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Some Power Users Are Unhappy With Lost Features in the New iWork

foneschlomo said:
And I'm actually kind of glad they've abandoned the page layout features, to me, that was one of the reasons I didn't use the app for heavy word processing. I've always used it for the projects that required a little more creativity and design and kept my 50 page documents in word.
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I'm going to hold my fire on this one until I see it, but as one of the real Pages veterans (used since Day One), I was a bit dismayed when they added the dual modes to the '09 version. Seemed like such a copout at the time. Now that it's gone, I wonder if I will miss it.
 
BRLawyer said:
My only point was to say that, at the very least, they have NOT automatically deleted the old version - so you can continue using it as much as you want.

Your question is much more about WHAT Apple wants to do with that app in the future...productivity software has never been Apple's strongest asset - so in my view, they'd rather ensure compatibility cross-OS (in order to sell more devices) than give everything power users want.
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Fair enough. For now, we can continue to use the previous version, but it sounds like it's an either-or proposition: files from the two versions don't appear to "play" well together. So you either get the features of the previous version, or cross-platform compatibility, but not both. I guess I would have expected more, which may be why they decided to make it free...

IJ Reilly said:
I'm going to take a wild guess that this isn't exactly accurate.
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RiK said:
Try it.

The first thing I did was open one of my documents. Saw the formatting problems and quit from Pages. I didn't save it, I just quit.

The file is now unreadable in Pages '09 because the new version uses Apple's autosave feature and that kicks in immediately when the file is opened, and the format saved is incompatible with the older version of Pages.
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Haven't tried it yet, and wouldn't have thought of it, but it made perfect sense to me that this would happen as soon as I read your experience. Autosave is a great feature, so much so and so reliable that I forget to save sometimes in Word now because in Pages it's a non-issue: "it just works."

Certainly Apple should have been able to have been able to have the new Pages detect that it's a document created with Pages '09 and ask you if you want to autosave over it or save it as a new file. Hopefully they fix this with an alert or some way to access previous versions saved under Pages '09.
 
A lot of the time, people are essentially saying that they want to work in the way they did in 1998, and stressing that they find it difficult to cope with change. Luddites.

The world changes. Embrace it and find new ways to work. Or choose to stay in the past and become increasingly irrelevant.

So many people seem to think they are "professional" because they use Word or Excel. Good grief, Word and Excel are far from professional tools. Boasting about using Word and Excel stresses the fact that you're an amateur stuck in the last millennium.

The future isn't yours. It isn't Word's. Excel's. Or Microsoft's. The future is racing ahead of you. Learn to embrace change and to master new software. Don't whine about change. Whining will do you no good at all.
 
Language settings still there

zen said:
It was fine for a while, and then I went to change the language settings, as I need to use English (British) and English (US) within the same document.

Is it just me, or have they stripped out most of the language controls? I need to set language by paragraph sometimes, but the only option appears to be a generic spelling setting.
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Press cmd + : . Or click Edit > Spelling and Grammar > Show Spelling and Grammar.

Basically, a lot of stuff has been moved around, and that'll take some getting used to. It would be nice if you could see the language at all times, though.

I personally find Pages much more user-friendly than before, and it's great seeing changes on my Mac appearing seconds later in Pages on my iPad, and vice versa - the syncing seems to have improved massively.

I am, however, annoyed about the loss on the Mac of the shortcut to paste with the same style as the rest of the text (Shift + alt + cmd + v). I find it to be a majorly useful feature that I miss when I'm forced to use Word at work. (Well, I find the Word alternative, with four different options, just too confusing.) I hope it returns to Pages soon - somehow. Having it in the iOS version of Pages would be great, too, and I suppose that anything that returns will have to be available in both versions. I hope they hurry up with it!
 
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An office suite is not really the king of thing you want to lose features for. I am still hoping this encourages MS to reduce the price on their office suite.
 
Why not make an iwork Pro version as well?

The basic iwork would be free on all "air" hardware, and the Pro free on "Pro" hardware (including the next ipad Pro..) and would cost 10-20$ to get on basic, "air" hardware.
 
"Learn to embrace change and to master new software. Don't whine about change. Whining will do you no good at all."

You know I'm all for this EXCEPT when the replacement software is a gross step-backward.

I used to use the fabulous graphic software FREEHAND which was bought out by ADOBE. Oh I learned how to use Adobe Illustrator - had to - but years later, it still is only half the software that Freehand was.

I don't whine about it - I swear.
 
They should have kept iWork '09 and added a 'New Document iOS compatible' so that only the features that are compatible on iOS version can be used, rather than losing things. Also add iCloud, there then it would have been progress. The layout of the new iWork apps is awful. Never been a big iWork fan, prefer the MS Office suite, just wish they add Access and Publisher.
 
I'm sure they'll add some in as the feedback comes in... .02% of people Shouldn't cause a stink it somehow the squeaky wheel will always get some oil :)
 
Long-time Pages User

... and I'm actually pretty happy with the new version.

I'd hoped that the rtl would work again (it did in '05, and then stopped in later editions) and it does.

If you haven't used the built-in command-line util "textutil" you might be happy to know that it'll convert docx to rtf and vice-versa.

