My (Another) Pages Review
I received my copy of iWork and chose to install it prior to Sunday (when I'm doing a clean install of Tiger) in order to have a chance to play around with Pages some more. Since I'm a academic, a word processor is one of the primary applications I use on my Mac. I've been a Word user since I can remember; have been using Word 2004 since it came out.
First things first: Pages is a really nice application. I like it a lot. The few things I found missing that were important to me included:
1. Footnotes that can use an asterisk or otherwise. This was something I used in the last paper I wrote; the footnote was a comment about a sentence, not a bibliographic reference. Pages only has numbered footnotes.
2. The ability to add a page BEFORE the first one. I fixed this by creating a template that has a title page and my table of contents "page" (as well as others) prior to the first page of the body. It would be nice, though, to be able to add those before the first page of the body whenever I choose to.
3. Word has the ability to autonumber figures' captions. Pages does not. Thus, if I delete Figure 2.5, Word will auto-magically renumber all the figures following it one number back. Pages doesn't have a feature to do this. A shame, too, because figures in Pages seem easier than in Word to me except for this missing aspect.
The formatting palette in Word is infinitely easier to use than the various palettes in Pages even though the Word thing looks strange to me. Once you've set fonts for the various styles, however, the Inspector does the job admirably and makes things fairly easy.
Pages opens the document where you last edited it instead of at the beginning like Word does. Very nice feature. I like that a lot. Very helpful.
Palatino and Book Antiqua are the EXACT same font. Who knew?
I think the "missing" grammar check in Pages is a blessing. I can't stand all the auto-crap Word has on by default. It takes me ten minutes just fiddling with Word after a clean install to get it the way I like it. Pages seems right from the get-go to me. It also is helpful for writing something like a journal where punctuation and such might not be perfect. Instead of nagging you about it, I'm able to just write. It seems like a very good tool for getting text on the page in that way.
I really think that the "Pages" drop down should be called "sections" since that's what they really are. Anyone else feel this way?
The thing I liked the most (and this will seem trivial) about using Pages instead of Word was the fact that my Documents folder in my home directory was empty except for documents. I HATE that Microsoft User Data folder that comes with Office (regardless of how little of the suite you install) that hijacks my documents folder. It's nice to be able to back up my documents folder without having to remove that first or afterwards. Trivial, I know, but important.
Is there any way to create a HIDDEN alias that would allow me to keep my MS User Data folder in there but not see it in the Finder? Random question.
I find Pages to be extremely useful for most things, though I must admit that I was impressed with Word's ability to do things Pages could do, albeit not quite as easily sometimes. Inserting a picture into a Word document was just as easy as in Pages; just drag-and-drop. The wrapping part of the formatting pallete was a bit weird, but decent once I got used to it. In Pages, though, this was a piece of cake.
Strange behavior I noticed though: When the blue line comes up letting me know that the picture is centered, I let the image go. Then, if I right click on the image and align it to the center, it moves a bit to the right. Does the blue line not actually center the figure? Anyone else notice this?
Sorry for the long post.
I like the application and am planning on "replacing" Word with it... unless someone can show me how to create a hidden alias for my Documents folder to keep it clean! Any ideas?
First things first: Pages is a really nice application. I like it a lot. The few things I found missing that were important to me included:
1. Footnotes that can use an asterisk or otherwise. This was something I used in the last paper I wrote; the footnote was a comment about a sentence, not a bibliographic reference. Pages only has numbered footnotes.
2. The ability to add a page BEFORE the first one. I fixed this by creating a template that has a title page and my table of contents "page" (as well as others) prior to the first page of the body. It would be nice, though, to be able to add those before the first page of the body whenever I choose to.
3. Word has the ability to autonumber figures' captions. Pages does not. Thus, if I delete Figure 2.5, Word will auto-magically renumber all the figures following it one number back. Pages doesn't have a feature to do this. A shame, too, because figures in Pages seem easier than in Word to me except for this missing aspect.
