Is iwork really a usble office suite.

[wordmunger]

I haven't messed with pages much (just got the trial version with the new computer), but one thing I don't like about it is the fact that the toolbar MUST be directly above the text. In MS word I can place it to the side, to maximize vertical area. Vertical area is key in text documents -- I want to be able to see as much of my writing as possible.

I may try writing a long document using Pages, just to see how it feels, but the first glance is not very impressive.

 

[Nuc]

iWork is useless until they incorporate a decent equation editor. And LaTex, etc. are worthless in my book. I don't know why they can't do this or allow you to use add-ins like MathType in iWork. Or maybe they do and I don't know about it....

Nuc

 

[After G]

iWork is useless until they incorporate a decent equation editor. And LaTex, etc. are worthless in my book. I don't know why they can't do this or allow you to use add-ins like MathType in iWork. Or maybe they do and I don't know about it....

Nuc

You could always use Grapher to type up your equations, and then copy them into Pages. That's what I've been doing.

 

[kgarner]

Exactly. I would only add that using Word doesn't protect you from font issues, especially if you're going cross-platform. Only a couple of fonts are safe, and IMO they are boring and ugly. We use one text font for all of our work products, a font that I've never seen anyone else use. So for us, PDF is the only way to go for final products.

Yeah, I should have been more clear. Font issues are not exclusive to Pages to Word conversions. They can happen anytime you use a font not installed on another system. I generally use PDFs for my stuff because I love me my crazy fonts.

 

[Bern]

Anyone who says Pages is too difficult to use or is useless must be victim to the MS scam. Just because most people use Word doesn't make it better in any way.

I use Pages exclusively and since getting iWork have banished MS Word from my Mac. Recently I wrote a comprehensive manual for College with all the bells and whistles (table of content, index, figures and so on) and I have to admit it was a heck of a lot easier to do in Pages than it was in Word. The final result (including the cover) looked far better as well.

iWork is a great suite and will no doubt become even better with each revision. Those nay-sayers of Pages have probably not even opened it (much like windows users who never tried a Mac before).

 

[nutmac]

Unless you need 100% compatibility with PowerPoint, Keynotes is an excellent presentation software. There's really not much more to say.

Pages is a trickier to recommend. First of all, I don't like Microsoft Word. But I need to exchange documents with clients, and all use Microsoft Word. Many clients use revision tracking and few other advanced features, which Pages do not handle. So I am stuck using Word. But let's imagine your need to exchange documents with Word users isn't critical.

I really really really wanted to like Pages (tried both 1.0 and 2.0), particularly for its clean as a blank sheet of paper UI, but ultimately I could not use it. Topping my list of disappointments is fuzzy font smoothing implementation. Pages default to standard font smoothing designed for CRT displays. While it's not so bad when using sans serif fonts (e.g., Helvetica), with serif fonts (e.g., Times Roman), text is too fuzzy on my 20" iMac LCD. While that may be tolerable for brief memo or two, it's totally unacceptable for composing long documents.

Coming second is weak reference/footnote/table of contents implementation. If you write academic papers, thesis, journals, legal documents, or technical papers that must meet the exact formatting guidelines, good luck.

And I like grammar checker. While Word's grammar checker is flawed, I find it useful for catching obvious errors.

 

[Bern]

.... Coming second is weak reference/footnote/table of contents implementation. If you write academic papers, thesis, journals, legal documents, or technical papers that must meet the exact formatting guidelines, good luck....

Er like I said I have done this with great success achieving all those things you mention and more. In Pages it was a snap. I even converted it to pdf for electronic distribution (which is today's standard rather than the old fashion .doc method) and there was absolutely no change in the original format/layout.

 

[rspeaker]

I'm going through Pages, and I'll concede, everything seems as simple as in Word. However, making outlines is a bit more complicated than I think it needs to be. "Click Inspector. Click List. Choose Tiered Numbers, then style. For topic on same level, press return. For topic on a different level, press return, click the arrow, choose Tiered Numbers." I like selecting my style, and just tabbing to get to different levels, like MS does. Really, making an outline shouldn't be so hard... it ought to be in there as a form of list. Most of what I do includes outlines, and Pages makes it far more complicated than it really needs to be. I know, I know... can't please all the people all the time.

I'm going to keep experimenting, but I'm still iffy right now. Really, that outline thing is bothersome. But I suppose as a word processor, it's certainly is a step up from TextEdit, in a big way. I'm sure I'll find other bothers, and I don't think anyone will deny Pages could be a lot better. But ease of use is fairly decent, incredibly Apple.

 

[ddrueckhammer]

You could always use Grapher to type up your equations, and then copy them into Pages. That's what I've been doing.

I was almost certain that I read that MathType supported pages...Oh well maybe it was only version 1.

Personally, after I purchased iWork '06 I no longer use office. Pages' inspector is sometimes hard to navigate but thats why there is a help menu on the toolbar. If you want Pages to be more cluttered like Word you can right click on the toolbar and customize it.

I have yet to find anything that pages can't do that well for my everyday use. True, I would like to have true mail merge functionality with a spreadsheet or Filemaker application but what consumer level user really needs that?

The only real complaint that I have is more of an OS X one. I feel that the system dictionary and thesaurus should have the functionality to replace words in any application. Just like you can replace text in Word that you look up.

 

[IJ Reilly]

For making outlines in Pages, I'd suggest setting up a style or several if necessary. Once that's done, it's easy -- and can also be saved as a template and reused.

