Anybody else find Pages horrible?

[alexf]

Is is just me, or is Pages one of the worst apps that Apple has put forth recently?

Designing a newsletter has proven to be one of the worst computing catastophes that I have had in recent years. Pages erased my work multiple times, even after I had saved it. Also, the way the program formats is terrible; Apple has caught the Word syndrome of trying to help you so much with Word processing - guessing what you want to do and doing it for you - that it makes you want to pull your hair out. I also find the interface very counter-intuitive (highly surprising for an Apple app)

Sorry for the rant, but I just lost a lot of money and time because of this half-baked program, and I have to let it out. I had high hopes for Pages and am sorely disappointed. And I thought that only Microsoft could push my buttons like this... :mad:

[miloblithe]

I too was very unimpressed, although I gave up pretty quickly.

[Daveway]

I also find Pages very unimpressive. I haven't used it more than 20 mins. and that's because I didn't like it. I find Pages uses to much processor resources for a publishing program. I think that may be because of it's RT capabilities.

For the most part I believe the team that designes the UI for Pages and Keynote are not very skilled. I Hate the UI for the 2 apps.

[Horrortaxi]

I'm sorry you had problems but Pages is a 1.0 release and you're an early adopter. That can be a hard road if you choose to take it.

[Daveway]

I'm sorry you had problems but Pages is a 1.0 release and you're an early adopter. That can be a hard road if you choose to take it.
*caugh, caugh* It's 1.0.1. Also, It's not so much that it has bugs are anything, I think it UI is horrible.

[Xtremehkr]

It has the underpinnings of a great program. The UI is a little unfriendly and could be more intuitive. Hopefully it progresses faster than .Mac has in improving.

[MacNoobie]

I'm debating on Pages personally, its too much like a word processor and tries to play a desktop publishing program all in one. I dont mind the UI with my 30" Apple display but it seems too hard to use if you want to start out with a blank document and create anything like they have in the pre-done templates. I was impressed with the demo at MacWorld 2005 that you could have an image and it would automatically wrap text around it and the templates look nice but all in all its very hard to use it to design anything useful.

Pages should stick to either being a desktop publishing program or a word processor.. not both.

There will always be Illustrator and InDesign.

[alexf]

*caugh, caugh* It's 1.0.1. Also, It's not so much that it has bugs are anything, I think it UI is horrible.

Yes, I think the UI is aweful too.

I'm glad I'm not alone in my feelings!

[Phat_Pat]

I don't like it much either.

[wrldwzrd89]

I don't think Pages is horrible. It's not great, but it isn't quite as bad for me as everyone else finds it. I don't use it all that much (Keynote gets used far more than Pages does).

[jamdr]

The main problem with the UI I think is that it is too hard to access things that you want to do all the time. Everything is in that annoying palette with all those buttons, when instead Apple should move some things to the toolbar. I want to be able to change fonts and styles and justification with the click of a button. Also, it needs an equation editor. Until Apple fixes these things, I'm sticking with AppleWorks. Fortunately, I don't feel like I got ripped off because of Keynote 2.

[Bibulous]

If you have been using a computer for the last 20 years, there is no question that Word currently is the way to go, it seems to be perfected.

The future for Pages is much brighter then for Word, bit of a learning curve, but looking forward to Pages 2 (and Apple getting another $79)

[mfacey]

If you have been using a computer for the last 20 years, there is no question that Word currently is the way to go, it seems to be perfected.

The future for Pages is much brighter then for Word, bit of a learning curve, but looking forward to Pages 2 (and Apple getting another $79)

I have to agree with most here that Pages didn't live up to my expectations. However, I can't agree with you that Word has been perfected. Word is complete nightmare in certain situations. Its non-intuitive and not very user friendly in many cases (especially the windows version!). I do prefer it to Pages, but its by no means the best that can be done.

Keynote on the other hand is fantastic, and considerably easier to use and prettier than Powerpoint.

[alexf]

I have to agree with most here that Pages didn't live up to my expectations. However, I can't agree with you that Word has been perfected. Word is complete nightmare in certain situations. Its non-intuitive and not very user friendly in many cases (especially the windows version!). I do prefer it to Pages, but its by no means the best that can be done.

Keynote on the other hand is fantastic, and considerably easier to use and prettier than Powerpoint.

Yes, Word is truly nightmarish in certain situations...

But why can't Apple come out with something that can actually compete with this age-old word processing app, which many of us Mac users seem to have a love / hate relationship with?

Strange how Apple can make an ingeniously simple and easy-to-use interface for a video editing program like iMovie, but cannot with something as simple as a Word processor!

There is something very wrong with the fact that, without any previous video editing experience I could learn iMovie in a day or so, yet with 15 years (or more) of word processing experience I am still struggling with Pages after a week... :confused:

[NeoMayhem]

I think its a great application, I use it for basic layouts and word processing. Its not quite as good as keynote, but it is still a solid program with only a few things that bother me.

[Horrortaxi]

If you have been using a computer for the last 20 years, there is no question that Word currently is the way to go, it seems to be perfected.

Word was perfected at least 12 years ago. Since then it's been a steady slide into very non-perfect bloatware. When you can't add any more useful features you have to add gimmicks I guess.