The formatting palette in Word is infinitely easier to use than the various palettes in Pages even though the Word thing looks strange to me. Once you've set fonts for the various styles, however, the Inspector does the job admirably and makes things fairly easy.
Pages opens the document where you last edited it instead of at the beginning like Word does. Very nice feature. I like that a lot. Very helpful.
Palatino and Book Antiqua are the EXACT same font. Who knew?
I think the "missing" grammar check in Pages is a blessing. I can't stand all the auto-crap Word has on by default. It takes me ten minutes just fiddling with Word after a clean install to get it the way I like it. Pages seems right from the get-go to me. It also is helpful for writing something like a journal where punctuation and such might not be perfect. Instead of nagging you about it, I'm able to just write. It seems like a very good tool for getting text on the page in that way.
I really think that the "Pages" drop down should be called "sections" since that's what they really are. Anyone else feel this way?
The thing I liked the most (and this will seem trivial) about using Pages instead of Word was the fact that my Documents folder in my home directory was empty except for documents. I HATE that Microsoft User Data folder that comes with Office (regardless of how little of the suite you install) that hijacks my documents folder. It's nice to be able to back up my documents folder without having to remove that first or afterwards. Trivial, I know, but important.
Is there any way to create a HIDDEN alias that would allow me to keep my MS User Data folder in there but not see it in the Finder? Random question.
I find Pages to be extremely useful for most things, though I must admit that I was impressed with Word's ability to do things Pages could do, albeit not quite as easily sometimes. Inserting a picture into a Word document was just as easy as in Pages; just drag-and-drop. The wrapping part of the formatting pallete was a bit weird, but decent once I got used to it. In Pages, though, this was a piece of cake.
Strange behavior I noticed though: When the blue line comes up letting me know that the picture is centered, I let the image go. Then, if I right click on the image and align it to the center, it moves a bit to the right. Does the blue line not actually center the figure? Anyone else notice this?
Sorry for the long post.
I like the application and am planning on "replacing" Word with it... unless someone can show me how to create a hidden alias for my Documents folder to keep it clean! Any ideas?
Comments
EDIT
You might want to do this via the Terminal;
relic:~ calden$ cd Documents
relic:~ calden$ mv Microsoft\\ User\\ Data ../
relic:~ calden$ ln -s /Users/calden/Microsoft\\ User\\ Data /Users/calden/Documents/
Originally posted by Relic
I'm not a big Pages fan but each to his own. Anyway, just move the "Microsoft User Data" folder up one level then create an alias to your documents folder. There is no need to create a hidden alias because when you sync your documents folder it won't copy over the contents of the MS folder but just the folder (2k worth of info).
EDIT
You might want to do this via the Terminal;
relicPB:~ relic $ cd Documents
relicPB:~ relic $ mv Microsoft\\ User\\ Data ../
relicPB:~ relic $ ln -s /Users/relic/Microsoft\\ User\\ Data /Users/relic/Documents/
Please remove "relic" with your username.
Originally posted by adamrao
...
Palatino and Book Antiqua are the EXACT same font. Who knew?
....
Perhaps, no one knew because it is not true. Admittedly, the two fonts are very similar, but similar is not same. Take a look at the yen (¥) glyph in both fonts.
I'm not quite sure what the terminal commands given above will actually do. Anyone care to elaborate?
I love Pages and find it really easy to use for CERTAIN things... I can't see myself writing a thesis or a dissertation with it, though. Word... bleh. I like the app because I've used it since I can remember. Same with Excel. I know my way around the two so it's hard for me to ditch them.
Looks like Office will stay with Tiger.
I've ditched PowerPoint for good, though. Keynote whips it in every way.
I'm thinking that Pages will be a very useful application for shorter documents; resumes, newsletters, etc. Maybe even a few short papers as well when I need to do some creative formatting and such. Word will be used for all my serious academic work. 'Tis life, I suppose.
I'm just too much of a WYSIWYG guy to move on...