Macworld Forums: Word 2008 vs. Pages '08 - Macworld Forums

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I use Pages and Word depending on if I will need to share a document or not. One big problem with Pages is that the Web browser-based Gmail interface will not allow attaching a Pages document unless it is first compressed to another file format, like zip. This is likely a problem with Gmail instead of Pages, but it is a problem for some users. Once I mention to people to compress the file first, then they have no problems.

I think Pages won't attach because it is actually a package like iMovie projects.

That was my assumption as well. It would be nice if Gmail would detect it's file type and automatically compress it, but I doubt that will happen unless Pages gains ground in number of users. But then again, Google would likely prefer to promote Google Docs instead of fix issues for Pages.

Pages also allows the input of arabic and other right-to-left languages, while word 2008 does not it just inputs them as boxes (word 2007 for windows however does allow right-to-left input).

Does this review mean that MS has finally straightened out style application in Word?
Example: I had a long document with multiple lists (1.1.1.1, 1.1.1.2, etc). All I wanted to do was normal list management sorts of things (promotion, demotion, reordering) and a consistent numbering format. Even though everyone else in my group was going to use Word to do the thing, I ended up putting it together in Pages, because Word 04 inconsistently handled the styles.
What should be a paragraph format apparently became a template format at times, sometimes promoting an item to a higher rank messed with styles in general. Bah. It was just a mess.

I find Pages handing of Paragraph styles better than Word (at least 2004). I mean, from what the author was saying is that Word handles it better. But Pages seems more logical. I mean, if I DON'T want to make every instance of the paragraph style change, I can just change what's highlighted. If I DO want to change all instances, "Select all uses of _ Style" and make changes, or.... Select some and then change and "Redefine Style from selected... BAM! Done. No need to create a new style or anything if not wanted.
Granted I haven't played w/ Word 2008, but the formatting palette appears to be the same and the description given in the article points to the same behavior I know in 2004. Pages, in my experience, is much more elegant in it's handling of styles in my opinion.

Macworld said:

However, that dialog is completely modal, so you can't do anything else with Word while you set your style changes. You can't see what your new style will really look like outside of a wee tiny window that doesn't show you your text, but rather boilerplate. Pages' method doesn't give you the one-stop control that Word does, but it is far less intrusive and gives you at least a legible preview in the Font panel, et al.

They both could do with taking some lessons from Word 2007 here, as it is far more dynamic and intuitive, with an excellent live preview of what your style changes will actually look like.

The other thing that I think is significant, is that the only major compatibility options offered by Word over pages is the ability to save as an OpenXML document, aka Word 2007, and some basic, albeit flawed handling of embedded objects. Word offers no other significant advantages in the way of compatibility over Pages, yet has a significant price premium, and on the same machine, is significantly slower than Pages.

I'm surprised your reviewer didn't mention Mellel. Its table formatting tools aren't as flexible as Word's, but it handles right-to-left lanquages such as Hebrew and Arabic. In fact, Mellel handles Hebrew Word documents much more gracefully than Word itself!

The most compatible (yet unmentioned) alternative for people who bring work home for users is to run Word 2007 over VMWare or Parallels. If you need to work on something from the office on your flash drive, no other option is as good.

important to note that google docs can't parse tabs.. so generally speaking, layout is borked if you import. Also, i don't think I would agree with this review. I loathe using word.. but there's so much more to be done.. aside from layout.. in function with tie ins to excel, etc... word still pounds all over pages for all but the most basic work.. but i still hate it.. and it's even more bloated than ever.

Strange, that there was no mention of OpenOffice.org or NeoOffice in the alternatives to the two reviewed programs. These (related programs) are both on a par with both Word and Pages and are free.

Sqeze said:

OpenOffice requires X11 to use, so it's barely a native application. You can run the NeoOffice version, but that's usually behind OpenOffice, and neither have any OS integration or a UI that is even close to one that a Mac user would expect.

Maybe if the Aqua port of OpenOffice ever gets done, and is a decent Mac application, then OO will be a decent contender.

Maybe I just can't find this feature in Pages, but I'm not able to mix portrait and landscape pages in the same document. I can do this in Word. This is a big drawback for Pages.