The Mac Lawyer Using Macs in Law Firms | Attorney Ben Stevens

Office Suite Smackdown :: Word 2008 vs. Pages ’08

By J. Benjamin Stevens on Posted in Product Reviews, Software

Pages_v_word
Macworld recently published a series of articles that compared Apple’s iWork ’08 products with their Microsoft Office 2008 counterparts to determine which was better. In the word processing segment, it was Jeffrey Battersby’s analysis of Pages vs. Word.

Mr. Battersby concluded that unless you are changing the way a text document looks (where Word’s document themes offer a distinct advantage), Pages is equal to or better than Word for everything from basic word processing files
to sophisticated page layouts.

Source:  "Word 2008 vs. Pages ’08" by Jeffrey Battersby, published at Macworld.

  • dstrauss

    Ben:
    The comparison between MS Office 2008 and iWorks was a good general comparison However, from a professional office perspective, where you must share documents within and outside the office, I feel we are stuck with Office 2008. The reason is I grew up on WordPerfect (version 4 on DOS was heaven), BUT, as the rest of the world got sucked into Word, it became more and more of a chore to do the “Word Wordperfect” file conversion drill. With Word 2008 the rest of my staff and partners don’t even know I’m running a Mac right now (nothing like stealth penetration of the Microsoft fortress).
    Don’t get me wrong; iWorks is a very impressive, low cost alternative, but I just don’t like the need to “import” a Word file nor “export” to Word format.

  • Dutch Guy

    Ben,
    I hate to make a “me too” posting, but I fully agree with dstrauss. In my world, I receive and draft contracts in Word format, usually with “track changes” on. I cannot be bothered with worrying about whether or not each change and notation was properly preserved by Pages. Under there circumstances, thought I am not a Microsoft fan, I will pay the money for the peace of mind. Pages will stay at home for the fun stuff.

  • New Mac Atty

    I agree with the previous posts: impressed with Pages, but find it tedious to export / import Word docs. And a lack of familiarity w/Pages can drive me nuts. For example, anyone know how to put number lines (necessary for a court brief) on a Pages document?