Aug 09, 2017  In addition to rkaufmann's recommendation for Pages (which converts MS Word Documents) and the others he lists, for basic word processing there is TextEdit. TextEdit is my go-to application for any basic writing needs. On the Mac, it’s also possible to use Evernote as a word processor, similar to Simplenote. The app supports basic formatting, such as font and size changes, bolding, italicizing and underlining.

1. Abiword
2. Is There A Free Word Processing Program
3. Word Processing Mac

Pages is a word processor developed by Apple Inc. It is part of the iWorkproductivity suite and runs on the macOS and iOS operating systems.^[3] The first version of Pages was announced on January 11, 2005, and was released one month later.^[4] Pages is marketed by Apple as an easy-to-use application that allows users to quickly create documents on their devices.^[5] A number of Apple-designed templates comprising different themes (such as letters, résumés, CVs, posters, and outlines) are included with Pages.^[4]

History[edit]

On January 6, 2009, Apple released the fourth version of Pages as a component of iWork '09.^[6] On January 27, 2010, Apple announced a new version of Pages for iPad with a touch interface.^[7] On May 31, 2011, Apple updated the iOS version of Pages to 1.4, bringing universal binaries, allowing the app to be run on iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch devices.^[8] On October 12, 2011, Apple updated the iOS app to version 1.5, adding the iCloud 'Documents in the Cloud' feature. iOS Pages was updated to version 1.6 on March 7, 2012, and will only run on iOS 5.1 or later. Pages for OS X was updated to version 4.3 on December 4, 2012, to support Pages 1.7 for iOS, which was released on the same day. Pages for iOS 1.7.1 introduced better compatibility with Word and Pages for Mac, and version 1.7.2, released on March 7, 2013, merely added stability improvements and bugfixes.

On October 23, 2013, Apple released a redesign with Pages 5.0 and made it free for anyone with an iOS device. In this release, many templates, as well as some advanced features that were available in version 4.3, were not included. Some of these missing features were put back over the next releases but the current version (8.0, released March 28, 2019) still lacks important features from version 4.3 including mail merge, non-contiguous selection of text, advanced find/replace functions, the ability to print comments, and more.

Features[edit]

Pages is a word processor and page layout application. When Pages is first opened, users are presented with a template chooser which allows them to start with a blank document or with a predesigned template—including a basic, report, letter, résumé, envelope, business card, flyers & posters, cards, miscellaneous, and a newsletter section of templates—that contains placeholder text and images which can be replaced by dragging and dropping photos from the Media Browser. The Media Browser provides quick access to media from iTunes, iMovie, and Photos. Users can drag and drop music, movies, and photos directly into Pages documents from the Media Browser window.^[4]

Each document window contains a toolbar, which gives one-click access to commonly used functions such as inserting objects (text boxes, shapes, tables, charts, and comments), uploading the document to iWork.com, and adding additional pages. In addition, the document window contains a contextual format bar that allows one-click formatting of text and adjustments to images. When text is selected, the format bar enables users to choose fonts, text size, color, and adjust line spacing and alignment. When an image is selected, the format bar displays tools to adjust opacity, show and hide shadow and reflection effects, and mask the image.^[9] A separate Inspector window provides almost all formatting options available for any element in the open document.

Beginning in iWork '08, word processing and page layout are two distinct modes. In word processing mode, Pages supports headers and footers, footnotes, and outline and list creation. Users can collaborate with others on a document. Pages tracks changes by users by displaying each person's edits in different colors. Users can also add comments alongside the document. In page layout mode, users have complete control over the position of objects on the page. Images and text can be placed anywhere on the canvas.^[9]

Pages used to feature a number of other advanced writing tools. Many of these have been stripped out of the current version. The 'Full Screen' mode (introduced in Mac OS X Lion) and supported in Pages 4.1 hid the menubar and toolbars, allowing users to focus on a single document without being distracted by other windows on the screen,^[6] however, after Pages 5, full screen mode requires the user to manually hide various panes for focused writing, and the page thumbnails pane does not automatically open when the cursor is moved to the left screen edge. Earlier versions featured mail merge, which automatically populated custom fields with contact data from the Address Book or Numbers apps to create personalized documents. For example, if a user wanted to send one letter to three people, mail merge allowed the user to create a single document with placeholder fields that were populated when printing.^[10] The mail merge feature was completely removed in version 5, although it is still doable through AppleScript.^[11] Tables and charts pasted from Numbers are automatically updated if the original spreadsheet is changed.^[6]

