Which is the better Word processor - Pages or AppleWorks

[Sirtovin]

I am using Word 2004... I tried to use Pages... but I find the interface a bit preplexing... I like Apple Works 6. etc.. because of the interface... but Word seems to have what I need and how I need it for now... I would love to see Apple Works 7... Instead of Pages which to me is nothing more than a cheat sheet for simplified Word Processing.

 

[karavite]

You can insert Excel charts/graphs into a Word document. I don't see how ClarisWorks or AppleWorks could be significantly different in that regard.

In ClarisWorks you had the available UI controls for text, spreadsheets, drawing and databases in *one* document. In addition, you didn't have all the crazy formatting issues that Word users so often encounter when inserting charts/tables... between the office apps. While Office claims "seamless integration" it is anything but seamless. For people who create reports and business documents, no matter what their skill level, Office has plenty of features, but falls short in letting people be as productive as they could be primarily due to lousy interaction design. ClarisWorks was much closer to being seamless.

 

[fjdouse]

Shall we start a new poll listing all the options and vote? I'd like to know what people use most and why and discuss all the options from Office to NeoOffice

 

[ApeintheShell]

So what episode of speed racer did they finally found out who Racer X was? I thought it was his brother but I could be wrong. Fuzzy memory. Thanks for the reply. I'll have to check out Create soon.
Anyways, Appleworks was a Mac OS 9 application for me because it made sense like its predecessor Clarisworks. Moof. When they transitioned it to run on Mac OS X things did not run as smoothly. Sure it had the look but not the feel. I used Appleworks for a majority of my reports in school and when I had to use Microsoft Office my mind drew a blank.So here we are in the year 2005 with a native word processing/layout application called Pages. I wonder how long it will take for Apple to phase out Appleworks from its software line and replace it with a robust version of iWork.
I would like to use inDesign but I don't have the money to buy the software and probably don't need all the features. Even Adobe Photoshop 8 looks more complicated than its earlier versions.

 

[sinclair_tm]

i've only looked at pages once. like others, i used claris, and love apple works when it came out. even though its not trully native in 10.3, i still use it. i love opening one app to write reports, balance my check book and anything else. i've never liked office at all. i can't stand havin a app try to do things for me that it thinks that i want done. so i'll stick with aw6 till it no longer runs, or pages ( or some apple app ) becomes more like aw.

 

[Damrod]

Well, I never wrote a lot. For small simple things I usually tend to use TextEdit, for bigger stuff I had Word at hand. I prefered that at some stage ofer AppleWorks back in the days.

Right now, I work at the office of my brother-in-law and have to write a manual for one of the applications he developed. As he has iWork 05 I thought I might give Pages a test drive. And so far, I'm more than pleased. Some stuff is not where I would expect it, but can be found quite easily. It's much easier to use than Word, thats for sure. And I think it has not so many differences compared to Works from what I remember.

Pages for me.

 

[serpicolugnut]

Although Pages is technically a Word processor, Apple tried very hard to differentiate it from the pack (and Word, specifically) by giving it more of a page layout approach. It's really more competition for Microsoft Publisher than any other word processor.

It's a great 1.0 app. I use it all the time. I have a few beefs with it, but overall, it does the job.

I too use TextEdit for most of my simple word processing needs. Apple has done a great job of beefing up it's feature set in Tiger, but retaining it's simplicity and small footprint. I just wish it had line numbering, as it's one of the only reasons I don't use it for more coding work.

 

[RacerX]

I too use TextEdit for most of my simple word processing needs. Apple has done a great job of beefing up it's feature set in Tiger, but retaining it's simplicity and small footprint. I just wish it had line numbering, as it's one of the only reasons I don't use it for more coding work.

I love TextEdit... it has been my primary word processor for years now. And thanks to third party services, it can do a ton of things for me.

Here is a list of the services I make the most use of with TextEdit:

• Nisus Thesaurus
• OmniDictionary
• WordService
• MacJournal (the version I still use)
• Create

And then I added the services menu to my contextual menu via ICeCoffEE.

Apple's Text Services provide a ton of cool features for TextEdit (and other cocoa applications). There are even services that I use that can be access via standard menus rather than just from the services menu like TextExtras and FontSight.

I don't think any of the services I mentioned would add line numbering, but a lot of them will extend TextEdit in other helpful ways (for coding, I would suggest TextExtras... it works with 10.4).

 

[Golfer099]

I hate to admit this fact, but I prefer to use Word. I have not yet used Pages but I have used AppleWorks (and ClarisWorks) since v1.0 on my Mac LC II and loved it through High School. Once I got to college (99) and since I've been working in the Corporate World I still use my Mac religiously (at home), but use Word because it's compatible with the rest of the world. I can email documents from work and do them at home on my Mac. Honetsly I wish I could bring my PowerBook to meetings because Word 2004 has some great note taking features not in Word XP or 2003 (I'm still on XP here ).

AppleWorks was great and in fact I use the drawing part for page layout. The reason I like this is because I obtained a Windows v6 version and installed it on my work PC to help troubleshoot my mom's files while at work (oops). The thing is that Pages doesn't work on a PC and I need compatibility. Although I'd love to convert the world to Mac, it's not going to happen and I still need to share files. Same with PowerPoint over Keynote (a far superior program).

 

[Damrod]

I hate to admit this fact, but I prefer to use Word. I have not yet used Pages but I have used AppleWorks (and ClarisWorks) since v1.0 on my Mac LC II and loved it through High School. Once I got to college (99) and since I've been working in the Corporate World I still use my Mac religiously (at home), but use Word because it's compatible with the rest of the world. I can email documents from work and do them at home on my Mac. Honetsly I wish I could bring my PowerBook to meetings because Word 2004 has some great note taking features not in Word XP or 2003 (I'm still on XP here ).