[bousozoku]

I like Pages but it's definitely crude at the moment. They should have gone more for a desktop publishing application than a word processor with desktop publishing features. If they'd included a slide sorter for the pages, it would make so much more sense.

As far as MS Word goes, it was great at version 4, so-so at version 5, really bad at version 6, and it continues to slide downhill. Feature bloat is a problem with most software releases now. One application does not have to do it all, including Pages.

[thequicksilver]

Apple are, in my mind, guilty of misrepresenting this. During the MWSF keynote, Jobs called this 'Word processing with an amazing sense of style', indicating that it's a word processor à la Word. It's not. It's a basic DTP application, in the realm of Microsoft Publisher, as Schiller's demo went on to show.

If they'd just have said this from day one, it would have been much better received. To use the term word processor seriously misrepresents it: Pages is very good at what it does, but that ain't word processing. If all you want is to write letters, essays, that kind of thing, you still want Word.

I bought it hoping for a basic word processor hoping to replace Word - which is unbearably slow - with a few fancy features on top. It quickly became clear though that on a 1024x768 screen Pages is pretty much unusable with all the palettes. Finding basic tasks is difficult with just the little buttons on the Inspector to find stuff, and I find myself wasting time when trying to do tiny things like accessing the word count.

If I'd paid money for just Pages, I'd have been more than a little disgruntled. Just as well Keynote is everything I'd hoped for.

[ExoticFish]

i think it's been cool for the couple of "design" documents i've done with it. i made a fake newspaper and a form for work. i'm happy with it but i'm not trying to do anything too complex either.

[Pismo]

I like Pages. I haven't had any problems with it. I haven't used all of the features though. I mostly use it for printing envelopes which works great. It will only get better and I'm sure Apple will add more features like spread sheets and maybe a GUI front-end for SQL.

[iGary]

I haven't used it yet either, but I plan on giving it a go for my first newsletter for my burgeoning photo biz.

I have played around with it a bit, but really can't comment yet.

I like Word for one thing: typing. I'm a writer (not trying to sound egotistical) and I hate it when an application tries to tell me how do do something TOTALLY WRONG. (And yes, I know I can turn that off.)

</rant>

[Horrortaxi]

I like Word for one thing: typing. I'm a writer (not trying to sound egotistical) and I hate it when an application tries to tell me how do do something TOTALLY WRONG. (And yes, I know I can turn that off.)

You don't like to be told how do do things the wrong way but you like Word?

[minesgeek]

I like Pages. I haven't had any problems with it. I haven't used all of the features though. I mostly use it for printing envelopes which works great. It will only get better and I'm sure Apple will add more features like spread sheets and maybe a GUI front-end for SQL.just for the record, i have had a pretty good experience making a couple of flyers and whatnot. yeah, it would be better with some additional features but i think that it is aimed at the less advanced in the publishing world. and on that note, i think it has done pretty well especially with a wide range of templates. i swear those things are a godsend for the non-creative such as myself.

especially when being used on a nice 17" or larger screen, i think that all of the options would be great if they were laid out so they can be viewed at the same time (like on photoshop). this would probably take away a lot of the frustration. It is not like it is devoid of useful features for me, the less advanced.

i have run across a few little bugs but that is to be expected of even a *cough, cough, ahem, ahem* 1.0.1 version application

[Daveway]

Stop dogging on Word. Word and Powerpoint are GREAT apps. But only when on a mac. The Windows versions are horrid. When It comes to value, I think Office is better with the education version. I haven't been as comfortable with Keynote as I have with Powerpoint. To everyone his own, but Word is a GREAT app.

[Darwin]

I have been using Pages and its not that bad

I haved used Word for ages and have since been testing out Pages to see out well it works out

So far I agree that some things need tweaking but apart from that its not bad at all

[HiRez]

I have to agree with most here that Pages didn't live up to my expectations. However, I can't agree with you that Word has been perfected. Word is complete nightmare in certain situations. Its non-intuitive and not very user friendly in many cases (especially the windows version!). I do prefer it to Pages, but its by no means the best that can be done..Word was nearly perfect up until about version 4.0 (on the Mac), it was all downhill from there as far as I'm concerned. As for Pages, it looked pretty goofy to me as well, but the first versions of FCP, Keynote, OS X, all the iLife apps, .Mac, and pretty much anything else they're ever done were quite flakey, slow, underfeatured, and rough around the edges too. Apple just takes a long bloody time to refine their apps until they're "ready for prime time". That's fine, because once they do get an app refined, they tend to be fantastic -- I just wish they'd stop gouging us for full price each time we upgrade from their "betas" to a release-quality app. I'll check out Pages again when it gets to version 3.0.1 or so.

[mad jew]

Word is far more productive for most people IMO because Pages just isn't a word processor. I haven't used Pages all that much and I don't own it so I suppose I can't really complain about it too much but when I have dabbled with it, it's come across as a little over-simplified. It might just be because I'm used to Office apps which are admittedly pretty bloated but nevertheless, Pages just gives the impression of being underdone and kind of useless for most people. Publisher was a horrible app and Pages is merely an Apple (much better) version albeit still kind of redundant. I realize a lot of people here use it productively but it's still a pretty niche app for now. They need to make a better GUI and add some word processing focus IMO.

