I want to use Pages... BUT...
I've played with Pages a bit when I've had time at school and the app seems fairly difficult to get the hang of. However, after reading many of the opinions here and elsewhere, the possibilities seem really great.
A little background on me and what I do/will be doing in life...
Currently I'm a student (musicology) and expect to be teaching music for the remainder of my time on this planet. I write a lot. Word has been in use since I was a child (on PC) and also now that I'm a Mac user. I must admit: I HATE WORD. Simple things seem so terribly difficult and I find I have NO USE for half of what Word gives me.
I've tried LaTeX and BibTeX and... well... I'm too lazy and too visually oriented to use them. Don't suggest them. <Grin>
Pages seems good IF...
1. It can handle long documents (I'll be needing it for a masters thesis and a doctoral dissertation in the next few years)
AND
2. It can insert a scanned image/musical example AFTER I've already written text on the page flawlessly.
I haven't had a long document handy for my trial runs, and I haven't had the opportunity to insert an image into a document yet either.
I do NOT require any mathematical equation usage, etc. But the insertion of musical examples is paramount to my needs as well as handling long documents (upwards of 800 pages, if necessary).
The long document situation, however, could be remedied by splitting it into separate documents for each chapter and such.
How are the footnote/endnotes in Pages? I don't plan on using EndNote or anything like that, even for my dissertation. I keep things really organized on my own and citations are part of my lifeblood now. <Grin>
What qualms do you have about using Pages for academic situations?
Sorry about the massive amount of questions... but I feel like ditching Word is SO close... and with a clean install of Tiger upcoming here in the next week or so... it's just so tempting!
Thanks for any and all help you can provide.
A little background on me and what I do/will be doing in life...
Currently I'm a student (musicology) and expect to be teaching music for the remainder of my time on this planet. I write a lot. Word has been in use since I was a child (on PC) and also now that I'm a Mac user. I must admit: I HATE WORD. Simple things seem so terribly difficult and I find I have NO USE for half of what Word gives me.
I've tried LaTeX and BibTeX and... well... I'm too lazy and too visually oriented to use them. Don't suggest them. <Grin>
Pages seems good IF...
1. It can handle long documents (I'll be needing it for a masters thesis and a doctoral dissertation in the next few years)
AND
2. It can insert a scanned image/musical example AFTER I've already written text on the page flawlessly.
I haven't had a long document handy for my trial runs, and I haven't had the opportunity to insert an image into a document yet either.
I do NOT require any mathematical equation usage, etc. But the insertion of musical examples is paramount to my needs as well as handling long documents (upwards of 800 pages, if necessary).
The long document situation, however, could be remedied by splitting it into separate documents for each chapter and such.
How are the footnote/endnotes in Pages? I don't plan on using EndNote or anything like that, even for my dissertation. I keep things really organized on my own and citations are part of my lifeblood now. <Grin>
What qualms do you have about using Pages for academic situations?
Sorry about the massive amount of questions... but I feel like ditching Word is SO close... and with a clean install of Tiger upcoming here in the next week or so... it's just so tempting!
Thanks for any and all help you can provide.
Comments
Now I don't like Microsoft all that much, and agree that Word is a bit bloated, but I still have to say that Word is hands down, the best word processor there is.
Since this is something I do rather often in my work, I'd like it to be as simple as possible. A page-layout type of application sounds right to me. However, I can't splurge on a full fledged one of those.
I need a combination application: enter Pages.
Any advice on using Pages in an academic environment?
Yes, WhiteRabbit, hands down it beats Word around the playground and back again in this arena.
For biblios, I'm really hoping for perhaps some integration with BibDesk in some manner. BibDesk uses BibTeX for its storage format, but I don't see any reason why it couldn't be used to create a Bibliography for inclusion in Pages, even if it wasn't used for the reference numbering in the text. *shrug* As of right now though, Pages doesn't have any figure/table/section inter-referencing like LaTeX, so I'm sticking with my old tried and true for now.
[Otherwise... LaTeX and BibTeX may invoke my attention once again. <Grin>]
1) Most schools have *STRINGENT* requirements for layout. At UNC, we have, literally, the Ruler Lady. She measures to the millimeter. No joke. If *anything* isn't right, you get to go do it again. ie, you don't get to be creative, and a lot of schools have LaTeX style files ready to go. And if not the school, then they are handed down by grad students. Makes it really easy.
2) LaTeX handles all the inter-references for me, so I don't have to think about it. If I removed Figure 2 from chapter 7, I don't have to renumber Figures 7.3 through 7.52, and then make sure all the references match.
3) BibTeX handles the bibliography beautifully.
*shrug* I like Pages a lot, used it to make my recent job applications and CV, etc, look fantastic. But I'll stick with LaTeX et al for the heavy lifting.
I REALLY like the application. Inserting an image and telling Pages how I want text to wrap around it (or not) is the easiest way I've ever seen to do it in a word processor. To be honest... I've never figured out how to do such a thing in Word. That feature alone makes me willing to shell out the cash for it.
Kickaha- I found the thesis/dissertation requirements for my school. Mind taking a look at them and telling me how "stringent" you find them compared to UNC. (I think they look fairly free... but of course, we also have Ward Churchill. <Grin>)
I'm going to return to Pages after class to check out it's more "advanced" features - things I would use if I were writing my thesis/dissertation in v1.0.
I'm really pleased with the app overall, though. It looks good for my lesser needs (and a heck of a lot more visual than LaTeX! Sorry Kickaha...)
