My review of iWork 08 (Pages)

[iFanaddic]

I haven't used keynote and numbers yet so sorry

I just switched from pc to mac and I must say I'm dispointed with iWork 08. I don't think it represents Apple, I don't think it's very intuitive or as easy to use as other programs.

Some basic features seem to be missing when comparing it to Office 07, being unable to center the page bugs me like you wouldn't believe, I know some people will say that office is office and iWork is iWork but face the truth they are comparable products, and Apple would benefit from making it more versatile. (espacially for ex-windows users).

There doesn't seem to be a way to see the fonts styles before trying them one by one. There should be way to browse through the font style list and see your text change instantly as you go down the list.

Also for some reason when the page is at unzoomed (at a 100%) its almost unreadable, I have to put it on 125% to be able to read it. I havenn't seen a print preview option yet which also bugs me beyond reason.

As I said before I find that Pages 08 isn't very intuitive or as easy to use as other programs, so if the features above are existant in this version of iWork 08 im truly sorry but I use it pages and I haven't found them anywhere.

Haven't seen the wordcount option, Im not gonna saying about this one cuz im sure it must somewhere? Right? Anyone?

If money was no object for me I think I would switch to Office for mac, it definitly looks better and easier to use (a friend of mine has it). If you need the cheapest version you can find iWork is still a good alternative.

 

[dukebound85]

I haven't used keynote and numbers yet so sorry

I just switched from pc to mac and I must say I'm dispointed with iWork 08. I don't think it represents Apple, I don't think it's very intuitive or as easy to use as other programs.

Some basic features seem to be missing when comparing it to Office 07, being unable to center the page bugs me like you wouldn't believe, I know some people will say that office is office and iWork is iWork but face the truth they are comparable products, and Apple would benefit from making it more versatile. (espacially for ex-windows users).

There doesn't seem to be a way to see the fonts styles before trying them one by one. There should be way to browse through the font style list and see your text change instantly as you go down the list.

Also for some reason when the page is at unzoomed (at a 100%) its almost unreadable, I have to put it on 125% to be able to read it. I havenn't seen a print preview option yet which also bugs me beyond reason.

As I said before I find that Pages 08 isn't very intuitive or as easy to use as other programs, so if the features above are existant in this version of iWork 08 im truly sorry but I use it pages and I haven't found them anywhere.

Haven't seen the wordcount option, Im not gonna saying about this one cuz im sure it must somewhere? Right? Anyone?

If money was no object for me I think I would switch to Office for mac, it definitly looks better and easier to use (a friend of mine has it). If you need the cheapest version you can find iWork is still a good alternative.

maybe you have heard of it or maybe not, but here is openoffice aqua for mac

http://porting.openoffice.org/mac/download/aqua.html

behaves just like office but free

 

[iFanaddic]

maybe you have heard of it or maybe not, but here is openoffice aqua for mac

http://porting.openoffice.org/mac/download/aqua.html

behaves just like office but free

I know, I might try it. I just wanted to shared my opinion on iWork to see if other users agree and to help future buyers.

 

[johnnie]

Haven't seen the wordcount option, Im not gonna saying about this one cuz im sure it must somewhere? Right? Anyone?

Choose Edit -> Writing Tools -> Show Statistic

 

[iFanaddic]

Choose Edit -> Writing Tools -> Show Statistic

Thanks for that

 

[nick9191]

Choose Edit -> Writing Tools -> Show Statistic

Or just click on Inspector

 

[brand]

A review of iWork 2008 Pages more than a year after it was released.

Kind of a pointless.

 

[iFanaddic]

A review of iWork 2008 Pages more than a year after it was released.

Kind of a pointless.

When a new computer is released, it's only logical that more people will buy it.

EDIT: Let met rephrase that, it's not because the product is a year old that its "too late" to do a review, with the release of the the new notebooks many people will go for it, and I wish I had known these things before I bought it. Therefore I decided to share my point of views on it.

 

[DCBass]

A review of iWork 2008 Pages more than a year after it was released.

Kind of a pointless.

I'd only say it was pointless if the current version was not iWork 2008. Otherwise, perfectly relevant and timely.

Regarding Pages, I think that it's pretty nice. I find the "styles" to be much more intuitive than in Word, though I do not know if it's equivalent in capability.

I agree on the centering. In Word, I like to just maximize the page so all I see is what I'm typing, right in the center of my screen. I mean, it should at least be an option.

I'm not sure about the font styles. If you open the font panel (Format Menu > Font | or command-T) you can see a preview. If you don't, click and drag down on the dot in the middle just below the top bar of the panel, and you'll review the preview pane. Of course if you have text highlighted at the time, it will dynamically changes as you try different options anyway, so I'm not sure that this saves you anytime. You could always preview text separately in Font Book however. Is this what you were looking for?

Regarding the font size at 100%. Yea, it's small, but at least it renders smoothly. With Office 2004, it didn't even render properly at 100% and was really tiny. It was impossible to work on at anything less than 125%. Though, this has been fixed in Office 2008. Still, in both Office 08 and Pages 08, 100% can still be smallish.

Print preview can be found when you select Print from the File menu. In the print dialog, at the bottom, you should see a "Preview" button. This basically "prints" a pdf version, which you can then save or go along and send to the printer. Because it's in the system-wide print dialogue, you can find this in any program that prints.

Hope this helps. I can't wait to see what they do for iWork 09.