[iGary]

You don't like to be told how do do things the wrong way but you like Word?

I like it for TYPING. :rolleyes:

[Neuro]

I hate the fact Pages always defaults to US English spelling. There seems to be no permanent way to switch to UK English! Arrrgh. No offence to Americans, but there are other people in the world.

[devman]

I hate the fact Pages always defaults to US English spelling. There seems to be no permanent way to switch to UK English! Arrrgh. No offence to Americans, but there are other people in the world.

Go to system preferences. Open International. Drag British English to be first in the list of languages. If it's not in the list, click the Edit button to add it.

[weldon]

Word is far...because Pages just isn't a word processor... Publisher was a horrible app and Pages is merely an Apple (much better) version albeit still kind of redundant.
The first week Pages was out a lot of people were crowing about a new "Word-killer" and I really felt that was offbase because the better comparison really is to Microsoft Publisher. It reminds me of a light version of Pagemaker from 10 years ago.

Still, I think that Publisher is an important program. It's a lot easier to create a newsletter with photos, columns, fancy headers, etc. in Publisher than it is in Word. I think Apple should not try and compete with Word on the Mac, but should try to create an equivalent to Publisher, only better.

When I need to create a flyer or a newsletter thing, I fire up Publisher on my Windows box because it works. I'm a teacher and sometimes that free-form page layout is the perfect thing. For handouts with pictures, I just use Word, but I'm always annoyed that I have to format the picture so that text will flow around it and I can place it anywhere on the page by drag and drop. I'd rather do stuff like that in a page layout app, but I don't need to spend the $$$$$ for Pagemaker.

Word, is a great app. I know people complain about it being bloated, but I can get everything I need done pretty quickly. I don't find that Word is slow or that it gets in my way. Of course, I've been using Word since it first came out on the Mac and Windows. I'm used to its quirks and can do things pretty easily. Today, I created a short document that has three columns of terms in the middle. I know that I have to insert a section break (continuous) and then format:columns to switch to three column, and then insert another section break (continuous) to go back to one column. Not intuitive, but easy for me.

The one thing I would like to see in Word is a reference database and auto-format for citations so I can switch to APA or MLA style as needed. My grad school professors each have their own ideas about proper style.

Again, Pages shouldn't grow into a competitor for Word. It should be Pagemaker for the rest of us.

[devman]

I have to agree with most here that Pages didn't live up to my expectations. However, I can't agree with you that Word has been perfected. Word is complete nightmare in certain situations. Its non-intuitive and not very user friendly in many cases (especially the windows version!). I do prefer it to Pages, but its by no means the best that can be done.

Keynote on the other hand is fantastic, and considerably easier to use and prettier than Powerpoint.

Great post and very well said. Being forced to use Word to write a technical book several years ago was one of the worst experiences of my life.

Anyway, back to Apple, Mellel is a very good word processor for OS X. Interestingly though, I find myself using Pages more and more often.

[PlaceofDis]

for any complex formatting Word is definitly the way to sad to say, its not that bad of an app, although it is filled with bloat....

Pages is stong because of its templates, but its not good for making documents from scratch, if it improved in this area i would stick to it, but the UI definitly needs some work, toolbars and palettes need to be used more effectively and perhaps a bit more customization of the two would help a bit

for now i guess ill be typing up my poetry in Word

[vocaro]

Except for a minor cursor glitch, I haven't encountered any bugs in Pages, and it does everything I've asked of it. I especially love the way it handles graphics. Being able to drag pictures where you want them and keep them there, letting text flow around them as you type, is sooo much nicer than what I've experienced in Word, which is usually "Dammit, Word, why did you bump my picture to the next page just because I typed three letters?"

So contrary to most of the posters here, I'm quite happy with Pages. I agree that the user interface could use some remodeling, especially the tedious Inspector pane, but overall I've been impressed with the quality of this 1.0-level app that only costs $40 (so to speak). It's a great Word alternative for those who don't need Excel and don't want to shell out several hundred bucks (MS Office) just to get something better than TextEdit.

[weldon]

It's a great Word alternative for those who don't need Excel and don't want to shell out several hundred bucks (MS Office) just to get something better than TextEdit.
At $80 for iWork and $150 for the student/teacher edition of Office, it's a bit harder to justify. Of course, if you get an academic discount, $50 for iWork is low enough that you might just pick up both. I'm waiting for Pages to become a more capable page layout app. I'm still a little worried that Apple won't stick with it.

[Lacero]

I used it for 20 minutes and gave up on the program. I won't revisit the program until version 3. That's how bad I think it is.

[andiwm2003]

for any complex formatting Word is definitly the way to sad to say, its not that bad of an app, although it is filled with bloat....

Pages is stong because of its templates, but its not good for making documents from scratch, if it improved in this area i would stick to it, but the UI definitly needs some work, toolbars and palettes need to be used more effectively and perhaps a bit more customization of the two would help a bit

for now i guess ill be typing up my poetry in Word

pages is for people like me. we don't know how to make a good layout and we don't want to be bothered with that anyway. we want a few good templates, fill our text in, move some pics around. pages is great for that as long as you use it for privat/semiprofessional.
a few more templates would be great. a few more features would be nice. but all in all a great home app for $79 (and keynote 2 is included for free :D ) i like what i get with pages. of course now way that it replaces word. or mac write pro that i still miss together with mac draw pro.
regarding the speed: it puzzles me that pages feels as fast (or slow) on a mac mini as on a 2ghz dual g5. has anybody the same feeling?

