my review of Pages

Posted:
in iPod + iTunes + AppleTV edited January 2014
Ok, I have tested Pages quite intensvily for the past two days. So here are my remarks:



1. only footnotes, no end notes

2. footnotes cannot be designed... as it is now, the "line" above footnotes does not seem to be changeable (someone please then tell me how). you can change the font &c, but not the behaviour of footnotes

3. if you want a coverpage and a page with table of contents: make them FIRST or you will have hell in getting them in afterwards (new pages can only be inserted after the first one, not before)

4. no auto-numbered tables, unless you dpon't make the table-title as part of the text instead of inside the table

5. no creation of index, only of table of contents

6. table of contents does not make it into pdf-s (pdf-s don't become interactive) also, file-info does not seem to get into pdf-s neither

7. no equation-editor (jeesus!)

8. no line-numbering

9. a few things it should learn from Indesign:

a) all the extra stuff in OpenType-fonts should be accessible (as is now, you have to add them one by one, and you are not going to do that if it is a long text

b) space between words and between letters in words could be much much better, Indesign has this "optical" stuff.

10. no drop-letters (hello!?)

11. nor can you make a paragraph-style where the first three words/letters are bold, in italics and with bigger space between. (yes, sometoimes you want to do that)

12. wrapping is cool, but you cannot change the wrapping borders. hint: place an object above it to change wrapping borders, then make that object 100% opaque. still, could be easier. in indesign you can create your own wrapping-borders. this is particularly usefull if you make a graph with decreasing values (a line that goes down from left to right). then, in pages, this will just be a big box, you may sometimes want to have text to flow with the line.

13. yea, auto-detection of hyperlinnks is wrong

14. you can only have one type of footnotes (ok, if you only can have footnotes guess it makes sense)

15. all those small windows gets easily in the way, indesign (and photoshop) have a much better window-handling system



well, that's after a day or so. anyway, glad that i ordered it. above is only for those that have some speical demands that they cannot be without. given everything else, it is really good. It is still though not a Framemaker-killer (although it may have killed all plans for framemaker back to os x), but a very competent word/lay-out processing app. It is not a replacment for Word, nor can it be replaced by word. it is its own thing, the only real competitotr is Framemaker, which, of course, is a lot lot better in most fields, but costs much more, has much more developemtn behind it, and does not work in x. given that this is a first-release, I would have to say: GREAT.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 18
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by dividend

    7. no equation-editor (jeesus!)



    The best solution I've found to this is LaTeX + Equation Service. LaTeX is, hands-down, the nicest equation formatting system I've ever seen, as far as output. (Input is raw text, not WYSISYG, but for simple equations it's lightning fast and easy.)



    Equation Service lets you type a LaTeX math snippet in whatever text field you're working in, select it, hit a keystroke, and have the snippet replaced with a PDF image in-place.



    The easiest installer for LaTeX is probably the one available with TeXShop.



    Thanks for the review.
  • Reply 2 of 18
    keshkesh Posts: 621member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by dividend

    Ok, I have tested Pages quite intensvily for the past two days. So here are my remarks:



    1. only footnotes, no end notes



    Ouch. Oh well, I don't use them much at the moment, so doing them by hand until Pages 2.0 won't be terrible...

    Quote:

    2. footnotes cannot be designed... as it is now, the "line" above footnotes does not seem to be changeable (someone please then tell me how). you can change the font &c, but not the behaviour of footnotes



    Not sure how much this really affects things.

    Quote:

    3. if you want a coverpage and a page with table of contents: make them FIRST or you will have hell in getting them in afterwards (new pages can only be inserted after the first one, not before)



    Not good. Another fix for Pages 2.0...

    Quote:

    4. no auto-numbered tables, unless you dpon't make the table-title as part of the text instead of inside the table



    Not entirely sure what you're saying here.

    Quote:

    5. no creation of index, only of table of contents



    Yeah, someone mentioned this a few days ago. Hopefully 2.0 again...

