Don't buy Pages, It's HORRIBLE!

[macrem]

I am planning to try Pages/iWork at some point in the near future... It inspires me to see how so many of you like it.

For the time being OpenOffice does everything I need for free, and don't need to install rosetta as would be needed for MS Office. There's no way MS Office will get near my Mac.

With OpenOffice, I share docs with colleagues using MS Office*/Windows and they never know the difference. In addition to it's own and several other formats, I can open docx and save as doc. Can't the same me said for Pages?

*btw, some people at work are using Office 2007 (Windows) and some are using an older version of MS Office and cannot seem to open some docx files (having installed a Microsoft plug-in to support this format on older versions of MS Office). Also OpenOffice has it's own powerful features I am not sure exist with MS Office, like regular expression searches.

Ironically, I am more compatible with MS Office 2007/8 using OpenOffice (latest version) than some MS Office users & I always get the latest version the day it comes out as a free download

 

[chrono1081]

Pages is amazing IMO.

I hate Word. I hate it so bad because it's rediculous the amount of hoops you have to go through to do one thing.

That being said I'm not great with office programs in general but I've been using open office and neo office for the past few years (unless I'm at work then I use word.) I find both of them to be a ton less frustrating then ms word.

I decided on a whim to try pages and bought it after 2 weeks I loved it that much. No compatibility issues at all for me transferring the same document between ms word, open office, and neo office. I love it.

 

[macrem]

I have noticed that quite often MS Office is used by non-techie people to transfer content & express how they would like the basic format to look in some pro format like Frame, latex, Xmetal, InDesign, etc. Sometimes it's just to transfer text and screenshots (as ~20MB .BMPs!) around. So they create docs in MS Office for someone else to produce a pro doc using a format that actually creates more effort for the pros (which can be billed back to the company). It's a relatively highly unusable tool for transferring information, but it's "just what people are used to"(TM)... bahahaha (see my avatar)

I decided on a whim to try pages and bought it after 2 weeks I loved it that much. No compatibility issues at all for me transferring the same document between ms word, open office, and neo office. I love it.

Good to know! I am going to buy an unlocked iPhone 3gs in Belgium this weekend and will also grab a copy of iWork

 

[Macmel]

I use Pages for as much as possible, it's faster, easier and more flexible.

If this had been written substituting Pages with Word, you would have been killed. Just as elaborate as the OP:

-It's faster: it's word processing, for pete's sake. Do you really note that possible thousand of a second difference?

- It's easier: for you because you use it. 99% of word processors users (the ones that use Word) might disagree with you.
- More flexible: like in 90% of the people you know won't know what to do with your pages file? like .doc being the standard and used by every company in the world?. Are you kidding me?

Pages is amazing IMO.

I hate Word. I hate it so bad because it's rediculous the amount of hoops you have to go through to do one thing.

That being said I'm not great with office programs in general but I've been using open office and neo office for the past few years (unless I'm at work then I use word.) I find both of them to be a ton less frustrating then ms word.

I decided on a whim to try pages and bought it after 2 weeks I loved it that much. No compatibility issues at all for me transferring the same document between ms word, open office, and neo office. I love it.

So the first time you used Word you found that you didn't know how to use it (therefore you have to do all these hoops as you call them) and that's the program's fault, no yours. So you try photoshop and as you don't know (just an example, not saying you actually don't know) how to use it, it's the program's fault. If you don't know how to drive, it's the car's fault, right?.

You have to be kidding with that piece of S**T NeoOffice is. It's buggy, ugly and way less powerful than MS Office.

 

[macrem]

If this had been written substituting Pages with Word, you would have been killed. Just as elaborate as the OP:

-It's faster: it's word processing, for pete's sake. Do you really note that possible thousand of a second difference?

Interesting you chose to reply to this post while ignoring the post from the grad student (or others) who scrapped MS Office because it was choking on / changing formatting of their large document files. It can also be slower to open, manipulate such docs.

- It's easier: for you because you use it. 99% of word processors users (the ones that use Word) might disagree with you.

Probably a similar ratio of people eat fast food. This is not a reason for me to pollute my body with it (ok, well, I do anyway...sometimes...not often)

- More flexible: like in 90% of the people you know won't know what to do with your pages file? like .doc being the standard and used by every company in the world?. Are you kidding me?

