Mac Pages vs Word: a reader asks Hi Chris, I’m in the process of switching from Windows to a Mac. And you can’t import surface or radar charts from MS Word to Pages. And don’t expect your tables to come over cleanly either. I’m Chris Gardner, Your Tech Coach giving you Practical Help for Your Digital Life. I have on my Mac - Microsoft Word 2010, now I want to write from right to left ( not only text-align right, but direction ltr). Microsoft Word right-to-left (RTL) support. Ask Question 6. MS Word for Mac, show outline on the left panel. Shortcut to left align objects in PowerPoint. Microsoft word 2011 not correcting words. Microsoft Word vs Apple Pages review. Apple Pages '09 vs Microsoft Word for Mac 2011 vs Google Docs comparison review. Looking at the things Pages does better than Word (design and layout.
- Db: 3.36:which Is Better: Pages Vs. Ms Word For Mac Free
- Db: 3.36:which Is Better: Pages Vs. Ms Word For Mac Download
When we look at Pages versus Word, it really is the age old competition between Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak of Apple and Bill Gates and Paul Allen of Microsoft. The original version of Word was actually developed by Simonyi and Brodie, who worked first on Xerox Bravo, which was the very first “what you see is what you get” (WYSIWYG) software for word processing. Apple Pages is just one component of Apple’s iWork software suite. It’s the main word processor for Mac and though it’s quite popular with many Mac users, it never really gained a foothold in the business world, quite possibly because there were just so many people tied to Microsoft Word. MS Word, currently available for just over $100+ Apple Pages (through iWork) currently available for $30 to $40 Pages Versus Word: Interface There’s no getting around the fact that if you are used to using Microsoft Office for Windows, you will be more familiar with the blue and white MS Word interface on your Mac.
Word on the iPad and on the desktop lays out functions clearly in tabs across the top of the screen: File, Layout, Review, etc.) The interface for Apple Pages is less cluttered across the top but it’s an unfamiliar orange and white. The functions are split between the top and the bottom of the screen and the menu uses symbols, such as a wrench and paintbrush, as opposed to words. Deciphering what the symbols stand for, and remembering that when you need to perform a task, just takes a little more effort to learn.
Power Word users may be disappointed with the simplicity of Pages. Some reviewers described Pages as a watered down version of Word. I believe it all depends on the type of documents you are creating. There are a ton of MS Word users who never scratch the surface of what MS Word is actually capable of when it comes to documents.
It’s my belief that those users will be content with Pages. Pages vs Word: Document Sharing and Collaboration One of the main reasons to use a word processor in the first place is to be able to share thoughts, ideas, and other written documents with other users. Because it seems MS Word still dominants the marketplace when it comes to word processing, this means being able to view, edit, and share files with PC users and other Mac users is crucial. You’ll find that neither program does well as far as compatibility when opening and editing files created in the other program. If you are a Pages user who collaborates with MS Word users, you will want to use MS Word for iPad in order to edit and return documents in Word to others.
You can make use of your iCloud to sync Pages files across all your devices but Word won’t do this. Once you’ve mastered the learning curve of Apple Pages, however, you’ll find it is superior in function to MS Word. Pages offers four different formats to save your file including as a Pages or Word file, a PDF document, or as an ePub file.
Word offers multiple formats for saving as well. You may still find MS Word users who aren’t keen to work with your Pages document but if they are willing it can be done. Pages also enables you to simply email a link to the document on your iCloud so collaborators can open, view, and edit the document right there, even if they don’t have Pages or iCloud themselves. Pages vs Word: Pricing Structure MS Word does offer a version for the iOS but only with a yearly subscription. There is a free version of Word with limited features that you can use which is enough if you only use it for word processing and not for document formatting and layout. You do have to register and set up an account with Microsoft to use their free version and their paid version will cost you around $8-$10 monthly. Budget-savvy users who want to use that $95-$120 a year on something else will want to seriously consider Apple Pages.
The functionality of Pages is great and you can purchase just Pages via a Mac App store for about $20.00. If you want the whole iWorks suite, the cost will run between $60-$80, but that’s a one-time fee. Purchasing Microsoft Office suite for Mac will run around $220 upfront, not to mention renewal fees and licensing fees for multiple devices. So when it comes to making a choice between MS Word and Apple Pages, it seems that Pages will win for most Mac fans, but don’t make a decision based on cost alone.
