Pages - How to write a nonfiction book

[dizmonk]

Is there a really good Youtube video or tutorial on how to use Pages for writing a nonfiction book? Or should I convert it to Word, which I've used for other books? I can't stand Word but I use it because those reviewing my work, use it. Thanks.

 

[Fishrrman]

There are some other, specialized apps for book authors.

The name "Scrivener" comes to mind. There are probably one or two more.

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[za9ra22]

Pages is likely adequate if all you need is a 'narrative' form of text editing, and it saves into a 'mostly' compatible Word format if needed. It's not entirely Word format since it can get micro spacing wrong, and doesn't format footnotes/endnotes the same way Word does. It's pretty close though.

Better, if not wanting to use Word but needing a good all purpose word processor, might be LibreOffice. This is an excellent alternative, and is somewhere like 99.9% Word format compatible. It's also free.

I doubt you'd find much in the way of YouTube type tutorials on using Pages for this kind of work because that's not really what Apple are likely to have had in mind when producing it, but considering that all sorts of books have been written on primitive, basic and quite ordinary text editors and word processors in the past (including WordStar in DOS even now by George R. R. Martin), if your primary need is Word compatibility, you have a fairly wide choice.

 

[Slartibart]

Similar to the already mentioned Scrivener, there is the free Manuskript. If the OP’s task implies to produces a book with table of contents, table of figures, various indexes, different language support, Bibliography support, type setting, et cetera, I would recommend LyX as frontend to TeX/LaTeX (TeXLive).

Another option, besides everything in this thread already mentioned, would be to use a markdown editor or markdown capable program, but for that - and in general - some more info might be helpful: what kind book should be produced? Is type-setting within a particular layout required (which layout)? Is desktop publishing required? What requirements has the lector and/or publisher? What is not working or could be improved with the solution the OP seems to have? Et cetera.

 

[dizmonk]

Pages is likely adequate if all you need is a 'narrative' form of text editing, and it saves into a 'mostly' compatible Word format if needed. It's not entirely Word format since it can get micro spacing wrong, and doesn't format footnotes/endnotes the same way Word does. It's pretty close though.

Better, if not wanting to use Word but needing a good all purpose word processor, might be LibreOffice. This is an excellent alternative, and is somewhere like 99.9% Word format compatible. It's also free.

I doubt you'd find much in the way of YouTube type tutorials on using Pages for this kind of work because that's not really what Apple are likely to have had in mind when producing it, but considering that all sorts of books have been written on primitive, basic and quite ordinary text editors and word processors in the past (including WordStar in DOS even now by George R. R. Martin), if your primary need is Word compatibility, you have a fairly wide choice.

I'm surprised LibreOffice is still around. I tried in back in the WordPerfect days. Has it been updated to function well in the last few years?

 

[Slartibart]

I'm surprised LibreOffice is still around.

is that you Fry? 😃 It’s VERY well alive.

 

[za9ra22]

I'm surprised LibreOffice is still around. I tried in back in the WordPerfect days. Has it been updated to function well in the last few years?

It's regularly updated. Latest stable version is 7.6.6 and there's a newer 24.4.4 which is still in testing. I'm using 7.5.something (because I couldn't be bothered updating) on my M3 MBA.

I've been sharing out technical documentation I write with in in Word format for Word based colleagues for years, with no complaints.

 

[Herbert123]

I'm surprised LibreOffice is still around. I tried in back in the WordPerfect days. Has it been updated to function well in the last few years?

Wait, I think you are confused with StarOffice? LibreOffice did not exist back when WP ruled. StarOffice did exist back in the 80s.

Then it was acquired by Sun Microsystems in 1999 for internal use, and open sourced May 2000 under the name OpenOffice.

Because of disinterest shown by Sun (which was by 2010 Oracle) in the further development of OpenOffice, in 2010 the main developers of OpenOffice left and started their own branch called LibreOffice. Oracle then stopped OpenOffice development in 2011.

LibreOffice is continuously developed! I use it myself for all my documentation work, and prefer it over Microsoft Office. I experienced no major issues so far with collaborating with others who work with MS Office.
As a matter of fact, due to LibreOffice's popularity MS Office reads those files as well!

 

[za9ra22]

There was also NeoOffice which was the first OS X fork of OpenOffice, though it isn't supported any longer. I have a copy of what I think is the last release of it - v2022.7 Pro. I'm not sure it can be recommended these days, but it does actually still work as expected.

 

[coffeemilktea]

Is there some specific feature you need that Pages doesn't already have? I've not noticed it lacking much compared to Word.

Though if you specifically want powerful software with lots of tutorials, you may also want to consider Google Docs, if only because there are many, many tutorials online about how to get Google Docs to do just about anything you want at this point.

 

[Teletypewriter]

In Jan 2023, “LearnIt Training” on YouTube came out with a FREE iWork tutorials for Pages 12.0, Numbers 12.0, and Keynote 12.0. Each video contains about 90 minutes worth of content. They each last about 90 minutes. Exercise files can also be downloaded. Here is the contents of the Pages video:

Start 0:00
Introduction 0:03
Opening Pages 2:31
Introduction to Images, Charts, and Other Objects 7:48
Creating Documents and Books 8:58
Finding Documents 10:59
Opening, Closing, Saving, and Naming Documents 12:03
Paper Size and Orientation 13:50
Document Margins 15:16 Facing Pages 18:31
Adding, Rearranging, and Deleting Pages 19:46
Document Parts 25:30
Bookmarks and Links 30:03
Backgrounds and Borders 31:50
Watermarks and Background Objects 35:25
Standard and Custom Templates 37:54
Selecting, Replacing, Copying, and Pasting Text 40:38
Dictation and Special Characters 42:38
Using Other Languages 44:53
Date, Time, and Equations 46:09
Setting Default Font and Paragraph Styles 47:35
Text Color, Outlines, and Shadows 50:24
Capitalization, Punctuation, Styles, and Formatting 51:47
Highlighting, Hyphens, and Dashes 55:18
Spacing and Lists 57:25
Tab Stops and Aligning and Justifying Text 59:24
Pagination, Breaks, and Columns 1:00:08
Linking Text Boxes 1:01:55
Images and Shapes 1:03:46
Lines and Arrows 1:05:46
Animating Drawings 1:07:13
Audio and Video 1:08:48
Image and Video Formats 1:11:01
Object Settings - Transparency, Fill, Border, and Shadow 1:11:46
Object Styles 1:14:11
Tables 1:15:28
Charts 1:18:34
Spell Check, Look Up, and Find and Replace 1:20:49
Text Replacement 1:22:43
Page Count 1:23:45
Comments and Annotations 1:24:46
Track Changes 1:26:47
Printing 1:27:19
Sending Documents 1:28:35
Sharing, Collaborating, and Publishing to Apple Books 1:30:03
Locking, Passwords, and iCloud 1:31:28
Packing to Reducing File Size and Restoring Versions 1:32:51
Transferring Between Devices 1:34:22
Troubleshooting 1:35:08
Keyboard Shortcuts 1:38:00
Conclusion 1:39:51