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I think Pages is a joke for serious writing What makes Word the best tool for serious writing? I use Pages for writing papers (for humanities courses) and vim+

I think Pages is a joke for serious writing What makes Word the best tool for serious writing? I use Pages for writing papers (for humanities courses) and vim+pandoc for math. I have dabbled with Word here and there over the years but I've never seen anything that would indicate to me that it's amazing for writing. Personally, I can't figure out what's going on with the ribbon. It just seems to be a heavily modal interface which is not particularly discoverable.

ghaff 4y ago
I mostly use Google Docs but, frankly, for my writing just about anything works. (Being able to work in shared docs is useful but not much else matters.) I'll use Scrivener to do the first pass at assembling a book but, other than that, anything that lets me put sentences down on a page and edit them is fine. I used to use Word and I'll sometimes use it if I need to if that's what a publisher is using but I never really loved the ribbon and there's way too much clutter that I never use.
isametry 4y ago
Before the original commenter answers: I'm gonna guess collaboration with others. The reliability of being able to send anyone the original file, them being able to open it with all Word-specific features and content, and e.g. sending it back with inline comments. I've also dabbled with Pages lately, and I don't think I've found any features for now that I desperately miss from Word. Now granted, this is just my workflow, which I believe is fairly basic. But the thing is, most people's workflows are basic. I'm gonna guess that about 80% of people wouldn't miss anything by switching from Word to Pages. It's a typical example of collaboration lock-in that you'll encounter in so many other areas. It's the reason why so many people are forced to use Adobe apps or Visual Studio. The most important feature of Word is that everyone has it.
- chongli 4y ago
  Ahh okay. So if you’re serious enough about writing that you regularly collaborate with, e.g. an editor, then Word is the default choice for that. But nothing about that applies to the writing process itself. You could be like George RR Martin and write in WordStar for DOS and then convert the files over to Word before you send to your editor. The main issue there is how often you need to correspond (which may be seldom for a novelist like Martin).
  - isametry 4y ago
    Well yeah, I assume they referred to "writing" as in the entire workflow, including drafting, reference, revisions etc. Because otherwise, I have zero idea what that sentence was supposed to imply. If "serious writing" actually means "typing words in a serious manner" in the original comment, then I don't really have much to say, except that OC is probably spewing utter nonsense.
- GeekyBear 4y ago
  > Before the original commenter answers: I'm gonna guess collaboration with others. Since a free iCloud account gives you access to the online version of Pages, collaboration with others seems to be covered, including simultaneous editing.
- MonaroVXR 4y ago
  You can export to Docx within Google Docs, this is bad take. I use Google Docs and Libre Office since I can't run Office.
- riolu 4y ago
  As a university student it really is quite unfortunate. So many students use MacBooks that come pre installed with a word editor capable of collaborative editing, but choose word regardless! Luckily I seldom had professors who required submission in .docx, but even for that, Pages has an option to export as .docx.
kitsunesoba 4y ago
I’ve never really “got” the appeal of Word (outside of it being the prevailing standard) either, but my writing needs would be met well enough by TextEdit/WordPad in most cases or maybe AppleWorks 6.x or Word 2000 if we’re getting fancy, so…

ghaff 4y ago

I mostly use Google Docs but, frankly, for my writing just about anything works. (Being able to work in shared docs is useful but not much else matters.) I'll use Scrivener to do the first pass at assembling a book but, other than that, anything that lets me put sentences down on a page and edit them is fine. I used to use Word and I'll sometimes use it if I need to if that's what a publisher is using but I never really loved the ribbon and there's way too much clutter that I never use.

isametry 4y ago

Before the original commenter answers: I'm gonna guess collaboration with others. The reliability of being able to send anyone the original file, them being able to open it with all Word-specific features and content, and e.g. sending it back with inline comments. I've also dabbled with Pages lately, and I don't think I've found any features for now that I desperately miss from Word. Now granted, this is just my workflow, which I believe is fairly basic. But the thing is, most people's workflows are basic. I'm gonna guess that about 80% of people wouldn't miss anything by switching from Word to Pages. It's a typical example of collaboration lock-in that you'll encounter in so many other areas. It's the reason why so many people are forced to use Adobe apps or Visual Studio. The most important feature of Word is that everyone has it.

chongli 4y ago
Ahh okay. So if you’re serious enough about writing that you regularly collaborate with, e.g. an editor, then Word is the default choice for that. But nothing about that applies to the writing process itself. You could be like George RR Martin and write in WordStar for DOS and then convert the files over to Word before you send to your editor. The main issue there is how often you need to correspond (which may be seldom for a novelist like Martin).
- isametry 4y ago
  Well yeah, I assume they referred to "writing" as in the entire workflow, including drafting, reference, revisions etc. Because otherwise, I have zero idea what that sentence was supposed to imply. If "serious writing" actually means "typing words in a serious manner" in the original comment, then I don't really have much to say, except that OC is probably spewing utter nonsense.
GeekyBear 4y ago
> Before the original commenter answers: I'm gonna guess collaboration with others. Since a free iCloud account gives you access to the online version of Pages, collaboration with others seems to be covered, including simultaneous editing.
MonaroVXR 4y ago
You can export to Docx within Google Docs, this is bad take. I use Google Docs and Libre Office since I can't run Office.
riolu 4y ago
As a university student it really is quite unfortunate. So many students use MacBooks that come pre installed with a word editor capable of collaborative editing, but choose word regardless! Luckily I seldom had professors who required submission in .docx, but even for that, Pages has an option to export as .docx.

kitsunesoba 4y ago

I’ve never really “got” the appeal of Word (outside of it being the prevailing standard) either, but my writing needs would be met well enough by TextEdit/WordPad in most cases or maybe AppleWorks 6.x or Word 2000 if we’re getting fancy, so…