[mfacey]

I think that Apple was probably aiming to make Pages into a desktop publishing program but then found halfway through that most of the features added in were pretty similar to what word has. Maybe that's why Jobs decided to put it head to head with Word?
Word is great for standard, no non-sense typing. But as soon as you start getting a long document with various pictures and a self-updating table of contents (ie proper layout and publishing stuff) it becomes more and more awful. Once you have an 40+ pages almost everytime you move an image slightly you know its going to destroy your document. It has brought me to the point that I just want to throw my computer out of the window various times. (This was a PC by the way, I always forgive my mac by just telling myself that microsoft are the people that put me in this nightmarish situation :rolleyes: ).
Lets just hope Apple implements some major improvements to Pages in the next release. I wouldn't mind having a program that can do layout AND word-processing properly!

[RacerX]

I think that Apple was probably aiming to make Pages into a desktop publishing program but then found halfway through that most of the features added in were pretty similar to what word has. Maybe that's why Jobs decided to put it head to head with Word?
Pages is a resurrected application from more than 10 years ago. It's feature set and implementation are pretty much the same, just as the reaction of both the media and users.

Pages was never designed to be a page layout replacement. It is designed to be a step above the standard word processor layout aimed squarely at people who know nothing about page layout. This has been (in it's original form) and currently is a template driven application.

What is so amazing is that people are reacting the same way now as they did before. Always thinking that it'll become more than it currently is. This application has had more than 10 years to be rethought out and improved. If it was aiming for page layout, there was plenty of time to move it in that direction.

Pages is to page layout what painting by numbers is to art. Anyone expecting the freedom that a page layout program offers has missed what this is about. It isn't about freedom, it is about empowering people with little or no experience to produce quality documents.

The only reason Pages has been resurrected is that it was an application that Steve Jobs really liked and thought had a place even if it didn't fit into any defined category.

Steve Jobs, 1993: Pages is a stunning product, and I believe it will become a major mainstream product on NEXTSTEP.

Pages could be a good product... as soon as people start taking it for what it is rather than projecting what they want it to be onto it.

Lets look at a 1992 description of Pages from NeXTWorld:The flip side of PasteUp's carte-blanche approach to page design is a layout program from Pages Software, which after several years in the making is close to release under the name Pages by Pages. It guides users to produce well-designed business documents by limiting their choices to a preset range provided in a companion "design model."

Pages by Pages will ship with seven design models, most aimed at corporate design (other models will be available separately from Pages and third parties). A separate program, the Pages Designer Edition, is used to create models.

Each model contains rules for typeface control, column layout, headline styling, and other elements that make up a page design. The idea is that an organization will use the product to standardize on a common look for all its documents. The constrained approach also allows users to create attractive designs easily, with a fairly flat learning curve.

The Pages user interface groups 26 page elements under six basic palettes. All elements are dragged and dropped on the page, and they interact appropriately. For example, a subhead will know that it lives in a column, so it scales to the column width.

Once users are comfortable with a design model, they have several ways to expand or change it. Every element has an inspector with controls to adjust the behavior of the element. Users may also alter a design model by overriding one or more rules, and then saving it as a style sheet. They can also create a design model from scratch with the Designer Edition.

Pages believes it has hit on a fundamentally new ap-proach to page design. It is aimed squarely at business publishing, leaving the graphic-design market to other products.
Does any of this sound familiar?

The first week Pages was out a lot of people were crowing about a new "Word-killer" and I really felt that was offbase because the better comparison really is to Microsoft Publisher. It reminds me of a light version of Pagemaker from 10 years ago.
Pages was compared with PageMaker during it's original run also.

PageMaker was a very powerful application 10 years ago, I should know, I have PageMaker 1.0-6.5 (and still use Aldus PageMaker 5.0a on my PowerBook 2300c today).

Trying to compare Pages to PageMaker does both a disservice. Pages wasn't attempting to be like PageMaker and PageMaker was never as limiting as Pages.

As for the comparison to Publisher... that I don't know about.

I, personally, don't have a need for Pages. TextEdit (with the help of services from other apps) does most of what I need and when I need more than that I have Create. But even though it is not a product I would want, I know people whom this product would be great for.

The best thing to do is to stop comparing it and give it a fair chance based on what it does. If it fills a need for you, great. If it doesn't, then move to what does.

[Demon Hunter]

Word is far more productive for most people IMO because Pages just isn't a word processor. I haven't used Pages all that much and I don't own it so I suppose I can't really complain about it too much but when I have dabbled with it, it's come across as a little over-simplified. It might just be because I'm used to Office apps which are admittedly pretty bloated but nevertheless, Pages just gives the impression of being underdone and kind of useless for most people.

I fail to see how it "just isn't a word processor?" I'm fairly amazed at the amount of negative responses this program has received, especially after Apple set the example with Keynote 1 and the glorious reception of version 2.