AppleWorks was great and in fact I use the drawing part for page layout. The reason I like this is because I obtained a Windows v6 version and installed it on my work PC to help troubleshoot my mom's files while at work (oops). The thing is that Pages doesn't work on a PC and I need compatibility. Although I'd love to convert the world to Mac, it's not going to happen and I still need to share files. Same with PowerPoint over Keynote (a far superior program).

You do know that Pages and Keynote are both 100% Word/Powerpoint compatible?

 

[lurk]

For small values of 100%.

 

[Golfer099]

Yeah but that requires effort. Making sure the right extensions are on etc screw that - i want to give people the knowledge that macs are compatible and if i have to explain to them to do anything more than save and attach - its worthless. i work with it - people are stupid and want the least number of steps possible - and i'm not arguing this because have to do it all dy with my developers who give me these crazy solutions with 5000 clicks and i;m like no make it simple do it this way - it's all about the user (which in this case is the pc user on a mac being convinced its good) and that requires ms office

 

[Ceroc Addict]

Now here's a thought - obviously Apple is going to have problems ensuring Pages can open all Word documents.

However, there should be absolutely no reason why Pages shouldn't be able to open all AppleWorks word processing documents. Can anyone actually confirm that Pages is 100% backwards compatible with AppleWorks' word processing documents?

Kap

 

[ApeintheShell]

Appleworks documents and presentations are 98% compatible with Pages and Keynote. There is some reformatting involved if you have a complex report with different fonts, pictures, etc. In Pages the crossover from Appleworks to Pages document is odd without the rulers in place. However, it very helpful when I need to add a second page with the exact same styles and spacing.

The extra effort is worth it. First they select 'Export.." from the file menu. A sheet comes down and gives the user several options for fomatting. Word is selected by default and under it explains, "Creates a Word document that can be opened and edited in Microsoft Word". The user looks down and presses 'Next.." Another dialog appears for them to save the Word document with the name they want. The explaination of this seems complex but in practice it is simple for beginners and intermediate users.

The problem with Microsoft Word is you have to think too much to edit your document. Pages is a layout/processing application that works with the user.

 

[crcr2003]

ok. it depends on what u do for a living. for me, Microvirus Word is still the word process.

although for the new kids i think Pages will rule. i mean lets admit, why would u use on school word to make a presentation or a report when u can have Pages and put the doc. online or add some awesome graphics or photos? Pages is more futuristic, more internet era. Word is just good as the old processor to do ur simple documents and give it to ur boss without complicating urself. period.

i tried Pages, i was very excited creating a fantastic cool document with a lot of data, photos, etc but when i exported it as an Office document, it came the end of my love with Pages, i had to re-edit so many things again so my colleagues could see the document on the PCs. although when i saved the file as a pdf, everything worked perfect. As a i said, Pages is to create documents that will go online, Word to creates documents that will go offline, i mean to the trash can...

anyway i think Pages is just a great appl. that mac will continue upgrading.

 

[RacerX]

Can anyone actually confirm that Pages is 100% backwards compatible with AppleWorks' word processing documents?

Well, AppleWorks 6.x isn't 100% compatible with AppleWorks/ClarisWorks 5.x or ClarisWorks 4.x... why would you expect Pages to achieve what AppleWorks can't?

Frankly, if you want 100% compatibility with the documents from a given app... use the app that created them.

 

[serpicolugnut]

Pages is not an app aimed at producing webpages. It can do it, but it's not what is meant for. Just because you tried to output a complex page to .doc format and it didn't hold, don't dismiss pages. Although many apps have .doc compatability, having your documents translate correctly is another story alltogether. OpenOffice, ThinkfreeOffice and others all have this problem.

Pages is a great page layout application in the vein of MS Publisher. It's trying to do several things, and as a result, it hasn't really found it's niche yet as a product. It's not going to replace Word/Office anywhere just yet. However, there is hope. Apple did an excellent job with Keynote. It is light years ahead of Powerpoint in terms of simplicity and elegance. Everybody who see's my presentations is in awe of the quality, especially in the transition area.

If Apple can beef up Pages and add a spreadsheet application that does everything most of use Excel for, it will have a great software suite on it's hands.

Although, even as an owner of iWork '05, I have to say I'm using TextEdit more and more. It's small footprint, quick loading time, and simple interface cover most of my Word Processing needs. And with the added Devon Technologies free Service for Word count, I can use it to write papers now too.

Now if Apple would just make the lists/link/tables features accessible through key commands, menu items, or a toolbar icon, I would be much happier. Having them is nice, but burying them in the text menu is annoying. Oh, and give me line numbers and auto-complete (type ahead) options, and I can ditch the other apps for good. For now, I'm using skEdit for coding. It's a nice, efficient HTML editor. Check it out.

ok. it depends on what u do for a living. for me, Microvirus Word is still the word process.

although for the new kids i think Pages will rule. i mean lets admit, why would u use on school word to make a presentation or a report when u can have Pages and put the doc. online or add some awesome graphics or photos? Pages is more futuristic, more internet era. Word is just good as the old processor to do ur simple documents and give it to ur boss without complicating urself. period.

i tried Pages, i was very excited creating a fantastic cool document with a lot of data, photos, etc but when i exported it as an Office document, it came the end of my love with Pages, i had to re-edit so many things again so my colleagues could see the document on the PCs. although when i saved the file as a pdf, everything worked perfect. As a i said, Pages is to create documents that will go online, Word to creates documents that will go offline, i mean to the trash can...

anyway i think Pages is just a great appl. that mac will continue upgrading.