Pages is the worst Application known to man

[DeeEss]

Why can't Apple just make a normal program with normal functions?

Pages is a diabolical and unproductive dogs breakfast. It's a total mess and failure. It's ridiculously painful to use.

My current annoyance is that almost every program known to man has a "Save As" function. Oh, not at Apple, we're so cool and different and special. We have the Duplicate function, the most annoying convoluted junk UI ever where you have to then navigate several drop down menus and then select a file, and then move the file. But if you do this AFTER you've used your previous document as a template and close it down before you realise, you lose all your work on that previous document entirely!

I just lost a days worth of work because of this utter crap and I can't get it back. I just deleted it and purchased Word.

Go and learn some remedial software design for F sake!

 

[keysofanxiety]

Press Alt on the File menu and you'll have an option for Save As.

 

[DeeEss]

Thank you, that is helpful and good to know.

Too bad I already lost all that work! I didn't know the hidden menu item! Why on earth can't Apple stop doing these ridiculous things and just be normal and helpful/harmonious? If you want to be "different" at least make it so it is as good as the existing solution but preferably better.

Sorry I'm ranting I know but Apple is the most frustrating company ever for this kind of crap. I'm convinced they have an annual task force meeting just to decide what is working well so they can do something like this to ruin it.

 

[keysofanxiety]

Thank you, that is helpful and good to know.

Too bad I already lost all that work! I didn't know the hidden menu item! Why on earth can't Apple stop doing these ridiculous things and just be normal and helpful/harmonious? If you want to be "different" at least make it so it is as good as the existing solution but preferably better.

Sorry I'm ranting I know but Apple is the most frustrating company ever for this kind of crap. I'm convinced they have an annual task force meeting just to decide what is working well so they can do something like this to ruin it.

It's okay. All of the menu bars on macOS reveal different things when pressing the Alt key (option key), so normally if there's an obvious menu feature that seems to be missing it tends to reveal itself with Alt.

Just one of those odd macOS habits to get into. I still find myself CTRL + clicking from time to time due to the older PowerBooks having a one-button trackpad without a right-click!

 

[DeeEss]

It's okay. All of the menu bars on macOS reveal different things when pressing the Alt key (option key), so normally if there's an obvious menu feature that seems to be missing it tends to reveal itself with Alt.

Just one of those odd macOS habits to get into. I still find myself CTRL + clicking from time to time due to the older PowerBooks having a one-button trackpad without a right-click!

But it sucks that you have to do these things. I have been using macs since the 1994 and I don't want to have to check hidden menus for eater eggs on things that should just be common place. That's a stupid thing to have to do.

 

[sunapple]

But it sucks that you have to do these things. I have been using macs since the 1994 and I don't want to have to check hidden menus for eater eggs on things that should just be common place. That's a stupid thing to have to do.

Agreed, UI elements always have to be in sight IMO. Never knew about the save as option, Mac user since 2007. Same goes for moving a file in Finder, first copy, then Option-paste to move the file to the current location; just found out about this recently... On Windows, simply Cut and Paste to move a file.

 

[Stephen.R]

I just lost a days worth of work because of this utter crap and I can't get it back

Are you sure about that? Usually it saves snapshots automatically and you can revert to previous versions, even without Time Machine configured.

Try File > Revert to... > Browse all Versions

 

[GerritV]

I consider removing the Save as... command as part of Apple’s action plan to dumb down it’s application suite.

 

[nouveau_redneck]

I've grow to love both Pages and especially Numbers. For years I was an MS Office user and to a lessor extent Libre Office. At first I was frustrated with the Apple products, until I realized the standard Office product usage paradigm changes with Apple. Apple has reimagined and improved workflow, IMO. It just takes becoming familiar with it.

What it took for me was a bit of time to watch some videos and play with various aspects of the programs to gain a feel for how Apple does it. I'm glad I did that, as I now have tools that I greatly prefer. As an added bonus, the macOS and iOS integration is stellar. The iOS version of Numbers in particular is light years better than Excel, IMO. BTW, I have an Office 365 subscription that I don't use, and will discontinue at the end of the year paid period.
[doublepost=1558443043][/doublepost]

I consider removing the Save as... command as part of Apple’s action plan to dumb down it’s application suite.

Was it removed or just renamed? I just did a quick test and it appears that "Duplicate" and "Save As" accomplishes the same thing.

 

[eRondeau]

Strongly disagree. A user choosing not to learn how to use an application does not make the application bad. I love Pages and it's been my go-to word processing & graphic design app for a decade. The Instant Alpha implementation is genius. I made virtually everything on this site with Pages and it never let me down.

 

[sracer]

Was it removed or just renamed? I just did a quick test and it appears that "Duplicate" and "Save As" accomplishes the same thing.

No, they don't accomplish the same thing. You need to use "Duplicate" before you make edits to the document. "Save As" is used after the document has been edited.

Few are a bigger fan of Pages than I am, but Duplicate is indeed a poor design decision.