Pages is a godsend for me. I'm not sure what you people are smoking but writing is not about buttons, formatting, and margins. At the heart of writing is simplicity, I believe, and it seems a lot of people become troubled and even distraught at the apparent lack of "function." Sounds a lot like the first impressions PC users get of Macs...

Writing is a craft like art. You don't hear graphic artists complain about their palettes! I'll never understand why people want toolbars; confusing, myopic icons that march on in an endless, tyrannical parade across your screen. I despise nothing more than looking for what I'm trying to do in Word. Is it hidden behind this arrow? Maybe if I right-click? Alas.

Perhaps, then, Pages is for a different kind of writer. I write a lot of poetry and fiction, personally, and the less distraction I have on my screen the better. There are times I simply cannot interact with Word on a creative level, unless I close every window and button... so I might as well be using TextEdit.

I also fail to see how Word on the Mac is any different, or better, than Word on the PC. It looks prettier and has the same ****** GUI. What of it?

Word's only saving grace is its AutoSave if you ask me.

[rendezvouscp]

I've had a very good experience with Pages. The first time I used it (quite literally too) I went to Applications, opened iWork, opened Pages, and looked for a nice template. I opened it, put in my information (it was a brochure for a condominium's open house) and changed some of the default styling. Bam. I literally had a nice, clean, even pretty, brochure that only took me 15 minutes to produce. 15 minutes.

Will I be using it as a word processor? No, it's horrible at that! Will I be making research reports with it? Well, I'll be making the text in Word and then copying it over to Pages :D. Pages is an awful word processor, but a beautiful layout program.
-Chase

[ravenvii]

Well, I own iWork, and here's my .02...

Pages seems to be a cool app. The templates look really cool, and would really spice up various documents I write for school and elsewhere, where before I simply had text and nothing else. But as a pure word processor, my first impression is that Pages blows. I admit I haven't used it more than about 30 minutes, but I wasn't impressed at all.

And no, I don't even have Microsoft Office (well I had Office v.X, but it's not installed... thinking of it, I'm not sure where the CD is...). I use TextEdit, which, since it's update with Panther, serves perfectly for my word processing needs, which is extremely modest.

[Darwin]

Another question is 'What do people think to it compared to using AppleWorks?'

Do people feel there is an improvement there?

In terms of Word proccessing I mean, not all the other things like Spreadsheet, Database etc

After all that is what Pages (and Keynote) are suppose to be doing, they are replacements

[SpaceMagic]

I don't actually know why Apple are bothering. MS Office is the best program on my Mac. It does everything I could possibly want.. and more.

[Fredstar]

Pages is exactly what Apple wanted it to be, a Word processing application with style. Unfortunately style is more dominant than productivity, which is a shame. It can be very slow and choppy at times and clearly needs a lot of work on Apple's front. The templates are cool and you can make some great looking brochure and leaflets but for raw word processing it is poor imo.
It has real potential of being a cheap Word alternative...but it is not there yet, at under £50 it is very affordable and gives you a great and easy to use Presentation application and a competant Word processor. But Word is definately the superior by a large margin.

[Abstract]

I don't actually know why Apple are bothering. MS Office is the best program on my Mac. It does everything I could possibly want.. and more.

Exactly. Word is great. Yes, it's bloated, but as long as you realize that you're buying Word with no intention of using 97% of the features, the 3% of the features you DO use are perfect. I even think things are perfectly laid out (on Macs, not Windows), especially on Office 2004.

Again, I realize there is a lot of bloat, but I never really intended to use ALL the features anyway. I intended to use what I need, and Word does offer everything I need.

And I don't think Word is slow. No word processor is slow enough to bother me. And if you're right and it IS slow, then its not very noticeable, and so it isn't a big deal.

[weldon]

[list]
Pages could be a good product... as soon as people start taking it for what it is rather than projecting what they want it to be onto it.
Pages was compared with PageMaker during it's original run also.
PageMaker was a very powerful application 10 years ago, I should know, I have PageMaker 1.0-6.5 (and still use Aldus PageMaker 5.0a on my PowerBook 2300c today).
Trying to compare Pages to PageMaker does both a disservice. Pages wasn't attempting to be like PageMaker and PageMaker was never as limiting as Pages.
As for the comparison to Publisher... that I don't know about.
The best thing to do is to stop comparing it and give it a fair chance based on what it does. If it fills a need for you, great. If it doesn't, then move to what does.

Great post. I've heard of Pages by Pages, but I didn't think that Apple's Pages was a direct descendant. While I took programming classes in college on a NeXT box, I never used the app and thought it was more of a classic word processor.

As for the rest of the discussion about comparing Pages to other apps...

I think it's absolutely fair to compare Pages to what else is out there. 10-15 years ago, I used Word (or MacWrite or WordPerfect) for papers, letters, business documents, etc. I used Pagemaker for page layout, flyers, brochures, etc. Recently I've been using Microsoft Publisher on Windows because I haven't kept up with Pagemaker upgrades. Publisher is a lot simpler and includes a clip-art library (with additional clip-art available online through the application interface) which is perfect for a quick flyer, a greeting card, or a newsletter. Those two apps, Word and Publisher, meet all of my needs.