Long-time MS Word users may have difficulty switching over because they are comfortable, they don’t want to learn something new, they are afraid, or they feel “everyone” is using Word. None of these are valid reasons to dismiss Apple Pages. Consider the amount of document sharing and collaboration that you need to do with other non-Mac or non-Pages users. If you use your word processor infrequently or only for personal use, you may be perfectly content with Pages. Before you say goodbye forever to MS Word though, make sure to talk to other Pages users and test drive Pages yourself to make sure it’s going to work for all your projects. Pages Versus Word: Extras To learn more about the best writing software and to discover the essential programs that all writers should have, read my article on the.
Freelance With Us is also packed with reviews of other word processing programs, including everything from, OpenOffice and more. Just click onto our article section, or run a search. If your goal is to make it as a freelancer and you’re still struggling to get over those initial hurdles, checkout from our resident writer PJ Aitken (who is actually a big fan of the Pages software). This book details everything that you need to know to make it as a freelancer, everything you need to replicate Aitken’s own success and to make a six-figure salary in your first year. A few things extra to think about: 1. Document layout and design features 2.
Document structure management 3. Rich-text element (like tables & images) styling I started my life as a technical writer on Word, because Pages years ago just wasn’t up to snuff. I replaced my home MacBook a few years ago and didn’t buy a new license for Word, and I’ve been ok with Pages as a simple word processor. But I’ve been recently writing slightly larger documents again that require some structure, and I’ve become really quite frustrated with Pages.
Tables are difficult to build. Most things I copy and paste in will never take applied styles correctly. It looks nice, but I’m actually about to finally buy a license for Word again because I just can’t take what’s missing anymore.
Mac Pages vs Word: a reader asks Hi Chris, I’m in the process of switching from Windows to a Mac. I’ve been using Microsoft Word for a long time now, but am not too happy about having to pay for the program again just to use it on a Mac. My new Mac has this program called Pages which does word processing, can I use that with my Word documents?
Are there any ‘gotchas’? One of the really nice thing about moving from a Microsoft Windows PC to a Mac is that your new Mac comes with a whole bunch of programs to do most things you want to do without adding additional software. One of those things is word processing. Apple’s answer to Microsoft Word (part of the Microsoft Office suite of software) is Pages. Pages is a full-featured word processor, but operates a little bit differently than the Word you’re used to. Apple’s Pages has full import and export functionality for various types of word processing programs including Microsoft Word. You can certainly import a Microsoft Word document into Pages, but there are a few compatibility problems.
For a complete list, check out the table at this. But in a nutshell, you’ll see issues in these seven areas. Advertisement.
Fonts: Apple does a good job of choosing the nearest Mac font to whatever font you used in your Word document, but it may not be an exact match. Tab settings: Apple will import your tabs into Pages, but they may not look the same and need adjusting. Text settings: Apple’s Pages doesn’t support linked text boxes, text effects, or vertical text. If you used WordArt in MS Word, you’ll see the text you used, but not the special WordArt appearance. Fancy bullets and numbers for lists: Pages will give you bulleted and numbered lists, but your exact format may not convert over. Also some paragraph styles may look different than the original in MS Word.
Graphics/Images: Pages supports many types of images, but not everything. And if you used Microsoft’s SmartArt Graphics, that won’t transfer over. Tables and Charts: some types of pie and line charts may not look the same when you bring them over, and you can’t import surface or radar charts from MS Word to Pages. And don’t expect your tables to come over cleanly either.
Misc: page borders and backgrounds in MS Word won’t transfer over, neither will borders and watermarks, equations. And you can’t use Word Macros, they don’t come across. Nor do Word themes, ink annotations, ligatures, and OLE objects. If you’ve an image embedded in a table, the image might not be imported, but you can re-do that in Pages. If you’re a big fan of ‘Track Changes’ you’ll miss that, as well as linked Table of Contents (e.g., Bookmarks).
Finally, bibliographies and citations will be imported, but they can’t be managed like you did in MS Word. Pages is great when you’re creating documents, once you get to know how it works (it isn’t hard). But it is quite a bit different than Microsoft Word, so you’ll have a bit of a learning curve to get over before you’re comfortable in the Mac world.
