Microsoft Word vs. iWork Pages by Apple for iPad - iPad365 - iPad App Show [Video]

A few weeks ago, Microsoft announced Office365 for the iPad and their first pricing plan which didn’t make sense for the home user. They came back and created a “personal” pricing plan where you could install Office on 2 machines – a computer and a tablet. The $6.95 a month ($70 a year) plan actually made more sense.

It comes with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Access, Publisher, and One Note. It also comes with 20 GB of OneDrive storage, Skype with 60 minutes of calls each month to over 60 countries and more.

If you need more than 2 machines, then the $9.99 – or $100/year plan would fit you better.

However, Apple has their own suite of programs and they are one-time purchases. Pages, Numbers, and Keynote. For $30 a program you can have a copy on the Mac and one on the iPad.

They also have iCloud with 5 free GB.

In this episode I take a look at the differences between one of the suite programs – the word processor. Pages vs. MS Word. Which one should you get?

Get Microsoft Word for iPad by Microsoft Corporation

Get Pages – Apple

Microsoft’s obvious advantage is you can choose a PC to install Office onto. Apple has a web-based editor/viewer that is in beta which you can use on a PC. You can also install Word viewer on any machine if you need to review a document.

When it comes to layout, Word puts their menu in a minimal ribbon format – if you have ever used the program you are familiar with it. Pages keeps the buttons minimal, which can confuse people where the options to enlarge font sizes are.

Creating a document is pretty straightforward for either program. You can choose from templates and go from there. Move it back and forth from tablet to computer and back.

Once again, I think the advantage is Microsoft Word simply because of how many people have used Office over iWork. You can definitely send a Pages document to Word and back. The question is how your work will look from machine to machine. Of course, if you use the Gotham font and it’s not on the other machine, the program will have to revert to its closest match.

Otherwise, the two match pretty close in functionality – printing, sending via email, and more.

So in times past I’ve been neutral on which one I would use. The reality is I like Word over Pages. I am familiar with the setup and I work in a mixed environment computer-wise. The only issue is the subscription price, which I could justify as a business expense.

So which one are you planning to use? Do you even create word documents on your iPad, or do you keep it more as an e-reader, web surfing, or game playing device?