5 ms·

I mean, what do you use on a Mac to compose documents? Word. No. I use Pages (part of Apple's iWork) for almost everything. If I need Word comparability, I ope

I mean, what do you use on a Mac to compose documents? Word. No. I use Pages (part of Apple's iWork) for almost everything. If I need Word comparability, I open LibreOffice. Given how seamless the iWork experience is becoming between iDevices (which will be including Macs), how much cheaper iWork is, and how much better the iWork user experience is (they don't have 20 years of feature-cruft littering the interface), there is absolutely no reason for a home Mac user to use Office and few reasons (usually an iron-fisted corporate IT group) for a corporate Mac user to use it.

evilduck 15y ago
Google Docs for me on OSX. The no-hassle availability anywhere without an install covers 95% of my document creation needs, the fact that everything's autosaved to the cloud and can be collaborated on, versioned, and exported keeps me coming back, and I don't have to worry about software version compatibility with anyone I share with which is a killer feature. Anything that requires style or aesthetics gets drafted in Google Docs and then imported into Pages or Keynote for finishing touches, both of which are lightyears ahead of Word or Powerpoint in that regard (at least for 2007/Win 2008/OSX MS Office releases).
- Total_Meltdown 15y ago
  Google Docs is Office's closest competitor, but not outside individuals and small organizations, simply BECAUSE it's all stored on "the cloud". BitBucket and GitHub have the same problem. It's not that they're not good products, it's that there are many, many, many very large companies that want to keep their data to themselves. And by the way, being "encrypted" on the cloud doesn't usually mean what most people seem to think it means. Example: http://www.informationweek.com/news/storage/security/229500683 http://www.informationweek.com/news/storage/security/2295006...
eropple 15y ago
No. I use Pages (part of Apple's iWork) for almost everything. If I need Word comparability, I open LibreOffice. And if you need to do something remotely complex, neither works. Pages is decent for the very baseline word processing; OpenOffice is good for very little of anything. The overwhelming majority of people use Office because what you call "cruft" is what other people call "important".
- ugh 15y ago
  Overwhelming majority? I doubt it. I have no doubt at all that there is a small minority of people who absolutely cannot do without some feature of Word that no competitor offers. But that’s a minority, not a majority. The reason why I’m using Word, why my parents use Word, why my friends use Word (despite not needing any feature it has over Pages or OpenOffice) is that everyone else is using it. Importing and exporting from Pages or OpenOffice to Word is just no fun at all but necessary if you live in a world where everyone uses Word. I don’t want to run that particular type of gauntlet. (I so enjoy all the times when I don’t depend on anyone else and can create a presentation with Keynote. It’s a dream. But an impractical dream if you are working together with people who use PowerPoint.)
  - eropple 15y ago
    I can't find the link offhand but I recall it being said by someone affiliated with Office that pretty much everyone uses about 20% of Word's features. The difference is in which 20%. You might have a set of feature needs that Pages covers. I know that pretty much everyone in my company (that is, management and project people--engineers could get by with whatever, that's not a big deal) couldn't use Pages, and their needs are not extreme or out-there.
    - JonnieCache 15y ago
      What you're talking about is the 80-20 rule: 80% of people only need 20% of the featureset. It's an incidence of the Pareto Principle, and dates back to 1906. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle
      - heyitsnick 15y ago
        No, that's not what he's talking about.
    - Umofomia 15y ago
      I believe this is an article you were looking for (written by Joel Spolsky): http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000020.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000020.html The gist is that even though most people only use 20% of the features, everyone's 20% is a different set of features. So by creating a 'lite' version of your software, you actually end up alienating a lot of your users.

evilduck 15y ago

Google Docs for me on OSX. The no-hassle availability anywhere without an install covers 95% of my document creation needs, the fact that everything's autosaved to the cloud and can be collaborated on, versioned, and exported keeps me coming back, and I don't have to worry about software version compatibility with anyone I share with which is a killer feature. Anything that requires style or aesthetics gets drafted in Google Docs and then imported into Pages or Keynote for finishing touches, both of which are lightyears ahead of Word or Powerpoint in that regard (at least for 2007/Win 2008/OSX MS Office releases).

Total_Meltdown 15y ago
Google Docs is Office's closest competitor, but not outside individuals and small organizations, simply BECAUSE it's all stored on "the cloud". BitBucket and GitHub have the same problem. It's not that they're not good products, it's that there are many, many, many very large companies that want to keep their data to themselves. And by the way, being "encrypted" on the cloud doesn't usually mean what most people seem to think it means. Example: http://www.informationweek.com/news/storage/security/229500683 http://www.informationweek.com/news/storage/security/2295006...

eropple 15y ago

No. I use Pages (part of Apple's iWork) for almost everything. If I need Word comparability, I open LibreOffice. And if you need to do something remotely complex, neither works. Pages is decent for the very baseline word processing; OpenOffice is good for very little of anything. The overwhelming majority of people use Office because what you call "cruft" is what other people call "important".

ugh 15y ago
Overwhelming majority? I doubt it. I have no doubt at all that there is a small minority of people who absolutely cannot do without some feature of Word that no competitor offers. But that’s a minority, not a majority. The reason why I’m using Word, why my parents use Word, why my friends use Word (despite not needing any feature it has over Pages or OpenOffice) is that everyone else is using it. Importing and exporting from Pages or OpenOffice to Word is just no fun at all but necessary if you live in a world where everyone uses Word. I don’t want to run that particular type of gauntlet. (I so enjoy all the times when I don’t depend on anyone else and can create a presentation with Keynote. It’s a dream. But an impractical dream if you are working together with people who use PowerPoint.)
- eropple 15y ago
  I can't find the link offhand but I recall it being said by someone affiliated with Office that pretty much everyone uses about 20% of Word's features. The difference is in which 20%. You might have a set of feature needs that Pages covers. I know that pretty much everyone in my company (that is, management and project people--engineers could get by with whatever, that's not a big deal) couldn't use Pages, and their needs are not extreme or out-there.
  - JonnieCache 15y ago
    What you're talking about is the 80-20 rule: 80% of people only need 20% of the featureset. It's an incidence of the Pareto Principle, and dates back to 1906. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle
    - heyitsnick 15y ago
      No, that's not what he's talking about.
  - Umofomia 15y ago
    I believe this is an article you were looking for (written by Joel Spolsky): http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000020.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000020.html The gist is that even though most people only use 20% of the features, everyone's 20% is a different set of features. So by creating a 'lite' version of your software, you actually end up alienating a lot of your users.