Test 2 Layout tools

Do your documents do you proud?

Pages, Numbers and Keynote have excellent layout tools with dynamic guides and feature-rich formatting panels. There’s no distinction between the layout and working modes, and elements are free to float and align anywhere on the page. Microsoft comes closest to replicating this, but only in Word and PowerPoint, since Excel tables (like their equivalents in LibreOffice and Google) still occupy complete pages. The same is true of LibreOffice’s equivalent apps.

You can set page colours and draw out text boxes in Word, and every app in Microsoft Office lets you insert images anywhere. While LibreOffice supports text boxes, they can only be rotated in Impress and Draw; setting a page background colour confined it to the text area in our tests. Google Docs has a drawing mode for complex layouts, but these are inserted as a graphic rather than native page elements. It’s a neat solution, but not perfect.