 

[rspeaker]

I've been messing with Pages for the last couple of hours. Personally, I try not to make a claim or hold an argument if I don't feel I'm on 100% solid ground. So I've been playing with it, trying out various formats that I use in Word. Pages is okay. I'm not a solid believer, but I'm slowly seeing the value of Pages. Personally, is it for me? I don't know. But I had those same doubts when I switched to Apple.

So, for the diehards that love it... yeah, it's alright. For those uncertain about switching, or who don't like it... it might be worth trying out. It's not as bad as it seems on the surface. But it is certainly not a sweet runaway app like iTunes or iPhoto (and other Mac apps people just love to love.)

 

[IJ Reilly]

I've been messing with Pages for the last couple of hours. Personally, I try not to make a claim or hold an argument if I don't feel I'm on 100% solid ground. So I've been playing with it, trying out various formats that I use in Word. Pages is okay. I'm not a solid believer, but I'm slowly seeing the value of Pages. Personally, is it for me? I don't know. But I had those same doubts when I switched to Apple.

So, for the diehards that love it... yeah, it's alright. For those uncertain about switching, or who don't like it... it might be worth trying out. It's not as bad as it seems on the surface. But it is certainly not a sweet runaway app like iTunes or iPhoto (and other Mac apps people just love to love.)

If you have a set of styles in Word that you like, just import a document into Pages, and you'll have them there too. Pages never seemed bad to me on the surface. Not sure why anybody would think so. Because it doesn't look or behave like Word, perhaps? Some people actually see that as a plus!

As for "diehards," that seems like an inappropriate term for users of an application that's only been around for a little over a year. I prefer "early adopter."

 

[rspeaker]

As for "diehards," that seems like an inappropriate term for users of an application that's only been around for a little over a year. I prefer "early adopter."

By diehard, I simply meant the Mac devotees for whom Apple can do no wrong. Don't get me wrong, I love Apple, and most everything they do. But as all companies, they have and will make marketing and product mistakes; some people will never see or admit that, though. For the most part, we call those people "Windows users." (That's a joke. Sort of.)

 

[IJ Reilly]

By diehard, I simply meant the Mac devotees for whom Apple can do no wrong. Don't get me wrong, I love Apple, and most everything they do. But as all companies, they have and will make marketing and product mistakes; some people will never see or admit that, though. For the most part, we call those people "Windows users." (That's a joke. Sort of.)

To be honest I like that characterization even less. A year or so ago, I spent quite a bit of time with Pages before I decided that we should adopt it for everyday use. Sure, it has some flaws, which have been much discussed here, but on balance it's a substantial improvement over AppleWorks, and far easier to use than Word (not to mention, far less costly), and unlike Word (IMO), Pages is actually evolving and improving. The point being, some of us actually have rational reasons for appreciating Pages.

 

[rspeaker]

To be honest I like that characterization even less. A year or so ago, I spent quite a bit of time with Pages before I decided that we should adopt it for everyday use. Sure, it has some flaws, which have been much discussed here, but on balance it's a substantial improvement over AppleWorks, and far easier to use than Word (not to mention, far less costly), and unlike Word (IMO), Pages is actually evolving and improving. The point being, some of us actually have rational reasons for appreciating Pages.

I understand some have rational reasons. But some don't. Just like people who will never buy a Japanese car, or a Mac, some people will follow no matter how good (or more likely bad) a product is. I love Apple, and respect a lot of work they do. Little things make me wonder. And as I have said, Pages hasn't won me over yet, but I now realize it's not so bad as I've maintained for the last ~14 months. Thanks to this thread, of course. Those who evaluated Pages on its merits, and fully examined it (instead of those like me, who saw it, didn't like, and moved along,) I understand. But please understand, if Pages was 100 times worse than Word, a group of people would chose to use it simply because Apple produced it. That's all I meant by "diehard." It's not disparaging, necessarily, just a classification.

 

[Bern]

.... if Pages was 100 times worse than Word, a group of people would chose to use it simply because Apple produced it. That's all I meant by "diehard." It's not disparaging, necessarily, just a classification.

And unfortunately has no relevance to the OP question. I don't even know why you make the point over and over.

Is it a usable office suite? The answer is yes.

 

[gauchogolfer]

iWork is useless until they incorporate a decent equation editor. And LaTex, etc. are worthless in my book. I don't know why they can't do this or allow you to use add-ins like MathType in iWork. Or maybe they do and I don't know about it....

Nuc

Here are a couple of options for equation editing in Pages/Keynote.

LaTeX input -> pdf output = Equation Service

GUI interfaces: LiveMath MathEQ
MathMagic

Equation Editor pro version : MathType

 

[IJ Reilly]

I understand some have rational reasons. But some don't. Just like people who will never buy a Japanese car, or a Mac, some people will follow no matter how good (or more likely bad) a product is. I love Apple, and respect a lot of work they do. Little things make me wonder. And as I have said, Pages hasn't won me over yet, but I now realize it's not so bad as I've maintained for the last ~14 months. Thanks to this thread, of course. Those who evaluated Pages on its merits, and fully examined it (instead of those like me, who saw it, didn't like, and moved along,) I understand. But please understand, if Pages was 100 times worse than Word, a group of people would chose to use it simply because Apple produced it. That's all I meant by "diehard." It's not disparaging, necessarily, just a classification.

And the inverse is also true. Some will dislike Pages from the moment they see it because it isn't Word. This is no more rational.