iWork? I certainly do, Pages is great!

[Bern]

I just wanted to comment about Pages.

I've used MS Word almost since it's creation and over the years have watched it become a bloated, clunky piece of software. I guess when I use to work in an office environment MS Word became default to me in all things for word processing.

But this year I decided to banish all things Microsoft from my Mac and so began using Pages instead of MS Word. I have just finished writing a comprehensive manual with illustrations, table of contents, index, glossary... basically the works. I did it all using Pages and I have to tell you it was much easier and far more intuitive than what it would have been had I used MS Word. I even designed the front cover in Pages The whole manual looks brilliant and was so easy to prepare using Pages.

As far as I'm concerned "goodbye Microsoft and don't slam the door behind you."

 

[FocusAndEarnIt]

I like Pages too, but I have to use Word for school - transfer files.

 

[Bern]

I like Pages too, but I have to use Word for school - transfer files.

I hate that... my College was doing that until I told them transferring Word documents is so yester-year. People use pdf format now. I understand where you're coming from though, Pages isn't always great for opening MS Word documents unfortunately.

 

[esaleris]

Footnotes were horrible in the last version of Pages. You could not control the spacing between footnotes if you had multiple references. Did you experience that?

 

[balamw]

Footnotes were horrible in the last version of Pages. You could not control the spacing between footnotes if you had multiple references.

My experience with complex footnotes/references on Word has also been, shall we say, lacking. I've had footnotes simply disappear between pages, and other similar things.

I try to use LaTex where such items are mission critical.

B

 

[nospleen]

I have to chime in... I just used iWork for a Keynote presentation. I was very impressed with Keynote and everything worked out perfectly.

 

[eXan]

Yes, Pages is awesome. I used Word before 1st iWork, but even since iWork '05 (the 1st release) I have been using Pages.

Keynote is pretty good too, but I do not need to make presentations, so its just sitting there in the Applications folder doing nothing, but taking up HD space

 

[bousozoku]

My experience with complex footnotes/references on Word has also been, shall we say, lacking. I've had footnotes simply disappear between pages, and other similar things.

I try to use LaTex where such items are mission critical.

B

Sure, MS Word hasn't been truly trustworthy for me since version 4. It's sad that you can't depend on things staying where you put them. I still wish that Samna had created Amí Pro for Macintosh instead of Windows.

Pages is great and it's extra useful in that it's able to do more than basic word processing.

 

[balamw]

I still wish that Samna had created Amí Pro for Macintosh instead of Windows.

I miss Ami Pro, at least it dealt with floats (tables, pictures, etc...) infinitely better than Word.

B

 

[bousozoku]

I miss Ami Pro, at least it dealt with floats (tables, pictures, etc...) infinitely better than Word.

B

It was a whole lot more WYSIWYG than any other word processor, even on Windows 3.x. It was a beautiful piece of work with the equation editor, graphic editor, et al. but it still worked in 640 KB.

It's a pity that Lotus got involved.

 

[Bern]

Footnotes were horrible in the last version of Pages. You could not control the spacing between footnotes if you had multiple references. Did you experience that?

I'm not sure? I have had no issues with footnotes in Pages 2 (I never had version 1) and I've put quite a few references into them in this manual.

 

[njmac]

I use Word for the notebook layout. If Pages adds that, I'll get rid of Word for good.

 

[Max on Macs]

I originally used Word Perfect, especially on a NeXT Workstation because it ran so well. When NeXT began to die, before switching to macs a couple of years ago, I went to PCs. I tried Word Perfect but as my career went on pressure forced me to use Word and it stuck until about January this year. Now I am free to do whatever I like and I make the rules, and everything uses Macs and Pages (and Keynote) here now. We do have Office because Pages won't integrate with MathType yet, and also for Excel which Apple haven't replaced for us yet - but hopefully will do soon. But yeah, iWork is an amazing suite and is incredibly priced.