The new version of Pages is in many ways an inferior alternative to its 2009 version ever since Apple gimped it to create feature parity with the iOS apps. Microsoft Word is good for composing documents to share between computers because the formatting and syntax will almost certainly work.
That said, it’s still the industry standard in a lot of industries and you’ll have to use it eventually. It also insists on using keyboard shortcuts that don’t match Mac standards.
Word 2011 for Mac falls short of other alternatives for being woefully outdated, slow and bloated. Microsoft Word is the old man wheezing in the corner about how he can do all these cool things and no one appreciates him for it. IA Writer supports Markdown syntax, exporting to Word and HTML.
