Pages V Swift Publisher

addisonaddison
Posted:
in Mac Software edited January 2014
I have tried the demo of Pages and Swift Publisher and it seems to me that Swift Publisher is far easier to use. I need a basic publishing programme for my son, everyone else in the class is using MS Publisher! I have only tried the demo's of these but I will have to buy one so I would be interested to hear of anyone else who has a registered version of either Swift Publisher and Pages and can tell me if there are any problems with either of these applications.



The main one to me seem to be that Swift Publisher os not well known so will it be around long?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 3
    stustanleystustanley Posts: 236member
    having a look at swift publisher homepage, it looks pretty good. I have pages, but its nothing amazing (tho that might change with iWork 06)



    stu
  • Reply 2 of 3
    addisonaddison Posts: 1,185member
    MS Publisher has the option to "Print as a book" i.e. pages 4 & 1 then 2 & 3 Swift Publisher does not support this feature does Pages?
  • Reply 3 of 3
    kcmackcmac Posts: 1,051member
    Since you don't already have Pages, Swift Publisher may be worth a try. For those with Pages, I would stay with Pages.



    Pages is kind of an odd duck for Apple. Usually, their software is just open up and go. Easy. Intuitive.



    Pages takes a little time to learn. (Not that long but more than usual with Apple software.) But once you use it for awhile, it all makes sense and is very powerful. I haven't found too much that I can't do with it for my needs.



    Templates are overrated in my opinion. They are never really what you want. It doesn't matter if there are 40 or 400. Pages lets you make your own very quickly and easily.



    Clipart? Pretty easy to find. Nice that Swift Publisher includes it if you need it and if it works for you. It only comes on the CD version.



    Swift Publisher does not import or export to Word if that makes any difference to you. It does to me.



    One of the weaknesses of Pages, I think is it's reliance on the Inspector. For instance, it would be nice to have the font selector in the toolbar instead of pulling up a formatting box. Swift Publisher also relies on the Inspector.



    When you look at reviews, SP seems to have a weakness when it gets into multi page documents. Sounds like you have to stay to fairly simple and short documents. I haven't seen this in Pages nor heard any problems by other users.



    And finally, I think Pages has much better support than you will get with SP. Go to the free discussion forums on Apples website. Always stellar and free help from other users.



    I don't think you have to worry about BeLight going anywhere. They have been developing OS X software for awhile and are very adept at good looking stuff.



    I don't think you can do the printing like a book option in Pages at this time.



    Here is an app that might do want you want to print books. You would first need to save your document as a pdf. Then use the Cocoa Booklet app.



    Cocoa Book



    You might also look at this macupdate search for other book printing or "imposition" software.



    http://www.macupdate.com/search.php?...x=0&button.y=0
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