Compatibility[edit]

Pages can import some Microsoft Word documents (including Word 2007's Office Open XML format^[12]). Pages 4 and earlier could also import AppleWorks word processing documents, and export documents to rich text, but those features were removed until Pages 6.1. Pages 5 can still export to PDF, EPUB, and Microsoft Word DOC formats.^[13]

Simple and complex mathematical equations can be written for a Pages document with macOS's Grapher, offering similar capabilities to Microsoft Equation Editor (plus 2D and 3D rendering tools only Grapher can use).

As of January 2015, Pages does not support OpenDocumentfile format.

The only known software other than Pages which can open its files are Apple's iWork productivity suite through Apple's iCloud, LibreOffice,^[14] and Jumpshare.^[15] Windows users can view and edit Pages files using iWork for iCloud via a web browser. The iCloud system can also read Microsoft Word files and convert Pages files to Microsoft Word format. Jumpshare can view Pages files.

Other than accessing iCloud through a browser, there is no program that can officially view or edit a Pages file using Windows or Linux. Some content can be retrieved from a document created in Pages '09, because a .pages file is actually a bundle. A user can open a .pages file in an unpackaging program, or by renaming files as .zip files in Windows (XP and onwards), and will find either a .jpg or .pdf preview in its entirety for viewing and printing, although this is only possible if the creator of the .pages files elected to include a preview. The user will also find a .xml file with unformatted text.^[16] This process can also be used for users of the 2008 version of Pages to open documents saved in the 2009 version of Pages, which are not backward compatible.

Pages can also export documents into a number of formats; formatting is generally retained during the export process.

Version history[edit]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

1. ^'Pages'. Mac App Store. Retrieved March 28, 2019.
2. ^'Pages'. App Store. Retrieved April 8, 2019.
3. ^iWork System RequirementsArchived August 20, 2014, at the Wayback Machine
4. ^ ^abcApple Unveils iWork ’05Archived March 29, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
5. ^'Pages'. Apple.
6. ^ ^abcApple Unveils iWork ’09Archived June 30, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
7. ^Apple Special Event January 2010Archived August 20, 2014, at the Wayback MachineApple Inc. January 27, 2010
8. ^'Apple iWork Now Available For iPhone & iPod touch Users'. Apple. May 31, 2011. Retrieved August 11, 2016.
9. ^ ^abtay, zar (August 7, 2007). 'Apple Introduces iWork '08'. seikphyuthar. Archived from the original on August 25, 2007. Retrieved November 7, 2009.Cite uses deprecated parameter |dead-url= (help)
10. ^'Apple Announces iWork '06'. January 10, 2006. Archived from the original on March 29, 2011. Retrieved November 7, 2009.Cite uses deprecated parameter |deadurl= (help)
11. ^Productions, Nyhthawk. 'AppleScript and Pages: Placeholder Text, Script Tags, and Data Merge'. iworkautomation.com. Retrieved April 20, 2018.
12. ^'Apple Inc. compatibility page for iWork '08'.
13. ^Slivka, Eric. 'Apple Brings ePub Export to Pages With iWork 9.0.4'. MacRumors.
14. ^Larabel, Michael (May 21, 2015). 'LibreOffice Can Now Import Apple Pages & Numbers Files'. Phoronix. Retrieved May 30, 2015.
15. ^'List of Supported Formats'. Jumpshare. September 6, 2012. Retrieved March 10, 2014.
16. ^Madchine. 'xorglog: How To: Edit Mac OS .pages documents in Linux'.
17. ^ ^abcdefg'Pages on the Mac App Store'. Mac App Store. Retrieved October 20, 2017.
18. ^'Apple updates iWork for Mac, adding real-time collaboration beta to Pages, Numbers & Keynote'. AppleInsider. Retrieved October 20, 2017.
19. ^'Apple Updates Numbers, Pages and Keynote for iOS and Mac With New Features'. Retrieved December 12, 2017.
20. ^'Apple Releases Updates for Pages, Numbers, and Keynote on iOS and Mac'. Retrieved June 28, 2017.
21. ^'What's new in Pages for Mac - Apple Support'. June 28, 2017. Archived from the original on June 28, 2017. Retrieved June 28, 2017.Cite uses deprecated parameter |deadurl= (help)CS1 maint: BOT: original-url status unknown (link)
22. ^ ^ab'What's new in Pages for Mac'. Apple Support.

