a plus…
It's free.
My guess is if you're asking this question, then you really don't need what MS Word has to offer.
That said, you should stick with Pages, which is very good and has a plus…
It's free.
I use them both for writing letters. Word takes a long time to launch for the first time on my HD while pages launches in seconds.
Unless you're in an organisation that uses MS Office, or do have a specific need, if I were you, I would stick with Pages.
It's much swifter. Microsoft as yet to optimize their software for the Mac, although Office 2016 is giant leap from 2011.
Still, very, very slow, and stripped of some important features, for use in the business world, depending on the licence you purchase, when compared with its Windows brother. "Business conflict" right? You bet.
Again, I would stick with Pages.
I pretty much have to use Word. It has unparalleled power and features that Pages simply doesn’t have (heading navigation in long documents for one - thumbnails don’t cut it!). But there's one thing about Office in general I detest - the ribbon. I’ve been using Word for years and I still can’t find stuff. It’s a dreadful piece of UX and completely redundant on the Mac where there are still drop-down menus.
Hey I prefer the drop down menus! I hate the Windows version which lacks these.
Me too - that’s what I meant. The Mac version has both drop-downs and the ribbon; why does it need the latter? Libre/OpenOffice adopt the ‘old’ MS Office look which are more appropriate on the Mac as the drop-downs are persistent.