How Many of Us Own Word?

Question

I was wondering how many of us own Word? What are the main reasons you use Pages over Word, which you own?
I am a teacher and just started making more of my documents in Pages. The reason I tend to use it over Word is...
1. I seem to be able to create and modify styles a lot easier in Pages
2. Lists seem to work the way I want them to and not the way Word's auto-format feature wants to make them...actually, that leads me to an overall comment...
3. I don't feel like I have to fight with Pages as much as I do with Word...it doesn't get in my way
However, I do miss some aspects of Word...
1. I like Word's pasting options -- paste only as text or match document formatting...that's nice
2. Word's contextual menus offer fast access to options rather than poking through Pages' Inspector window for everything
3. Word's autocorrect feature where it pulls words from the dictionary to recognize and replace misspelled words
So, while I really like Pages and am trying to transition to it for the reasons I stated above, I still find myself longing for Word features at times. So, I'm left balancing my time between the two programs, which I don't like. I just wish Pages had it all right now, but I'll guess I'll have to go through the growing pain.
For those who also own Word, what has been your experience?

Answer 1

Hullo Tim:
Well I don't own Word, and never will.
It was on offer in a huge corporation I worked with for many years - most of our work done in an IBM 3270 mainframe session. But for word-processing we still had Lotus Word Pro - which went off the rails a bit trying to keep up with Word, and now is moribund. Still its original Ami Pro's inspiration was to facilitate the path from input to publication, and in some aspects it was easier to format, although lacking in even such basic features as proper equalisation of the depth of text in facing pages or adjacent columns. Pages has that, and better realises what Ami Pro (later Word Pro) had tried to do in the first place.
Word just faced you with too much guff, and tended to impose its own look on whatever you tried to do with it. I still reckon I can recognise a Word doc from the other end of a bus, and I frankly don't care if I never see another one. But the problem with both of those was Windows, which never stopped crashing in any iteration we had of it. Useless for creative writing.
Don't know how Word goes on the Mac. I'm told it's better. But it's still the same old beast. Pages is different, and I think predominantly addresses non-corporate uses - which suits me fine now I've retired.
I would like to see Pages grow, though, to accommodate specialist writing markets (e.g., scientific and academic) which I think would help to ensure it continues. In the meantime, though, for getting material into good-looking shape without a lot of fuss and bother, I think it's on the right track. But if we want to benefit from it, yes, there will be growing pains.
Amongst those might be some waiting for compatible third party plug-ins, rather than to see Pages overloaded with bits and pieces you have to comb through to get anything done at all. "Bloat" would destroy it. And I hope Apple won't be seduced into that. Its elegance is paramount.
The trouble with Word is its ubiquity. Except for completely independent use you're practically forced to use it, simply because everyone else does. But I think that will change with a broadening market, and a trend it will force towards file compatibility between many applications. At least I hope Pages will be a part of that, if only to survive. I'd hate to have to part with its style, once having savoured it, since I know of no equal with anything else.
However whilst it matures, I can understand your dilemma.
Here's hoping that Apple will appreciate the real potential of what they have, and throw some effort into refining it, despite a slow initial market response.
Regards.
PS: You can cut or copy, then either paste as is or paste and match style from the Edit menu in Pages; and copy either character or paragraph styles to paste elsewhere in the Format menu. If you take Pages on its own terms, it does more than might be apparent if you look for how things were done in Word. Generally, the Inspector panels are for manipulating page set-up, layout, text (once you've chosen a font) and objects etc., and the menu and styles drawer for managing and applying things you've set up there. It's a different logic, but powerful.
Cheers.