Which would be my best choice, Microsoft Word or Pages?

By Ann, 25 August, 2019

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

For a few days, I am having to use my iPhone ^s as my main source of internet, word procesing, etc. Which is the most accessible with Voiceover, MS Word for IOS or Pages? I don’t use a lot of fancy formatting, but I do need to use Italics, centering, other basics.

Also, which app has the best bluetooth keybord shortcuts? for instance, can I spellcheck using the keyboard in either app?

Thanks for any advice.

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Comments

By Michael Feir on Monday, August 26, 2019 - 18:36

Things have improved drastically since I once gave up on Pages as hopeless and found Ulysses which is what I still use. Had VoiceOver been more advanced at the time, I probably would never have looked beyond Pages at all. I was very pleasantly surprised when in the course of writing the guide I've been working on I gave Pages another look. I found it far easier to use than my dismal prior experience suggested was possible.

Apple has adressed the major issues such as moving document chunks around and spellchecking effectively. Selecting, cutting and pasting text was a major stumbling block which is now rendered quite simple and painless thanks to the document outline in Pages and the text selection rotor option. It's nice to be able to use the "misspelled words" rotor in Pages now. Earlier, that wasn't possible but it's been fixed. Going with Pages also means that everything is backed up to iCloud. To be fair, Microsoft has done a surprisingly splendid job making Microsoft Word accessible in iOS. They continue to delight me with their iOS offerrings. Try Seeing AI if you haven't already. Anyhow, I hope this is helpful. I've been writing documents exclusively on the iPHONE for a couple of years now while my laptop gathers dust and is used mostly for games or listening to internet radio. Who would have thought that would happen? Have a good day.

By OldBear on Monday, August 26, 2019 - 18:36

You didn't say which word processor you currently use.
Pages is probably already on your phone. It will do all the things you listed. It didn't take me too long to figure out how to use it. I use both touch screen and keyboard navigation.
Word takes up a large chunk of memory. I seem to remember needing to sign in to my outlook account, or something like that, when I used it. So just for a few days, it might be more than you need.

By Holger Fiallo on Monday, August 26, 2019 - 18:36

If you already have word, you can also add it to your iPhone. I use word and like it. I am able to use it my PC desktop and iPhone. I can use files in both and no issues.

By Ann on Monday, August 26, 2019 - 18:36

In reply to by Holger Fiallo

How do I perform spellcheck in Word or Pages on the iPhone? The Misspelled Words option does not even seem to work in either Word or Pages, either.

By Michael Feir on Monday, August 26, 2019 - 18:36

In reply to by Ann

I just opened a blank document in Pages and used the "misspelled words" rotor option to correct a mistake. It absolutely works. One thing which I can't rmember is whether you have to go into VoiceOver settings and add the option to the rotor. I started using it as soon as it became available and can't remember whether I had to enable it or whether it was simply there. Once you have it enabled, it will work in most document editing situations. I just noticed that it doesn't work on this message form. Any word processing or writing app I've tried allows it to work though. Remember that you flick up and down to get to prior and next misspelled words and then flick left or right to go through alternative suggestions. Simply leave it on the one which sounds correct.

If you're in a situation where this rotor option won't work, you could select a misspelled word and double-tap on it to bring up a somewhat annoying popup menu. You need to feel down on the screen until you find the option such as "replace" that you want. Double-tap on it and another popup with choices will appear. It's fairly clumsy so I tend to do any serious writing in a word processsor. In my case, that's the Ulysses app. I can then paste it in a web form like this one when it's perfected.