Perhaps more flexible because you can save Pages files in native format, in .doc format, in a parseable xml format, etc. or something else that has nothing to do with file formats.

 

[AdeFowler]

I've been using Word for as long as I can remember and consider myself fairly proficient in it. I was recently asked to give some training for Pages. I spent a week using the app and couldn't believe how much fun it was to use, as well as being productive.

I still use Word for business use, but I'm slowly migrating all my personal documents to Pages.

 

[elppa]

The “doesn't flow nicely argument” is curious considering Word present more modal dialogs than pages. This surely disrupts flow.

-It's faster: it's word processing, for pete's sake. Do you really note that possible thousand of a second difference?

Maybe faster to achieve a desired result. There are different types of speed. Maybe Pages doesn't run faster, but the poster finds it faster to use.

- It's easier: for you because you use it. 99% of word processors users (the ones that use Word) might disagree with you.

But unless you have used Pages and Word then you cannot make the judgement. So users who have used both equally are better qualified to comment.

 

[macrem]

But unless you have used Pages and Word then you cannot make the judgement. So users who have used both equally are better qualified to comment.

Precisely. I was at a Mac store today and picked up a copy of iWork '09. It's the first time using Pages for me. Immediately I intuitively found all the common features I use in a word processor (In MS Office 2007, it took several colleagues & I ~10 minutes just to find "save as...").

My first impressions of Pages '09 are: the installation process was very quick & easy. No rosetta needed. Installs in a few clicks. No reboots are necessary. Registration took ~15 seconds. It immediately told me there is an update from software updates (again very easy & no reboot necessary).

Pages is very fast and intuitive. Faster than OpenOffice. Beautiful templates which took my address info from Address Book seamlessly. Just looking at it the first time I can immediately start setting up a complex layout intuitively (or just start with one of a wide variety of the best templates I have ever seen!). I can also open and save MS Office docs from my work drive. The native .pages format is excellent. It would be easy to parse info from the index.xml file which contains the document's raw text. Now time to explore Keynote and Numbers. I like it a lot! Definitely worth the very reasonable price.

 

[CylonGlitch]

Damn you, damn you all!

I don't care for word, I find it way too bloated. I love Excel but without VB Macros in the Mac version, it is a show stopper -- but not as much anymore.

I have been using Open Office but it is slow, buggy and damn ass ugly. I really don't like the word processor in it, but the excel clone is OK.

But now, after reading this . . . I might have to buy iWorks. Damn it, totally make me spend more money.



BTW, thanks for the reviews.

 

[PeggyD]

As many have said, it's all a matter of what you're used to & comfortable with. I used Word 2003 on a PC at work for a number of years & got fairly comfortable with it. I'd even used Office v.X & 2004 on my Mac & could navigate around it, although not nearly as easily as AppleWorks. I just can't figure out Office 2007/2008. Most of the familiar icons & menus have disappeared! Fortunately for me, I don't have to use it except to open some odd Office files.

Both iWork & Office have 30-day trials for anyone to check out.

I've used Pages since version 1/iWork '05 & feel very comfortable with it. There are still some things I could do in AppleWorks word processing that Pages is missing, but I don't need them very often. And, of course, the lack a database keeps AppleWorks (& Rosetta) on my Macs. Don't mention Bento to me - it's less than worthless!

As for the -- to —, get used to typing a space after & hit delete. I find it more convenient than ⌥ ⇧ -. It will work without typing a space before the double hyphens.

 

[notjustjay]

-It's faster: it's word processing, for pete's sake. Do you really note that possible thousand of a second difference?

I have Word 2008 installed on my MacBook Pro, and I sometimes use it to take minutes at meetings. I have noticed that it takes quite a while to start up (15-20 seconds) and for some reason on my computer, sometimes when I hit "Save", the interface goes dead (beach balls) for about 30 seconds. (It's probably searching for networked drives, who knows).

Perhaps not a big deal in isolation but it is annoying when you are trying to transcribe events and speech as-it's-happening and Word decides to crap out on you. It's embarrassing to say "Excuse me, hold on, can you say that again?" because Word is frozen and/or I'm too distracted fighting the tool to pay attention to what's being said at the meeting.

 

[nick9191]

Got pages, love it, don't intend on ever switching back to Word. Terrible application.

 

[doug in albq]

I like pages.

I also like TextEdit for the very simple stuff.

Do not forget to try the free IBM Lotus Symphony Documents, they now have a Mac version that does not suck.