You’ll see the same types of compatibility issues with Numbers (Apple’s answer to Excel) and Keynote (Apple’s answer to Powerpoint). All these programs work great, but there’s going to be a transition period where it may take you a bit to get comfortable with how these Apple programs do things.
If you routinely work with others and have to deal with Microsoft Word documents, then it might be worth the investment in an Office 365 subscription so you can continue to use Word and not have to deal with compatibility issues. Hi mb, thanks for your comment! If you’re talking about using the Pages app on a Mac, I don’t think you’ll see any improvement in working with large documents. If you’re talking about using a web browser, logging into icloud.com, then running the Pages app in the web browser and working with your document, that’s ok, since you’ll be using Apple’s servers to handle the actual file. Your computer is simply serving up interactive web pages. If the latter is what you’re talking about, then skip a few paragraphs and I’ll talk about that. Read on for dealing with using a software program on your computer.
It all comes down to the amount of resources you’re using on your computer (Mac or PC). Your computer has a certain amount of RAM, and needs a good chunk of what’s available just to run the operating system and background operations. Every program you run uses more RAM, and every file you open uses up more.
In the case of a very large manuscript/document, that can push your RAM usage over the available amount. This causes your system (again, Mac or PC). To respond very slowly as it has to use the very-much-slower hard drive as ‘virtual RAM’ and does a lot of swapping memory between RAM and virtual RAM as you work. The only solution to this resource problem is more RAM, but it’s more than just that.
The speed of your processor, the amount of available hard drive space (and the speed of that hard drive – SSD’s are a lot faster), and the type of processor and associated hardware all have a potential impact on resource use. Also the version of the operating system (e.g., Windows 7, 8, 10 or MacOS 10.9, 10.10, 10.11) and software (e.g., Word 2010, 2013, 2016) matters in terms of efficient resource management. When you say ‘powerful PC’ I can only guess what that means. So here’s what I’d guess (correct me if I’m wrong): you have 8gb or more of RAM, and a hard drive that is at least 500gb with more than 15% of that unused. You also have an Intel core i3/i5/i7 processor and some sort of graphics card (nVidia or AMD) that has at least 1gb of video RAM.
And are using Windows 7 (or better, Windows 10). Btw, I’m not describing a powerful PC (in my opinion), just a standard Windows computer vintage 2015-2016. I’m also going to guess is that you are working with a manuscript whose file size exceeds 1gb, but not larger than 2gb. Any larger and you are likely going up against a hardware resource limitation. In Word, authors and editors also like to use the Track changes feature, which is an enormous resource hog all on its own. To check your resource usage, call up the Task Manager (press Ctrl & Alt & Delete keys at the same time, then select from the list). Check your RAM, CPU and disk usage meters – if they’re pinging up at 100% – that’s your problem and your ‘powerful’ computer isn’t as powerful as you think.
I’m not even considering other potential problems (like computer viruses, malware and spyware, operating system malfunctions, or hardware malfunctions). Since you say ‘large documents’ I have to ask this question: Are you not using Word’s “Master and Subdocument” feature?
Authors, editors and writing collaborators use this to separate large manuscripts into separate files – makes it much easier to manage. The chapters (or other subdivision of your manuscript) are each in separate files and there’s a Master document that connects them. This way you are only working on a reasonably manageable chunk of a huge manuscript that could run thousands of pages. If you haven’t explored this feature, it’s well worth checking out. How-to-Geek has a nice written tutorial on using this at. Ok, so if you’re talking about using the online Pages-in-a-web-browser method of editing your manuscript, then this part’s for you. Important caveat: when editing the document in iCloud.com, you can’t track changes.
I got this straight from Apple at (scroll down to the section Features Supported When You Collaborate). So if tracking changes is important to you, then this option is out. Pages’ documents also have a 1gb file size limitation which may or may not matter to you (this is both for documents on your Mac and the online version of Pages). I should also tell you that the tracking changes feature of the Pages app is limited to Macs and iOS only, so if you collaborate with a Windows PC user (using online Pages), their edits won’t be tracked. Another online (and popular) document collaboration app is Google Docs, which does have the ability to track changes. Since 2014 (see for a writeup about it).
But Google Docs has a file size limit of 50mb. So after digesting all of this, let me know more specific details about your situation and needs, and I might be able to give you more targeted advice. The above is pretty generalized. I’m Chris Gardner, Your Tech Coach giving you Practical Help for Your Digital Life® since 1996.
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