I'm concerned that Pages might get dropped from the lineup if it doesn't define itself better. If it goes toe-to-toe with Word, it's going to lose. It could become a great consumer page layout app though. It has some great things going for it...


Beautiful Templates
iLife media browser
Simple layout
Compatability (import/export)


I'd like to see Apple create a market for templates. Something like an online community where people can share templates and the community can vote on the quality of the template. Add an online clipart library that integrates with Pages in a similar fashion to iLife, and Pages would be an even better app.

[bellis1]

I'm back to word now and it has grown on me some because of the comments ability, simple thesaurus/dict, and is compatible with reference software. However, it is very slow (almost unbearable) on my stock 256mb ibook. And more importantly it does not handle figures and table nearly as well as Pages. Consequently I do most of my typing in word and then work with my figures and table in pages and include them as a separate PDF. I also have Mellel which is also nice if I just want to write smoothly without any distractions.

And iwork is worth the price just for keynote. However, why doesn't keynote have a way to dim bulleted lists once you have gone over an individual bullet. I am envious of powerpoint only for this feature.

Thanks

[Zaty]

In my opinion, Pages is not all that bad. It needs some tweaking and Apple has to fix some bugs. I'm sure Pages 2 will be a great app for everyone who wants to do basic wordprocessing and publishing without the limitations of TextEdit. I guess most people are disappointed with Pages because of the following two reasons:

a) Pages wasn't finished when it was released
b) Pre-MWSF rumours were talking about an MS Office replacement or killer so many people think of Pages as being a replacement for Word. But I think Pages was never intended to replace Word, it's more like iMovie vs. FCP/FCE.

[jemeinc]

The one thing I would like to see in Word is a reference database and auto-format for citations so I can switch to APA or MLA style as needed. My grad school professors each have their own ideas about proper style.
.

I couldn't agree more. There has to be a way to implement this. Though, getting the approval from APA, and MLA might be a problem. They want to sell their manuals, and this could, conceivably, cut into their sales.

[jared_kipe]

For what it is worth I plan on TRYING to write lab reports with Pages this quarter. We'll see how they go. But I'll make a template of the basic report and just Change thing in it to make them unique. I think it should work.

[weldon]

I couldn't agree more. There has to be a way to implement this. Though, getting the approval from APA, and MLA might be a problem. They want to sell their manuals, and this could, conceivably, cut into their sales.
EndNote and the like don't seem to have a problem. Just imagine an open XML database of references that could be transformed into different citation and bibliography styles using XSLT with a super friendly front-end that can hide the complexity of XML and XSLT for most people, but still leaves all the flexibility there for those that want it, all integrated into Word.

But back to Pages... I think this is an example of a really useful word processing feature that would absolutely ruin Pages. As soon as it tries to compete with Word, the product will be doomed. Apple needs to stay true to the conception of simple page layout app with some decent word-processing features. I still think the perfect comparison is to Microsoft Publisher on Windows. I could use something like that on the Mac.

[RacerX]

Great post. I've heard of Pages by Pages, but I didn't think that Apple's Pages was a direct descendant. While I took programming classes in college on a NeXT box, I never used the app and thought it was more of a classic word processor.
A lot of people didn't give Pages a try back then... it was a little expensive ($795), and I was using FrameMaker for papers on NeXT systems back then.

As for the rest of the discussion about comparing Pages to other apps...

I think it's absolutely fair to compare Pages to what else is out there...
What I see Pages as trying to do (again) is to define a new category.

I've seen the same thing happen with Create. When people try to do a toe-to-toe line up on some other app's specialty area, it is going to fall short. Compare Create to Illustrator in doing illustration and Illustrator wins... But it should, after all it is a dedicated illustration app, while Create is not. Compare Create to InDesign or QuarkXPress for page layout and those other apps win... But they should, after all they are dedicated layout apps. Further, all those dedicated apps cost far more than Create.

The problem is that most people hold up what is new to what they know. I think that if something like Create was held up to QuarkXPress looking at both apps illustration abilities, that would be just as fair. It is when we restrict these newer (to most people) apps to categories that they are not attempting to compete in directly that the comparisons fall far short.

I truly believe that apps like Pages and Create fill voids that exist in the software industry today. First, they don't cost as much as high end solutions. Second, they address some ranges of users which other companies try to force into high or low end apps. The gulf between the high end and low end has been getting larger over the years.

Pages lets people with little background make quality documents. Create provides a middle ground for people with experience that don't have the money or need for the top of the line professional apps.

Rather than pushing these into other categories, we should embrace these apps for filling these gaps in our (collective) software selection.

As I said, Pages, is not for me... but it is a solution for someone and I recognize that. And I sure don't need (or want) Apple to redefine it around my needs at the expense of those it is design to serve.

:rolleyes:

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that just because Pages isn't the app that some people want it to be doesn't make it a bad app or one that doesn't have it's place in the computing world.

[Neuro]

Go to system preferences. Open International. Drag British English to be first in the list of languages. If it's not in the list, click the Edit button to add it.

Good stuff. :)

I never thought it would be a system-level setting...