I am so glad to have a visual layout app that I can use to replace Word... I have never, and I mean *never* spent over 50% of the time creating a (more complicated than raw text) document in Word on the *content*. The rest is spent fighting Word on layout. Absolutely insane. Pages is an absolute dream in comparison. Drag, drop, done.
Originally posted by Kickaha
Hey, I agree. For visual layout, Pages is slick, and makes Word look just pathetic. For the *price*, it's the best I've ever seen, hands-down. For structured documents though, I currently prefer LaTeX.
I am so glad to have a visual layout app that I can use to replace Word... I have never, and I mean *never* spent over 50% of the time creating a (more complicated than raw text) document in Word on the *content*. The rest is spent fighting Word on layout. Absolutely insane. Pages is an absolute dream in comparison. Drag, drop, done.
What I find missing in Pages is this.
In Word I usually label my "chapters" as 1,2,3...etc. Subchapters of chapter 1 would be 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, etc. Subchapters of 1.1. would be 1.1.1, 1.1.2, 1.1.3, etc.
This is all well and good and can be archeived quite nicely with the Inspector -> Text -> List -> Indent. However, I would like these numbers to be reflected in the TOC, which I haven't been able to do.
I can indent all 1.x chapters one step to the right, and all 1.1.x chapters two steps to the right, but I am unable to make Pages number the chapters the same as the chapters in the main text.
That being said, something that surprised me in a positive way was, if I wrote Figure 1: figure showing xxx, these are automatically placed in the TOC, without having to define any styles for them... Pretty cool if you ask me!
http://www.colorado.edu/GraduateSchool/Specs/Specs.html
The one feature I found missing today from Pages that I can see hurting me in longer documents is the ability to set a "start point" for footnote numbers. For example, if you split a long document into several documents, it's nice to be able to start the footnotes of document 2 where you left off with document 1. As far as I can tell... Pages doesn't have this feature.
But... if it works well with documents of 800 or so pages... then it's really no big deal, I suppose.
Other Pages users? What have your experiences been? Anyone professional or semi-professional using this application for work and such?
Alright, you really don't care about all that, but you made me test a long document in Pages. I'm working on a dual G5 and I can scroll through the pages document in no time (a lot easier than on the Mac IIci it was written on). I think if your not using Endnote and you have a lot of figures then Pages should work well for you. I really don't see why you would have to split it into parts unless your Mac was really lacking umph.
I would love to leave Word behind for my scientific wrtting, but some thngs are keeping me working on Word. First, I'm also trying to dump EndNote after a 15 year relationship. The app has turned into garbage. I've startd using Sente when I can, but it only works with Word at this point. EndNote can work with Pages, but without a plugin. You have to make and RTF file and import it to EndNote to format the references. OK, but a pain. Also, when working on ducments with other authors, they all use Word and the reviewing functions and Endnote, so I ned to use the same.
I have used Pages to write one grant so far. I write the text in Word and add references with Sente. Then I import into Pages to add the figures. This has some disadvanges if Iwant to add some more references, but the layout functions of Pages is so much better than Word. Also, I have a lot of PDF files I use as figures, which look like crap when imported into word. I had a reviewer actually comment on that recently-not good.
I bit the bullet today and ordered iWork. Should be here early next week. I was planning on installing it with my fresh install of Tiger on May 1st, but maybe I'll go ahead and install it to play around for a few days prior to that.
Bibliographic information doesn't really scare me at this point. I figure that if I'm well organized, I'll keep a bibliography going from the onset as a separate document and keep my references sorted in both bibliographic and footnote styles so that I can simply copy and paste them into Pages easily.
The layout features of Pages kick Word any day. I've never seen something so easy. It's really a joy to use.
Sorry to hear about EndNote. I've heard horror stories from people using that with Word. Never wanted to go near it anyhow.
Considering my needs at this time and in the foreseeable future, I'm planning on going with Pages for the time being. After reading thoroughly the thesis/dissertation requirements for my university (see post above), I think Pages will fit the bill quite nicely in place of Word. The requirements are stringent but not overbearing. I've always thought Word's margins were a bit screwy anyhow. An inch doesn't seem to actually equal an inch. Is Pages better in this regard? Is it really WYSIWYG?
The one other concern I have about Pages right now is fonts... I use Book Antiqua fairly often and I think that comes with MS Office. I know that "Palatino" is fairly close to that and is an Apple designed font. Does that font come with Pages?
Anyone else out there using Pages regularly for professional or semi-pro work and finding it useful? Thanks to all.
Originally posted by adamrao
The one other concern I have about Pages right now is fonts... I use Book Antiqua fairly often and I think that comes with MS Office. I know that "Palatino" is fairly close to that and is an Apple designed font. Does that font come with Pages?
Anyone else out there using Pages regularly for professional or semi-pro work and finding it useful? Thanks to all.
Someone might correct me here, but I am fairly sure Pages uses the MacOS X installed fonts, so if the font is installed properly, it should be visible from Pages' Font window. At least that seems to be the case on my computer. That being said, I haven't installed any third party font, and I usually, as with 90% of the people, end up using Times as my font for all my reports and such.
I'm not sure if the MS Word fonts are installed system-wide, or if MS put these fonts inside the Microsoft Office X folder...
I have MS Office v.X installed on my computer as well, and I am hoping to be able to trash it eventually....
Maybe Palatino comes with iWork and is installed along with it? Or am I just missing it for no apparent reason?