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Hi everyone, I just finished my PS on my Mac which I wrote in Pages and exported it into .docx. But I noticed that what fits into exactly two pages in Pages runs over two pages in MS Word.

After comparing the two docs side by side, it struck me that the two word-processing applications seem to have different spacing even when both texts are set to be double spaced. Tinkering a while revealed that 1.86x spacing in MS Word is roughly the same as double spacing in Pages, with the result being there are more words allowed in two pages in Pages than in MS Word.

The question, of course, is if the different spacing matters at all to admissions officers. In the case that it doesn't, I will happily use the Pages format to include a bit more words; but if it does, that is, admissions officers will notice the difference between what is in MS Word 1.86x spacing and double spacing when they read the application, will using the Pages format come across as unprofessional since it may be perceived as failing to fulfill the stated requirement of double spacing?

My assumption is that MS Word is the default for admissions officers for formatting issues, by the way.

Any idea on this issue is appreciated.

Anonymous User wrote:Hi everyone, I just finished my PS on my Mac which I wrote in Pages and exported it into .docx. But I noticed that what fits into exactly two pages in Pages runs over two pages in MS Word.

After comparing the two docs side by side, it struck me that the two word-processing applications seem to have different spacing even when both texts are set to be double spaced. Tinkering a while revealed that 1.86x spacing in MS Word is roughly the same as double spacing in Pages, with the result being there are more words allowed in two pages in Pages than in MS Word.

The question, of course, is if the different spacing matters at all to admissions officers. In the case that it doesn't, I will happily use the Pages format to include a bit more words; but if it does, that is, admissions officers will notice the difference between what is in MS Word 1.86x spacing and double spacing when they read the application, will using the Pages format come across as unprofessional since it may be perceived as failing to fulfill the stated requirement of double spacing?

My assumption is that MS Word is the default for admissions officers for formatting issues, by the way.

Any idea on this issue is appreciated.

You can use pages if you want and export it to PDF. It will be fine, nobody is pulling out a ruler to check spacing.

Baby Gaga wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:Hi everyone, I just finished my PS on my Mac which I wrote in Pages and exported it into .docx. But I noticed that what fits into exactly two pages in Pages runs over two pages in MS Word.

After comparing the two docs side by side, it struck me that the two word-processing applications seem to have different spacing even when both texts are set to be double spaced. Tinkering a while revealed that 1.86x spacing in MS Word is roughly the same as double spacing in Pages, with the result being there are more words allowed in two pages in Pages than in MS Word.

The question, of course, is if the different spacing matters at all to admissions officers. In the case that it doesn't, I will happily use the Pages format to include a bit more words; but if it does, that is, admissions officers will notice the difference between what is in MS Word 1.86x spacing and double spacing when they read the application, will using the Pages format come across as unprofessional since it may be perceived as failing to fulfill the stated requirement of double spacing?

My assumption is that MS Word is the default for admissions officers for formatting issues, by the way.

Any idea on this issue is appreciated.

You can use pages if you want and export it to PDF. It will be fine, nobody is pulling out a ruler to check spacing.

Right, that's what I intend to do at this point.

Just wondering if anybody has had similar questions though.

semi-related: are we supposed to double space personal statements?

tskela wrote:semi-related: are we supposed to double space personal statements?

I think that's the default. Many schools don't state the format requirement explicitly but some do mention double spacing. Check what your schools say on their website to confirm.

I used pages and double-spaced. No one will care.

tskela wrote:semi-related: are we supposed to double space personal statements?

Ya unless they say to single-space (I don't know of any schools that do this).