[Fukui]

The main problem with the UI I think is that it is too hard to access things that you want to do all the time. Everything is in that annoying palette with all those buttons, when instead Apple should move some things to the toolbar. I want to be able to change fonts and styles and justification with the click of a button.
I thought one of the nice thing was that its all in one place, you don't have to look for it... thats what I liked about Keynote. You can add fonts and colors items to the toolbar AFAIK.

The thing that I don't like about pages is very simple: No text background highlighting and no ruby support, and no vertical text.

[weldon]

What I see Pages as trying to do (again) is to define a new category.
The problem is that most people hold up what is new to what they know.
And I sure don't need (or want) Apple to redefine it around my needs at the expense of those it is design to serve.
I guess the point I'm trying to make is that just because Pages isn't the app that some people want it to be doesn't make it a bad app or one that doesn't have it's place in the computing world.
I think if it's trying to define a new category it will fail. People won't really know what to do with it and won't understand why they need it. It's important to provide a comparison so that people can understand what they can do with the app. And I have no such compulsions about trying to refrain from imposing my viewpoint on everyone around me. :p

Your discussion about pro apps was useful because I think Pages could be a success if Apple targets it as a consumer or small business app that is a friendly, light page-layout app. Much like Microsoft Publisher on Windows.

[RacerX]

I think if it's trying to define a new category it will fail.
Well, Pages for NEXTSTEP failed, so it already has a history of that. But that doesn't negate the fact that a number of new categories are needed to fill in the gaps left by the current line of specialty apps.

But a more important question is... Do you want it to fail? And is this because you don't see this need from your point of view? Or that you can't comprehend a new category?

Why, in your opinion, is it going to fail?

People won't really know what to do with it and won't understand why they need it. It's important to provide a comparison so that people can understand what they can do with the app.
Why is a comparison needed? Are people unable to understand a description?

When you compare it to PageMaker, that doesn't help the people who it is aimed at. They know nothing of PageMaker. The comparison is meaningless to them. Why do you think Apple has been pushing it more along the lines of a word processor? Because it is aimed at people who want something more than a word processor but have no clue about PageMaker, InDesign or QuarkXPress.

And by making a comparison you are setting up the other app as the yard stick...

I'm just saying give Pages a chance to find it's own place.

[wrldwzrd89]

I thought one of the nice thing was that its all in one place, you don't have to look for it... thats what I liked about Keynote. You can add fonts and colors items to the toolbar AFAIK.

The thing that I don't like about pages is very simple: No text background highlighting and no ruby support, and no vertical text.
I'm not too familiar with Ruby. What is it?

[Fukui]

I'm not too familiar with Ruby. What is it?
It's useful to add pronunciation to the text for different language speakers, or usually in JP language papers so someone can know how to speak a particular Chinese character.

It may be obscure but its very useful, especially if it was built in to Cocoa just like spelling...

[wrldwzrd89]

It's useful to add pronunciation to the text for different language speakers, or usually in JP language papers so someone can know how to speak a particular Chinese character.

It may be obscure but its very useful, especially if it was built in to Cocoa just like spelling...
I'd LOVE to see Ruby support in TextEdit for Tiger!

EDIT: Oops, wandering off-topic again...

Ruby support should definitely be in an update of Pages.

[Fukui]

I'd LOVE to see Ruby support in TextEdit for Tiger!

EDIT: Oops, wandering off-topic again...

Ruby support should definitely be in an update of Pages.
I'm sure your not the only one.

[mac-er]

Pages 1.0 is typical Apple. Anytime Apple puts out the first version of a product, its really a beta.

And, no, not necessarily because of bugs, but because it lacks the features or speed that a GM product should (ie OS 10.0)

[gekko513]

I wasn't very fond of the utility panels on Mac OS X until I discovered that most of them were the same across a number of applications. After that I kind of love them for their consistency.

And for the record, I hate the cluttered toolbars in Word.

[broken_keyboard]

I thought it was revolutionary - the idea that you always start with a template and never with a blank document. I thought - wow, all these years and Microsoft didn't come up with this?

But after trying to use it, it was non-intuitive and I gave up after about 10 minutes.

[The Past]

Jobs called this 'Word processing with an amazing sense of style', indicating that it's a word processor à la Word. It's not. It's a basic DTP application

Agree! I don't think one should talk about Pages and Word as if they were in the same genre.

[rainman::|:|]

yes. very unhappy with it. I've spent a bit of time trying to customize it... get my toolbars all lined up, the preferences customized... and it's still crap. It seems like Apple is trying to simplify everything a wee bit too much here... I like being able to quickly set my fonts, tabs, margins, and just go. While they've clearly fixed some long-running mistakes from Appleworks, they're now centered around styles and templates... which, while well intentioned, are too cumbersome for my needs. Word suffers from the same problems but at least lets you quickly go if you're freeforming (changing attributes on-the-fly). I must admit Word is currently my processor of choice, tho I'm really hoping Pages gets better with revisions.

[Abulia]

I thought it was revolutionary - the idea that you always start with a template and never with a blank document. I thought - wow, all these years and Microsoft didn't come up with this?Actually, for the past several years Office has offered the option upon opening to load a document or pick on of several templates. Office even organizes them by type: Professional memo, sales order, etc. So, nothing new there. Move along.