 

[Digital Skunk]

The saddest part of all is that the shortcut is still the same. When you do "cmd-shift-S" a duplicate document pops up and prompts you to give it a new name.

So technically, the functionality is still there.

Also, the duplicate function does the same thing as a save as, just a little more cumbersome since it doesn't close the previous document (i.e. you have two docs open at once)

It's a nit pick I guess, but I've been using Pages since Ver 1 when it was actually quite terrible even compared to AppleWorks.

It's gotten a lot better.

 

[960design]

Thank you, that is helpful and good to know.

Too bad I already lost all that work! I didn't know the hidden menu item! Why on earth can't Apple stop doing these ridiculous things and just be normal and helpful/harmonious? If you want to be "different" at least make it so it is as good as the existing solution but preferably better.

Sorry I'm ranting I know but Apple is the most frustrating company ever for this kind of crap. I'm convinced they have an annual task force meeting just to decide what is working well so they can do something like this to ruin it.

Pretty sure all work is saved in a diff. I can 'rewind' page documents several years.
Pages > File > Revert To

Oh, and I disagree. I find Pages to be absolutely amazing for my workflow. Documents saved to multiple offices at the same time, automatically backed up to cloud with no thinking required, etc.

 

[Jac Robinson]

I love using Pages! However I really do like the traditional Shift+Cmd+S for Save As...

My solution for this has been to go in to the shortcuts tab in keyboard preference pane and click on app shortcuts. From there, I just hit the plus button to add a new shortcut and and type "Save As..." to be triggered by Shift+Cmd+S for all applications. From now on, it is not hidden in the menu bar and can be triggered by my preferred shortcut.

Hope this helps!

 

[MacGizmo]

As stated above, a simple adjustment to the Keyboard Shortcut Preferences can fix this particular issue. To call the entire program garbage for one minor feature (believe it or not, there is a reason for this change—though I think it's stupid and they should just leave "Save As" alone), is ridiculous. It's YOUR job to learn how to use the software that you choose to use.

 

[sgtaylor5]

Oh, that is weird. I tried the suggestion, and I get the shortcut entry, but no checkbox is available to activate it. When I leave the dialog, it isn't there in Pages.

 

[yellow8]

I wish MS Office was not that used in industry ... it is so widely used I'm forced to use it :/.
I'd rather use pages, much more "Apple"

 

[MacGizmo]

Oh, that is weird. I tried the suggestion, and I get the shortcut entry, but no checkbox is available to activate it. When I leave the dialog, it isn't there in Pages.

There is no checkbox to activate. If it's there, it's active. Make sure you type Save As... exactly and you're in the App Shortcuts item.

 

[Jac Robinson]

This is what it should look like. Can you post a screenshot of what you're getting instead?

Oh, that is weird. I tried the suggestion, and I get the shortcut entry, but no checkbox is available to activate it. When I leave the dialog, it isn't there in Pages.

 

[sgtaylor5]

Geniuses, all of you! I hadn't entered the three dots after "Save As". That's all it took, and now it works. Thank you all.

 

[s15119]

WOW! So the question in my mind is; why do you use Pages? If I thought something was the worst of all time, I would never use it. I would delete it and be done with it. There are hundreds of word processing apps you can choose from. I personally like Pages. Works fine for me. Then again, I took time to learn how to use it. But if I was as frustrated with it as you are, I would simply discard it and find something that worked for me. Good luck.

 

[MBAir2010]

100% agree, i tried saving edits on "pages" by recoloring them in purple on the ipad, which never were made on the mini after refreshing and updating. I had to retype everything (4 pages of 365 rows of information that took all of October last year using a linux program. "photos' is useless and horrible.

 

[Eric5h5]

Note that the Save As vs. Duplicate thing doesn't have anything to do with Pages, that's how Apple decided to do things years ago, with everything. Although I understand the theoretical reasoning, I think it's kinda solving a problem that didn't really exist. (The copy/move vs. cut/paste thing is more reasonable, since the advantage is you never have a state where the file is gone.) But calling out Pages specifically is silly.

--Eric

 

[RedTomato]

I use pages every now and then, but very rarely. It's quite nice for creating invoice templates if you want something a bit more professional / corporate than a page of Word text.

Here's my Pages story: A few years after iWork came out, I did a lot of work on something, then either my Mac crashed or the battery went flat or I quit without saving, something like that. When I powered back up, my work was missing. I looked for the auto-save file, and found there was none. By comparison, MS Office had had auto-save for possibly over a decade at this point. I was furious and sent an incendiary email to Apple / Steve Jobs on this exact point. Very probably nothing to do with me, but a couple of months later, auto-save was quietly added to Pages and other apps in the iWork suite.

 

[smirking]

Press Alt on the File menu and you'll have an option for Save As.

That's awesome! I have the exact same complaint about Apple's Preview program. The whole Duplicate thing is idiotic. Now I have a way around it when I find myself needing to save something in Preview.