External links[edit]

• Pages – official site
• Pages free resources at iWork Community
• Pages FAQ – unofficial FAQ, based mostly on content from Apple's support forums
• Screenplay template

While Microsoft Office continues to dominate the world of office productivity suites, some users and businesses may be put off by the idea of monthly fees.

Additionally, over the years a number of other companies have launched their own versions of office software, covering documents, spreadsheets, and email, to rival Microsoft's flagship service.

Some of these alternatives come at a more competitive price - but even better, some are free to use. This will almost certainly be of interest to those consumers and businesses looking to minimize costs while retaining the ability to work with office files.

However, not all office suites are created the same, and come with limitations, especially in free versions that come with a paid-for upgrade to unlock features.

Additionally, you also need to bear in mind that formatting can be saved in different ways for the same file type for different programs, which can cause problems when sharing files with users who use different software. Therefore it's important to note if the formatting will be retained accurately.

On top of that, you also need to ask which office software types you actually need. Most packages offer documents and spreadsheets as standard, but some providers may not provide database or presentation software in a bundle, so it's important to check what you need against what providers will actually supply.

Regardless of all that, here we'll list the best in free office software as alternatives to Microsoft Office, for both home and business users.

• Want your company or services to be added to this buyer’s guide? Please email your request to desire.athow@futurenet.com with the URL of the buying guide in the subject line.

1. LibreOffice

Everything you could want from an office suite, fully compatible with Microsoft formats and totally free to use – even commercially

LibreOffice is so good, you'll wonder why you ever paid for office software. It's compatible with all Microsoft document formats, and has almost every feature you'll find in the latest versions of Word, PowerPoint and Excel.

The suite contains six programs to cover every common office task: Writer, Calc, Impress, Draw, Math and Base. The last three are tools you won't find in many other free office suites, and are designed for vector diagrams, mathematical functions and databases, respectively. The latter is particularly useful; free alternatives to Microsoft Access are hard to find.

LibreOffice is an open source project maintained by a huge and enthusiastic community of volunteers constantly working to improve stability and add new features. There's a great selection of extensions and templates to make it even more flexible, and it's free for businesses as well as home users.

LibreOffice is a fork of Apache OpenOffice, and the two are extremely similar, but we’d opt for LibreOffice thanks to its more frequent update schedule and more modern interface. The latest release (version 6) adds a huge array of new features and fixes, including more interface customization options, improved file import and export compatibility, and new online help pages.

LibreOffice is available for Windows, Mac and Linux, but there are no official mobile versions available except for a document viewer for Android. It has some editing features, but they're experimental and we wouldn't advise relying on them.

2. Google Docs, Sheets and Slides

For working across platforms and sharing documents, Google's excellent collection of online office apps is hard to beat

If you work collaboratively, or switch between a PC and a Mac, Google Docs, Sheets and Slides should be your first port of call.

For anyone who's already deep into the Android/Google ecosystem, this suite will be a natural choice. The three key tools run happily in any web browser, and are available as mobile apps for Apple and Android devices.

Google's free office suite doesn't offer the advanced tools you'll find in desktop software like LibreOffice (there are no pivot tables, for example, and there's no database tool) but everything is laid out in a clear, logical way and all your files will be saved and synced automatically so you don't have to worry about transfers and backups.

The chief disadvantage of Docs, Sheets and Slides is that opening files created using other office software is a cumbersome process and files aren't always converted perfectly.

This is partly because Google's office tools use web fonts rather than ones stored locally on your device, and partly because Microsoft documents sometimes contain features not supported by Google. If that's a dealbreaker for you, read on...

3. Microsoft Office Online

Microsoft is taking the fight to Google with slimmed-down versions of all its usual applications, available to use free online

Microsoft's desktop software carries a subscription fee, but the company has noticed the threat posed by G Suite and created its own set of free online apps.

Microsoft Office Online looks and works just like its desktop equivalent, and although advanced tools like pivot tables are out of reach, but aren’t offered by Google either.

If you generally use Microsoft document formats, Office Online is a brilliant choice. Unlike Google's free office suite, it doesn't need to convert your files before you can work on them, and you can share them easily through your Microsoft OneDrive account. Just log in using your Microsoft account (the same one you use to log into Windows 10) and you're ready to go.