 

[soLoredd]

I'll be honest, the major reason for my like of Pages is because it's included in a $79 office suite. I am no longer a student so I don't get education discounts and MS Office is just too damn expensive. I can do whatever I need to do in Pages that I used to do in Word.

 

[kim6ball]

Before you buy iWork, there's a free trial on Apple's web site.

 

[mrsir2009]

I love Pages =)

Lol, personally I love Pages and hate word =o

 

[rhett7660]

I will chim in here. I really like pages a lot. I still have to use word at work, but at home I use pages. If it is something for work, I print it to pdf and also save it as a rtf file so just in case i need to do a minor edit.

Great program. I haven't tried 09 yet thou. I really like the templates that come with it also.

 

[Bye Bye Baby]

I generally find them to be complimentary and not competing programmes. I would not edit my thesis on Pages nor do my visual presentation/DTP on Word.

Horses for courses my good man.

 

[eXan]

I like it. And it works far better in terms of speed. Doesn't have the ever-lasting Spaces issue.

 

[spaceballl]

I love Pages - I just wish it had FULL dox compatibility - the ability to read / write them w/ 100% format compatibility. DOCX is an open standard so this should be possible. Maybe next year...h

 

[throttlemeister]

I don't particularly like Word, but unless your documents only come and go to other Apple users, Pages is utterly useless. Unless the document is very simple, as in minimal to no layout, importing Word documents is a disaster. Compatibility is abominable. OOo sometimes makes mistakes, but Pages is one big screw up. I can grab a random Word document from work, and Pages will screw up the layout, remove or change headings, destroy the TOC and what not. And these docs are not very complicated and handled perfectly ok by OOo.

So unless these things are addresses in a future version, or indeed you don't communicate with non-Apple users, Pages isn't even capable enough to make the long list for Word alternatives, let alone the short list.

I do like the way it looks and works though, but like said I depend on Word compatibility. If I can't have that, my Mac would be useless for work.

 

[NightFox]

I am a long-term Word user. However, I started to transition to pages after Office/Word 207 came out on the PC - with their new "ribbon" word processing is so frustratingly slow, in that it takes me longer to find commands than it does to type whatever I'm doing. I know Mac Word 2008 isn't like this yet, but I thought if I'm going to have to relearn a Word Processor, then Pages is the easier step.

 

[Ariez]

I hate pages and prefer working in Word but that program ALWAYS crashes on me. MS apps just dont work well in OSX.

 

[nightfly13]

+1 for Pages

The first 3-4 times I tried Pages, I wasn't so pleased with it. Then I spent ages learning Keynote (as a major part of my job as a teacher) and then when I went back to Pages and realized the Inspector is so brilliant. Almost as brilliant as the Font palette. (Command T for the font palette in most typing-oriented Apple apps.)

Now I never create a new document with Word. I only use it to open Word docs, although come to think of it I might as well associate .doc with Pages since Word is a bit slow to open (and I'm on a quad-core Mac Pro with tons of ram and a SSD system drive).

I find the best bet if I want to send a pages project to someone else (a non-Mac user) I just export to PDF. Then I'm sure it's gonna work fine. I never need people to be able to edit my documents. The rare time I am sending text back and forth, I just do that in plain text email to get some specific wording agreed on.

Keynote is totally dominant (although it's former massive lead is now just a significant lead, as PowerPoint has copied a lot and improved markedly), Pages is better for 'publications' if not also Word Processing, and I've never done anything geeky enough that Numbers wasn't 2-3 steps ahead of me. I'll admit there must be some magic that only Excel can do, but I never have any call for it.

The only thing I prefer about PowerPoint is that you can change the font size of your presenter notes while you're presenting.

 

[Molnies]

I do like the way it looks and works though, but like said I depend on Word compatibility. If I can't have that, my Mac would be useless for work.

I can honestly say that I haven't had any of the problems you mention. I never have to send .doc/x to Windows users, since I always export to .pdf — however, I do get a lot of .doc/x files both with and without TOC and at all different levels of styling. Never had I had any problem, not a single TOC has been broken, and no headings have changed etc.

Just one last note on compatibility, there's a lot of differences between the different versions of Word, and even more of if you compare OS X Word with Win Word. So I wouldn't blame all on Pages either, since Word itself can't really keep up with its own files if they were created with a different version.