I am sorry to see that Apple doesn't recognize the value of AppleScript, which is unfortunately undersupported. I guess they think that real power users use /bin/bash.
 
CrickettGrrrl said:
Yes, this happened exactly to me with an insulin chart I keep for my dog. Opened it in the new Pages, saw the pop-up that the file would be changed, closed the chart. Deleted '13. Then couldn't open the chart in '09.

Yeah, some would say "So what?", well it matters to ME. I keep this chart in DropBox so my parents can access it on their older iMac which is NOT upgradeable to Mavericks & iWork '13. Yes, I could go through extra steps to open it in the older version but it opens automatically in '13 with a double-click and one would have to be constantly vigilant.
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I hear you on Apple's problems but just to fix yours... if you weren't aware Dropbox does versioning so you should be able to go to your Dropbox and revert to the old Pages 09 format.
 
If it means I can edit documents between all devices without having to worry about compatibility then I'm all for it!
 
RiK said:
Maybe not, but back then opening an old doc in the new app didn't automatically save an incompatible version over the top of your original did it.
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What are you talking about?
I've opened several documents in new Pages, and I could still open them in Pages
09.
It's true that once I modified them new new Pages I couldn't open them in old Pages, but that makes sense, obviously, right?
...
I tried reverting one I had modified in new Pages, and sure enough, I could open it in old Pages.

I guess I'm not seeing the problem?
 
The trend is away from the desktop PC, and all the bloatware that accompanies it, so apps are going to get smaller and probably more efficient. Our phones and tablets are being pushed as PC replacements.

What in Apple's recent software release history would make anyone think their apps would become more powerful?

Cuter, yes.
 
MacHiavelli said:
A lot of the time, people are essentially saying that they want to work in the way they did in 1998, and stressing that they find it difficult to cope with change. Luddites.

The world changes. Embrace it and find new ways to work. Or choose to stay in the past and become increasingly irrelevant.

So many people seem to think they are "professional" because they use Word or Excel. Good grief, Word and Excel are far from professional tools. Boasting about using Word and Excel stresses the fact that you're an amateur stuck in the last millennium.

The future isn't yours. It isn't Word's. Excel's. Or Microsoft's. The future is racing ahead of you. Learn to embrace change and to master new software. Don't whine about change. Whining will do you no good at all.
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Yeah uh, this is way off. People who are luddites hate change that makes progress. This is change that takes people way way back in time.

Also, there are entire industries that HAVE to use excel because it's the only tool powerful enough to do the job. Saying people are amateurs if they use Word or Excel is grossly incorrect.
 
bilboa said:
Anything can be considered a Pro product by that definition. I'm sure some professionals use TextEdit for real work too, so TextEdit is a pro product by your definition. Same goes for iPhoto and GarageBand, and point-and-shoot cameras, cheap earbud headphones, etc. I think a more useful definition of Pro product is defined by the intentions of the maker of the product, not the users. If the product is intentionally designed to meet the needs of professionals, then it's a pro product, otherwise it's a consumer product.
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Ok? And what is the needs of professionals? Keep in mind that all professionals no matter of field is included. I suppose that there is very few common features, I know one thing and that is that "pro" does not equate "advanced" or feature rich. Some things that comes to mind is, reliable, fast and efficient.
 
I disliked MS Office mainly because of how bloated it has become. I also was not a fan of the iWork '09 because of the interface. While the power users may be dissapointed, the new iWork contains all the features most users need.
 
This is all about iOS.
Apple seems to be in a never-ending push to make desktops & their apps more packed-full-'O eye-candy and in the process make them function more the way they believe tablets should function.
Frankly I think Apple are misreading consumer desire here - as we shift more to tablets for day-to-day computing we want tablets to be more fully-featured and to operate like desktops. Not the other way around.
And this whole whinge coming from iWorks 'power-users' has made me laugh as it’s almost a carbon copy of the complaints that came from iPhoto ‘power-users’.
When iPhoto went from V8 to V9 (iLife ’09 to iLife ’11) it lost masses of features that there was no reason to have removed.
Instead of heading towards the feature-set of say, PhotoShop Elements, it went backwards in the push to make it all iOS cute & cudely. There were calls for Apple to release an ‘iPhoto Pro’ version. Sounding familiar?
The great Apple ‘power-users’ at the time just said ‘suck it up, that’s progress, if you’re a power-user you should be using Aperture anyway so just pay Apple money and switch’.
So time to wake-up and smell the fruit salad I’m afraid… If you want to stick with Apple apps you are going to have to get used to dumbed-down eye-candy that focuses on Apples concepts of iOS functionality not desktop use.
Oh, and yes, I still use iPhoto 08.
 
Default Zoom

Another little thing they've removed is the ability to set a default zoom for documents in Pages. Or at least I cannot for the life of me figure out how to set it to become default, it used to be in Pages Preferences but I don't see it anymore. :(
 
BRLawyer said:
I am just saying that was another lie - plain text (.txt) export exists.
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A lot of hip-shooting going on here, but if half of what's been said to be deleted from Page is actually is gone, then it's a non-starter for me. Like, no linking of text boxes? If that's true all by itself, I simply will not use the new version of Pages. Waiting for the dust to settle.
 
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