There's a version of Office Online for Chrome, plus mobile editions of Office for iOS and Android.

4. WPS Office Free

A feature-packed free office suite for Windows, Linux and Android

WPS Office Free is a slimmed down version of a premium office suite, but you'd hardly know it. Each of its three programs looks just as slick as the latest versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint, and is packed with just as many features.

File format support is excellent, and you can save your work in native Microsoft formats for easy sharing with Office users. There's no database software, but WPS Office comes with an excellent free PDF reader that's a great replacement for Windows' built-in app.

There's the occasional ad, but these are few and far between. They certainly won't get in the way of your work, and you'll easily forget that everything in this suite is completely free.

There are versions of WPS Office Free for Windows and Linux systems, as well as apps for Android devices, but Apple device users will need to look elsewhere.

5. Polaris Office

A cross-platform office suite that keeps your work in the cloud

If you own a Samsung phone, you might already be familiar with the mobile version of Polaris Office. This cross-platform free office software is available for Windows, macOS, Android and iOS, and comes pre-installed on some Samsung handsets. It’s compatible with all Microsoft document formats, and offers a slick ribbon-based interface with some basic customization options.

Take care if you choose to install Windows version, you’ll see various additional pieces of bundled software, which could potentially include a browser extension from McAfee called WebAdvisor, a market research tool called PremierOpinion, and an antivirus suite. You can decline all of these – just keep an eye out.

Abiword

You’ll then need to sign in with Facebook or Google, or create an account. This is necessary because Polaris Office is a cloud-based service. Your free Polaris account comes with 60MB monthly data transfer, 1GB cloud storage, and can be used across three devices (one desktop and two mobile). If that’s not enough space, you can connect Polaris Office to Google Drive, Dropbox, Box, Microsoft OneDrive and Amazon Cloud Drive – or save work locally to your device.

Upgrading to a premium Polaris account gives you access to extra features including a PDF editor, removes ads, and the ability to search within a document.

6. SoftMaker FreeOffice

A free version of a premium suite, with most pro features intact

Like WPS Office Free, SoftMaker FreeOffice provides analogs for Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint (TextMaker, PlanMaker and Presentations respectively).

As with all the free office suites in this roundup, there's support for Microsoft file formats from 1997 onwards. It also offers effortless conversion to both PDF and Epub formats, which is a welcome addition.

Unfortunately, some key features are exclusive to the premium version of the software. Some of these (like tabbed browsing) are nice to have but non-essential, but the lack of a thesaurus is a real drawback for anyone who writes on a regular basis.

FreeOffice doesn't look quite as smart as WPS Office, but if you dislike the Microsoft ribbon and find it unintuitive then you'll prefer the slightly more old fashioned approach to navigation.

7. Open365

Open365 is more than just an office suite – it's a full cloud desktop that drags in a selection of great open source (usually desktop-based) software and puts it right in your browser. It includes the key components of the LibreOffice suite (Writer, Calc and Impress) along with Photoshop-esque image editor GIMP, Linux email package Kontact, and cloud storage by Seafile. Everything the desktop versions of those packages do can be done here, and every format they support is supported.

There's a desktop client to handle file transfers and mirroring your cloud storage to your hard drive, although you'll still need to run the software itself in-browser. Being full-on desktop software it's reasonably heavy both in terms of load times and the stress it puts on your system.

But get your whole team on board and its collaborative tools could make this an essential component of your workflow, particularly if you're hotdesking or using a variety of hardware.

8. Zoho Workplace

A genuinely exciting alternative to Google Docs

While Google Docs is, thanks to the strength of its brand, probably more widely used, Zoho's online office solution is very good in its own right. It's certainly closer to a desktop office package, and it's strong enough to have attracted businesses like the BBC and Nike as regular users.

Is There A Free Word Processing Program

Zoho's new-look word processor (which ditches the classic Word-style interface in favour of a formatting sidebar) is very well-presented and capable of producing professional-looking docs, and it has a sterling spreadsheet and reasonable presentation package alongside it.

Word Processing Mac

They're just the tip of the iceberg, however – Zoho Workplace includes a powerful site creation tool, a file management solution and many collaborative tools. Some are on the simplistic side, so they'll likely not replace anything you might already have in place, but if you're starting out as a small business Zoho is probably a good jumping-off point.