Can't stand Pages. I'm a writer and it (Pages) is totally unsuitable. Clearly a wannabe DTP program, ala Publisher. I'm sure Pages is great for doing a church newsletter. For any moderately-serious writing, Pages is unacceptable.

I'm very impressed with Office for the Mac. W/ student pricing, that bundle is a steal. Mature and powerful apps. (And, strangely, the Mac version is better than the Windows version.)

[Fukui]

I'm a writer and it (Pages) is totally unsuitable. Clearly a wannabe DTP program, ala Publisher. I'm sure Pages is great for doing a church newsletter. For any moderately-serious writing, Pages is unacceptable.
I think thats the whole point.
They wouldn't wanna step on MS' territory... just yet anyways.

[G5Unit]

Kinda late but I like pages!

[tuggy]

guys, if you really want to make some SERIOUS word-processing, i suggest you to try the LaTeX system :)
LyX is what i miss most since i switch from linux to mac.
http://www.lyx.org

[RacerX]

LyX is what i miss most since i switch from linux to mac.
Why do you miss it? Why didn't you just continue to use it?

LyX for Mac OS X (http://wiki.lyx.org/pmwiki.php/LyX/Mac) :eek:

[MacNeXT]

guys, if you really want to make some SERIOUS word-processing, i suggest you to try the LaTeX system :)
LyX is what i miss most since i switch from linux to mac.
http://www.lyx.org

I agree, I just made the switch. Once you're familiar with LaTeX, which will take some time, you will think anything else (including Word) is crap. I use TeXShop (http://www.uoregon.edu/~koch/texshop), which I think is good, but I haven't tried any others.

[OCOTILLO]

Is is just me, or is Pages one of the worst apps that Apple has put forth recently?

Designing a newsletter has proven to be one of the worst computing catastophes that I have had in recent years. Pages erased my work multiple times, even after I had saved it. Also, the way the program formats is terrible; Apple has caught the Word syndrome of trying to help you so much with Word processing - guessing what you want to do and doing it for you - that it makes you want to pull your hair out. I also find the interface very counter-intuitive (highly surprising for an Apple app)

Sorry for the rant, but I just lost a lot of money and time because of this half-baked program, and I have to let it out. I had high hopes for Pages and am sorely disappointed. And I thought that only Microsoft could push my buttons like this... :mad:

I purchased iWork to produce newsletters and instruction sheets. I too found it to be an unwieldy program. A new user can make a decent project if they pick a template and not deviate from it. Changing fonts, layout, etc. is painful. I assume (hopefully) that Apple wiil continue to upgrade the program.
I hate to say it, but I have an old copy of Microsoft Publisher for Windows (1 CD) that I have used for the last 6 years. It is much more intuitive than Pages. I got rid of most of my Windows software when I switched to MAC, but I kept Publisher and my old Celeron laptop for emergencies.

[Fukui]

Hey anybody tried Hancom office?
I've used it on Win but heard its also available on OSX too.

[ct77]

I used Pages to produce some documentation for my day job.

I found Pages easy to pick up, and the end result of my work has turned more than a few heads at the office.

So much so, that we're probably going to purchase a Mac mini + Pages to be a dedicated writing machine. :D

This, as opposed to purchasing a single license for Adobe InDesign, which at $699 USD, is actually more expensive.

[Angrist]

I ordered Pages as soon as it was announced, and it immediately replaced Word as my primary word processing program.

I'm not sure what many other posters are thinking, because Word is FAR from the best application on my mac, it's closer to the worst. It tends to crash on my when saving, or pasting, or moving text (and it's not my install, three different computers all do the same thing).

Now for Pages, yes it was a little hard to get used to. I was constantly looking for a quick way of changing font styles and sizes, same thing with margins and headers and footers. But then I realised that I was ALWAYS making the same couple of changes. So I set up a blank document with the margins and tracking / numbering settings that I commonly use. Then made 4 new text styles and saved the document as a template.

Now I'm using a template that has all of my settings and favorite fonts / sizes / spacing easily accessible through one click on a style button. And since I did that, I havn't gone looking for a setting (other than for some image manip). Basically, what I'm trying to get at is this; if you found Pages UI to be hard to work with, just create some new paragraph styles and a document template for margins / global settings.

As far as bloat goes..... yes Pages does tend to slow down when there are lots of images hanging around, BUT I can't say that the slowdown is any worse than opening the same document in Word.


Overall it was a worthwhile purchase, but I'm still looking forward to future upgrades

[edwin.bossier]

I thought it was revolutionary - the idea that you always start with a template and never with a blank document. I thought - wow, all these years and Microsoft didn't come up with this?

But after trying to use it, it was non-intuitive and I gave up after about 10 minutes.

Word does actually start with a template rather than a blank document. Its name is normal.dot and you can change it anyway you like (put some formatting, text, headers and footers on it ...) and save it. Its a template like any other Word template you can create or use.

[kd0tc0m]

I don't think Pages is horrible. It's not great, but it isn't quite as bad for me as everyone else finds it. I don't use it all that much (Keynote gets used far more than Pages does).

I'm with you. I'm new to the world of Mac and I want to stay clear of Word. It's not a great app, but it's something I'm getting used to.

Same with Keynote, different approach, but I like it better than the world of PP.