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comment by tacocat
tacocat  ·  3369 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Microsoft Word or Pages?

Word is the standard so you're better off going with it even if Pages can export doc files. I usually use Open Office and its doc files get weird formatting problems when I send them to people Word. Word files are required by a lot of people. I've had them be required for applying to art shows, resumes and submitting stories to publications. Word just makes life easier when you have to share files.

I'd even recommend installing Windows through Bootcamp. I had a Macbook for years and the last time I tried to go to school the online software for classes didn't work on a Mac.





user-inactivated  ·  3369 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Since 90% of the computers use Office as a default, this is really good advice. All I could add is that maybe you want to make sure you can convert your files to PDF, that way your margins and fonts are locked in so your document will not only be able to be printed from pretty much any computer at that point, but you can be sure that it looks the way you want it no matter what computer you use to open it.

tacocat  ·  3369 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I like PDFs way better but not everyone can or knows how to make one so some people won't accept them at all. It used to be worse if I recall correctly. PDF is more acceptable than it once was.

hyperflare  ·  3369 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Huh, I've never met anyone who wanted a .doc instead of a .pdf - that's insane.

It's pretty straightforward to make a PDF, at least with libreoffice - Just choose "export as PDF" in the "File" menu. I'd think it's similiarly easy in other word porcessors?

tacocat  ·  3369 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Doc files are a pretty common requirement when applying for jobs online. So their software can scrape the doc and autofill all the fields wrong.

user-inactivated  ·  3369 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Yeah . . . But not really. Professionally and academically PDFs are pretty much an acceptable standard except for the most computer illiterate. Even your everyday phone can read a PDF without any additional apps. Like I said, the biggest benefit with PDF comes to when you want your files printed, because with few exceptions what you see on your computer that created the file is what you'll get, whether it's a report, a resume, blueprints, what have you.

nowaypablo  ·  3369 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Learned my way around Acrobat this summer at an internship. PDFs are dank.

user-inactivated  ·  3369 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Doesn't Acrobat have built in OCR? I bet that could really come in handy if you ever have to scan anything.

hyperflare  ·  3369 days ago  ·  link  ·  

It does, but you're better off using dedicated OCR software and then converting to PDF

nowaypablo  ·  3369 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Yep, it was a law firm so every paralegal's computer pretty much had OCR running in the background all day, while our client's targets were producing their documents to us. It's appallingly slow even with top-tier computers :(

tacocat  ·  3369 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Macs have built in PDF technology. I'm pretty sure you can even export a PDF from TextEdit

nowaypablo  ·  3369 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Thanks!

Ah, I would partition my drive but it's a solid state and I only have 250GB of storage in the first place. Half of it is used up already :'(

user-inactivated  ·  3369 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Yeah I fucked up there. I never use the Windows side anyways.

It's all good though save up for a terabyte harddrive or something