[Kazot]

Frankenstein sez>
"That being said, here are a couple of observations: you can also make manual formatting changes to styled text in Word and then add these changes to the style definition, similar to the way Pages handles styles. To do that, format some text which already has a style applied to it, then click on the arrow next to the style's name in the Styles section of the Formatting Palette and choose "Update to match selection".

There's an even easier way to change an existing style: Make sure the formatting toolbar is showing (Select View>Toolbars>Formatting); click in a paragraph of any style except Normal > make changes to the paragraph style (note: changing character formatting will not change a paragraph's style unless the formatting is applied to the first word(s) in the paragraph) > click in the style name text form box (but not on the dropdown arrow) in the formatting toolbar > hit Enter > in the dialog box that appears choose Update the style to reflect the recent changes? (the style will be changed) or choose Reapply the formatting of the style to the selection? (if you really didn't mean to change the style) > click OK.

All this amounts to is : change style > click in Style box at upper left > hit Enter > choose change or not > OK

Been doing this since Word 5. BTW, Command 0 toggles between inserting and removing one line spacing at the front of the paragraph. Because of this, I never add line spacing at the end of a paragraph - it easier to use the front spacing trick.

[harveyr]

As stated by comments above: Pages' lack of internal cross references is a huge problem. I can't believe this comparison didn't address this issue.

[Kazot]

harveyr sez "As stated by comments above: Pages' lack of internal cross references is a huge problem. I can't believe this comparison didn't address this issue."

Not entirely correct. Pages does have cross referencing. It's just not quite as complete as the Word version. Cross referencing in Pages is done with Bookmarks and Hyperlinks. To Bookmark text, an image or a table, select the text, image and caption text, or table and caption text > go to the link inspector (curved white arrow in a blue circle) > select the Bookmark tab > click + > the selected text appears in the Bookmark box. Now go to and select text that you want to cross reference back to the Bookmarked item(s) > select the Hyperlink tab > click 'Enable as a hyperlink' > click 'Link to' pulldown and select Bookmark in the pulldown > click on 'Name" pulldown and select the Bookmark you just made from the list.

This works well, but it does not handle numbering of figures and tables - it's kind of a manual operation. The cross referencing does work across pages and enables hyperlinks to URLs and email.

Now, on Word 2008. There is a major bug in the cross referencing anyway. You can do cross referencing just fine and the numbering will be consistent when you first write the document. This can all fall apart if you need to reedit and move things around. Cross referencing can just quit working. This happened to me yesterday. I started editing an existing document and the figures began moving around and the cross reference numbering became out of sequential order. I tried fixing cross references and Word wouldn't let me. I tried killing cross references, but the numbering didn't change and the cross references became duplicated - what a mess!

The fix?

Ha! I read the messed-up Word document into Pages! The cross references were broken, but that's what I wanted. The pictures were very easily put back where they were supposed to be. In this case I didn't bother with Pages cross referencing and just Exported as Word. Read it back into Word and all came in perfectly! I didn't try to use Word's cross referencing either.

[harveyr]

@Kazot:

Granted, Pages does to internal hyperlinking, but that doesn't do much good when it comes to printed reports.

Are you sure your cross-reference fields in Word didn't simply need to be updated (F9)? I don't have any Word 2008 experience. That must have been frustrating.

[Kazot]

Yeah Pages isn't perfect, but Word isn't either.

For me, Pages saves me a lot of time because formatting and arrangement works all the time. Word's complexity seems to be making it hard for Microsoft to get it working right. Word 2004 formatting, particularly figure and table placement has always been broken - you can pick figure/table placement in the whatever (text) box, but that's clumsy and it won't stick anyway.

Unfortunately I have to exchange editing work with Windows-only people, so I do have to use Word most of the time. If I didn't have to, I wouldn't. Cross referencing isn't quite as big a deal with my work. It would be nice if heading numbering worked all the time too - but it doesn't.

[Brettcamp]

I too was surprised at the omission of Mellel in the alternatives. I used it for a year, and I loved its integrated outlining feature, making navigating long docs easy, and its terrific footnote handling; I can see why academic writers love it.

But when I got tired of its maddening style handling method, I switched to the simpler TextEdit and then to my favorite: Bean. It's free, it does everything TextEdit does and the few crucial things I need (e.g. live word count) it doesn't. For most people (and I'm a professional writer) it's the ideal blend of power and simplicity and everyone should give it a try.

The two features Word and now Pages have that most of the alternatives don't are change tracking and comments. There are workaround, of course, but not as elegant. When editors sent me copy that used these features, I was forced to go back and use Word (the one app that ever crashed my Mac, and it did so often) or NeoOffice, which really wasn't bad at all, interface and all. It could handle the change tracking and comments in a Word doc fine. But now that Pages has that ability, and does it so elegantly, I might use it if I had to work with those features more often than I do. But since I never print anything, layout-oriented apps like Word and Pages are really overkill for me, and Bean is enough (and not too much).
Actually the writing app I use constantly is the amazing Scrivener, the most valuable Mac program I've ever used. But its info organizing abilities make it far more than just a word processor. Any serious writer should give it a try.