Cheers,

DCBass

 

[IJ Reilly]

I'd only say it was pointless if the current version was not iWork 2008. Otherwise, perfectly relevant and timely.

Maybe some of us have gotten too used to "reviews" written by people who know very little about the thing they are reviewing.

Fonts are in the Font Pane. It's not a Pages thing. That's how it's done in OSX.

100% is 100%, no matter what word processor you are using. If that's not readable (which obviously depend entirely on which font and font size you are using), then zoom in. It's not painful, it's not inconvenient. That's what zooming in is for.

 

[Matek]

Fonts are in the Font Pane. It's not a Pages thing. That's how it's done in OSX.

Err, noone is preventing developers from anything. If you want, you can code in a big hippo that lets you change fonts depending on which part of his body you click.

Sure, if you want your software to look like other OS X software for the sake of consistency, you can use the default fonts pane, but if you think of something better that would (unlike the font choosing hippo) benifit the user, you're free to implement it.

100% is 100%, no matter what word processor you are using. If that's not readable (which obviously depend entirely on which font and font size you are using), then zoom in. It's not painful, it's not inconvenient. That's what zooming in is for.

He's obviously complaining about this, because he used some other software that gave better results at 100% zoom.

It could be antialiasing - AFAIK Apple's anti aliasing is built to look as close as possible to the original font (and the way it will look on paper) while Microsoft's makes the fonts clearer / more readable on a screen. The first option is definitely very useful when you're working on designs and cannot afford things to turn out different once they're printed, but the second option could be useful precisely in the case the thread starter is mentioning - when you want to view smaller fonts.

Implementing such a sistem for font anti aliasing could therefore definitely benefit the user. It would probably be a slightly unorthodox move, but it has been done before (e.g. Apple went against the default OS anti aliasing and included their own with Safari on Windows) and if it helps people, I don't see why not.

To sum up - I'm not saying I agree fully with his complaints or that they should be fixed ASAP, I just think they are valid and should not be simply dismissed like that.

 

[IJ Reilly]

I'm not a fan of the Font Pane, but that is the way OSX handles fonts; so it's true that this is not a Pages issue. Could programmers work around this? Probably, but I think it makes more sense for users to figure out how OSX handles core functions than to complain that any given piece of software hasn't invented a different way of doing something. Learn it once, and that knowledge translates to any software that properly implements the OS function. That's the value of consistency.

The same is true of anti-aliasing. The method is set at the OS level and be can be changed in System Preferences. I don't want some software programmer to monkey around with the way the OS renders the display, simply so someone can type in a tiny font without having to click on the zoom tab. I certainly question whether such a thing would benefit the user.

 

[vandlism]

I, on the other hand, love the font pane. When I am writing some sort of report, chances are that I know what font I will be using. The font pane also has support for different collections of fonts, so that list can be shorter with only those fonts I feel will be appropriate for a given project. Word has a menu that provides a preview of the font you will be using, and as such, is not very fast to load. There is no hassle with the font pane, it gets out of my way and lets me do what I want.

 

[/V\acpower]

I totally disagree with the Review.

I switched to Mac about a year ago, and used iWork 08 : Pages for University paper since. (and before I was used to MS Word).

I have to say, the majority of the "complains" come simply from the fact that you just learned everything on MS Word, and not really from "flaws" from Pages itself.

Of course, when i began using Pages i was so confused sometimes, lost lots of time to do simple basic thing like do pages number (page numbers that don't count and don't show on the front page) and even "word count", but eventually i figured out the "logic" behind the desing of Pages and i became way more efficient. It's just that i passed so many years leaning all these stuff in MS Word, and in Word basic options are probably harder to find than in Pages, its just that today everybody already learned everything with MS Office.

So yes it is different, and thats the whole point of making an alternavite. What would be the point of making Pages if it were to be exactly identical than MS Word, even in its flaws ?

Pages work great, its just that ITS NOT MS Word ! iWork is not MS Office for half the price. It is another software with his own "solution" to the same problem.

iWork isn't perfect, just like MS Office 08 have its flaws.

Excel has more functions for advanced users, but Keynote is clearly better than PowerPoint. And Pages vs. Word is more like a "personal" choice.

However, there is one function of Word 2008 i'd like to see in Pages, its the "recording classe - note taking" function, that let you record a class with the build in Mic of the MacBook while at the same time anytime you write someting it automatically write the "time" on the recording next to it, so that you can go back to the exact playback position to hear it again, and is save the Notes and the Recording in the same file.

Honestly, that's one feature i really miss in Pages.

 

[Mac=2(Windows)]

i agree. Keynote is better, numbers is less powerful, and pages and word are two different programs. The only reason pages seems to have issues is that we all learned on word. Otherwise, pages would be much easier to learn. The only thing I have had trouble finding is something comparable to WordArt, but it doesn't exist. They should make something similar for pages.

 

[Mac=2(Windows)]

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[mlts22]

IMHO, iWork and Microsoft Office are aimed at an audience that overlaps in areas, but there are different markets.

iWork is a good product for home and K-12 users. For a lot of people having a one stop shop for hardware, OS, and the applications is important. If they run into support issues, they don't end up being bounced between companies, they can just call Apple and have the problem fixed, regardless if it is an OS X, iWork, or Mac hardware issue.

If a company needs to work with Word documents on a daily basis like a law office, Office would be a good product to have. However, there are a good number of people who just need word processing capability, not Word capability.