Is Apple’s iWork a viable alternative to Microsoft Office? To find out, we asked Jeffrey Battersby—our go-to expert on word processing programs—to use Word 2008 and Pages ’08 to create the same project, progressing from the basics (text entry and formatting) to more-advanced features. Our questions: Which program is better at each stage of the job? What are their strengths and weaknesses? Which jobs (and which users) require which tool? (And for our experts’ take on alternatives to Office and iWork, see Word Processing Alternatives.)
The 100 civics (history and government) questions and answers for the 2008 version of the civics portion of the naturalization test are listed below. The civics test is an oral test and the USCIS officer will ask the applicant up to 10 of the 100 civics questions. An applicant must answer 6 out of 10 questions correctly to pass the civics.
To compare Microsoft Word () to Pages ’08 (), I used each program to create the same four-page newsletter. I created my basic text and layout in each program’s word processing mode, and then added a variety of paragraph styles and some design elements, including columns, callouts, drop caps, and graphics. Finally, I switched to each program’s page-layout mode to create a more sophisticated, template-based version of the same document.
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Text entry, simple formatting
I started by creating the basic newsletter layout: title text, volume and issue numbers below that, a headline for my main article, body text for the article itself, and a page number in the page footer. I used each program’s default styles for the initial formatting and then edited those styles to alter the document’s look. Both programs make all these initial steps simple.
In Word, I created each element of the document in Word’s default paragraph style. To format those elements more distinctly, I then selected the styles I wanted to use from the Style menu in the floating Formatting Palette. I used Word’s new Document Elements tool to add page numbers to the document’s footers.
It’s only slightly tougher to do all that in Pages. Again, I used the default style and typed my text, and then adjusted my paragraph styles. But I couldn’t assign paragraph styles from a floating palette in Pages. Instead, I had to open the Paragraph Styles drawer and choose the style I wanted from there. (I could also have assigned a keyboard shortcut to each style and applied it with a couple of keystrokes.)
Editing and updating styles isn’t as easy in Pages. I had to use the standard formatting tools to adjust existing paragraphs, and then open the Styles Drawer and choose to either create a new style or redefine the current style. This isn’t necessarily difficult, but Word’s way is much more intuitive and easier to use.
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Word 2008 has one other advantage when it comes to quickly changing a document’s overall look: Document Themes. These are collections of paragraph styles that change fonts, paragraph formats, text colors, and other document features with a single click of the button. Word ships with over 50 of these themes; you can also create your own, but, oddly enough, you have to use PowerPoint to do it. Pages really has nothing that compares.
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My verdict: 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.