[mrbach]

Its too bad there isn't a way to just turn off everything in Word, but who has the time to crawl through the options and preferences? The 2008 version only takes about twice as long on an Intel to boot up as 2004, so that seems fair.
Word is the defacto tool for business, especially doing changes and marking them. I dont think Pages does this. I have imported a few Word docs into Pages and it still isnt 100 percent. When they figure it out, then its doable, but as a Mac user, I live in a Windows world that requires proposals and papers and research to be done in Word. I still get Wordperfect hassles when it comes to legal stuff. Who knew Wordperfect still lives?
When Wordperfect is still living and breathing out there, it is a tough road for Pages.

[jpp_zoso]

"Advanced document elements: With my basic text and formatting in place, I then began adding more-complex elements, such as sections, columns, drop caps, images, callouts, and tables of contents."


Would have been helpful to cover items like tables, metafile support (or lack thereof...), pasting items from one of the other respective suite applications (i.e. a table from Excel or Numbers), and pasting items from another non-suite application (i.e. a diagram from OmniGraffle). These are pretty common place both for education materials and business reports.


I recently found out the hard way, Office:mac does not offer metafile support (.emf or .wmf) for pasting items. I routinely paste Excel tables and Visio diagrams in word processing documents and presentations to maintain formatting, export AutoCAD drawings to metafiles and insert into word processing documents and presentations...anyone know if this is a deliberate crippling by Microsoft, or if this is a case of "Apple knows best"?





"When it comes to basic text editing, Pages and Word are perfect equals. But when it comes to editing and creating styles, and quickly overhauling the look of your document, Word is better."



This comment is not meant to offend anyone, it is an honest question purely out of curiosity. Does anyone really use the default styles and templates? I don't know a single person that does or ever has, and I work for a large organization (statewide entity). I keep seeing reviews and promotional spins on styles and templates and themes, and I always wonder if anyone actually uses them, or if they just keep getting press because they're "pretty"...
Message was edited by: jpp_zoso (formatting)

[jbh001]

It would be interesting to see how Word 2008 for Mac compares to Word 2007 for Windows running under VMware or parallels.



Now that it has been released, it would also be interesting to see how WordPerfect X4 running under VMware or Parallels stacks up against these.

[hagen]

I use NeoOffice. It's free (although I contribute fairly regularly), it matches Word's capabilities and can read and save in all the Word formats. Plus it is a full-on Mac app unlike OpenOffice which it is based on so no need for X11.

[bynkii]

hagen said:

I use NeoOffice. It's free (although I contribute fairly regularly), it matches Word's capabilities and can read and save in all the Word formats. Plus it is a full-on Mac app unlike OpenOffice which it is based on so no need for X11.

1) No, it doesn't match Word 2007/2008's feature set 1:1, it constantly fails to properly handle embedded spreadsheets. That's a fairly common use in the business world.

2) It is closer to a "full" Mac app, but it is not a "full-on" mac application, in that it is missing rather a lot of integration items, such as AppleScript, so getting it to share data with other apps in anything but a manual way is going to be rather difficult.

[greg30307]

I commend the author for at least mentioning alternatives such as Nisus Writer Pro. I wish, though, that MacWorld paid more attention to viable alternatives such as Nisus, Mellel, and perhaps NeoOffice. I would wish for a really in-depth comparison of Pages, Word, Nisus, Mellel, and NeoOffice. I an not satisfied with either Word (too complex, unintuitive, and unwieldy) or Pages (too much of a layout program and not a real writer's ap) and am looking at Nisus and Mellel, which both seem to have advantages for pure writing over Word and Pages.

[jpminda]

Sending attachments is a problem for Pages (Mellel also, which is what I use most). The file is a package. Same with keynote, Omni outliner, etc. Worse still, my university "as recommended by Microsoft" strips many kinds of attachments, including .zip files. So you have to rename it .zpp. Lame.

So I use them all (in order of preference):

Mellel: my own work, manuscripts, exams, notes, etc. Very nice, sophisticated styles, still the best with references. Typography looks nicer than other word processors. Down side it is not great for collaboration. No commenting.

Pages: scientific posters, layouts, flyers, etc. Not great with reference. No advantage over Mellel for real writing.

Word: collaborative work, comments on my students' papers, my grad students all use it. Biggest problem: we drag and drop .pdf files all the time from various analysis programs etc. I like this way of inserting graphs, for example. PDFs graphics look really bad in word. Even Word 2008. references are not as nicely handled as Mellel.

[Frankenstein]

There is a bug in Word 2008 that displays PDF files that have been dragged into the document as fuzzy preview pictures. To make Word 2008 display PDF files properly: make sure the Styles section in the Formatting Palette is collapsed (another bug; the import won't work if the Styles section is visible), then click on Insert>Picture>From File. Navigate to the appropriate PDF file, and Word 2008 will handle it gracefully from that moment on. After making you jump through one or two unnecessary hoops, that is.