Thoughts on iWork 08

Have you checked the What's New section on the Apple site? It goes through each app and lists the key new features. I'm not upgrading.

 

Well, MJ, there's nothing like trying it yourself.

I can't say I played much with any of them, least of all keynote, but here goes. Pages seems about the same as the previous one. The only difference I think I noticed was footnotes, which I don't think was there before. Still, not for academic writing, unless you like doing stuff manually. They should really open their app for reference-managers like Mellel/Nisus/Word does. At the same time it's fine for most other docs and I hear it integrates well with Numbers.

Numbers, my first take, seemed pretty simplistic. And it is. What I like about it though is the templates, which are a great boon. Say you want to do a valuation, an invoice, or whatever. Much of this is already there for you, saving you some time and looking pretty. I like that A LOT and expect there to be more templates later.

Keynote, I haven't really looked at. From what I've seen, I think there are some nice templates and I like the export-options.

As it appears to me, Apple just offers a package for people that want to get to a result quickly. That narrows down the paths you can take, but it also makes some of the tedious chores easier. I hate excel, yet I have to work in it. I'm hoping that in the future, that will no longer be the case.

All I can say is try it yourself. You'll need 500 mb to download and 1.1 GB to install it, but you can always remove the apps you don't like later.

 

Why not just download over night?

 

in my view, after installing the trial, is that i'm going to buy it. it's a fantastic upgrade. i wasn't interested in the previous version because of a lack of spreadsheet and the seeming limitations of pages, but it's good now.

 

Pages: layout vs processsing

Is it me? Or is there no difference between the two modes, except that the background (canvas) holds text in the one mode and not in the other?

That's a great improvement, but is that a reason to split it up into two modes? A simple option to make the canvas text-editable would suffice, or not.

 

It was always there, but perhaps not obvious for those who couldn't see past the templates.

 

Gee, thanks for you cunning remark. Maybe you could enlighten us instead. You know, for those of us who can't see beyond templates.

 

I was actually agreeing with you. Although after playing around with the two modes in v3 I think I preferred the approach in v2. I suspect v3 will grow on me.

My remark was directed at those who criticised previous versions of Pages for not having a word processing mode, whereas that is exactly what the original blank "template" was. My apologies for being obscure.

 

Ah, I see your point.

I always start from a blank template, and as such I used it for word processing. However I also used this as a starting point for the posters I have to make. In this case, it's annoying that you can type on the canvas (as in the processing mode now). Even more annoying is that an image can have a z-value lower than the canvas. So, instead of selecting the image you are confronted with the canvas text.

In all, yes this is actually an improvement of the layout mode. Not that pages suddenly became a word processor. It always was that (as you said) and its .doc import function works quite well. I don't use word anymore (latex is still better in any case) and with numbers I can throw out office and neooffice all together. I still need windows for Origin, unfortunately.

 

Pages '08

Finally, a real word processor, all the bells and whistles.

 

Sorry mate, I don't feel like telling you anything about it. Nothing to do with laziness, it's more that I doubt you're worth it.

 

Is something wrong with me? I can't find the trial download anywhere...

Nevermind.. I found it, but thanks.

 

http://www.apple.com/iwork/trial/

 

My impression of Numbers is about the same as my impression of Pages 1.0 -Frustrating.

It seems slick for basic things, but if you try to do anything too terribly complex you'll likely be pounding your head against the desk. And when you're done hurting yourself you'll finally realize that the program just can't do things that excel can do.

For example: Why am I unable to put multiple series of data into a chart where each series is using different sets of dates? Why is there no chart editor that will allow me to add individual series with different X/Y data sets?

Even if there is a way to accomplish the above I still won't be able to use Numbers because it's very sluggish on a 1.8 G5 iMac. I'm sure someone will dispute this, but it will likely be the same kind of person that finds Halo runs runs at an acceptable frame rate on a G3 iMac.

To sum up: Slick for the basics, but still frustrating.

 

Footnotes aren't new. The major changes in Pages appear to be the modes, alpha channels for graphics, track changes support, and an improved menu bar.

 

My take on Numbers.Keep in mind I'm retired from the accounting business.

Numbers does have some nice templates however I normally don't use templates.I do use multiple sheets covering a 12 months period with lots of data.This is just to run the house.
I do not like the fact that you cant hide the left portion of a sheet.That is taking away valuable real estate for people that have a spreadsheet with 25 columns in use.Bad move.
It's a good start.Lets hope they make some changes.

 

I've played a fair amount with Pages, less with Numbers and none with Keynote. I do like Pages a fair amount. Unless you use Track Changes I don't see enough new stuff in there to really warrant an upgrade, though.

My big issue is that Pages doesn't support the standard ODF format. Now, I can understand why they didn't: ODF is new and, although it's an ISO standard, the number of ODF users is very small. Apple is a fraction of marketshare, ODF is a fraction of marketshare... why would Apple want to implement a feature that would only benefit a fraction of a fraction?

Now that my reasoning is out of the way, it's still frustrating because I believe that ODF is generally a Good Idea (tm), and that all data formats should be open and portable. In fact, I recently converted all of my .doc files to .odt files. So now that I realize that I kinda like Pages to the point that I might want to use it as my default word processor, I'd have to open all of my .odt files, convert them to .doc, then import them and save them out as .pages. Whew. If Apple didn't change the format up so much between versions, somebody could write a converter for NeoOffice (since Apple's pages format is XML-based).

Another issue is other people being able to view my Pages files. But honestly, I'd be deluding myself with images of ODF grandeur since almost nobody I know uses ODF and I'd have to convert it to something else anyway.

LOL, can you tell I'm struggling on the whole format issue?

All that said, from the perspective of a NeoOffice user, Pages is very much clean-and-sexy Mac native, high performance, and packs a lot of what most people need with very little of what they don't.

 

Pages '08 is good. it's a simple word processor; it actually reminds me a little of Microsoft Publisher in that you can do newsletters, resumes, and still basic word processing. i like it - it loads faster than Office 2004 on my MBP (duh... Office 2004 is running through Rosetta). it does what i need it to do without all the extra frills and fluff.

Numbers seems like a cool app. i only played around with it for a few minutes last night but i like what i saw. if you deal with spreadsheets professionally, it's definitely not an Excel replacement (nor do i think it is designed/branded as one), but it does get the basic spreadsheet tasks down right. like Pages, it's a simple app without the extra crap.

i didn't use Keynote before and i likely won't use it now. i don't have any need to make presentations. but if i ever need to make a slideshow, i'll give it a go.

my evaluation: worth the $79.