    Quote:

    6. table of contents does not make it into pdf-s (pdf-s don't become interactive) also, file-info does not seem to get into pdf-s neither



    Not sure what you mean here, either. What's 'pdf-s'?

    Quote:

    7. no equation-editor (jeesus!)



    Erm. I wouldn't expect one?

    Quote:

    8. no line-numbering



    Again, ouch.

    Quote:

    9. a few things it should learn from Indesign:

    a) all the extra stuff in OpenType-fonts should be accessible (as is now, you have to add them one by one, and you are not going to do that if it is a long text

    b) space between words and between letters in words could be much much better, Indesign has this "optical" stuff.



    All things considered, I don't think Pages is really trying to replace InDesign. It's more for folks like me who want a cheap page-layout program. I won't be doing a lot of kerning.

    Quote:

    10. no drop-letters (hello!?)



    Eh, again, not a feature that I see used a lot. Hopefully in 2.0, though.

    Quote:

    11. nor can you make a paragraph-style where the first three words/letters are bold, in italics and with bigger space between. (yes, sometoimes you want to do that)



    Hm. Like endnotes, it's not exactly a critical thing for most people. And with Automator in Tiger, it could easily be done that way...

    Quote:

    12. wrapping is cool, but you cannot change the wrapping borders. hint: place an object above it to change wrapping borders, then make that object 100% opaque. still, could be easier. in indesign you can create your own wrapping-borders. this is particularly usefull if you make a graph with decreasing values (a line that goes down from left to right). then, in pages, this will just be a big box, you may sometimes want to have text to flow with the line.



    What kind of borders are you looking for? Does Pages only do transparent borders or something?

    Quote:

    13. yea, auto-detection of hyperlinnks is wrong



    Oh?

    Quote:

    14. you can only have one type of footnotes (ok, if you only can have footnotes guess it makes sense)



    Is this a repeat of your earlier note?

    Quote:

    15. all those small windows gets easily in the way, indesign (and photoshop) have a much better window-handling system



    Small windows? The palates? Do you really need them all open all the time?



    Thanks for all the points there. I'm just trying to clarify a few of them, for my own understanding.
  • Reply 3 of 18
    Kesh:



    2. footnotes don't look very good, and take up more space than what is needed.



    4. auto-numbered tables. When you create a table and that table's title, it will be auto-numbered, just like footnotes are auto-numbered. Important if you have a few tables and have to move text and tables around.



    6. PDF. No bookmarks when exported to PDF. Nor can you go to the TOC and click one chapter and then yo get there



    9. Nope, and that's a shame. Guess this is more of a limit in OS X than in Pages.



    10. Drop-letters are quite frequently used in documents that Pages attempts at creating. This is a serious miss, wonder if it is because of OS X limitations or what..



    13. Hyperlinks get underlined, different colour. What's the point in having a hyperlinnk underlined and different colour if you print it.



    14. sometimes you want to have two different kinds of footnotes. One are endnotes, and the other are occasional stuff that you may want to use a cross/star or anything to indicate. Not that very important, but anyway.



    I have 15.2 inch screen. I don't know why I think that all the windows/palettes take up soooo much space.



    Yea, this review was about those things I think are missing. I will drop this note to Apple later. And I guess it would be good for people who are in doubt whether to buy it or not. If any of the things that I mentioned are critical then it would be a waste of money, if they are just not that important, then buy it!



    I can do without equation editor (Word), drop caps can be arranged. So, all in all, a good app.
  • Reply 4 of 18
    a_greera_greer Posts: 4,594member
    Many here say that they think these buge will be fixed in 2: My question is why would apple not fix them in a point release, a patch?
  • Reply 5 of 18
    some of the problems I think are because of weaknesses in OS X. Ligatures, for example, are not that good. Like, you can choose all of them individually, but not as a standard. Pages has the same text-input options as textedit has, so, when it comes to textedit, it also comes to os x. (my belief. that is) I believe this applies to the PDF stuff that is missing. Guess this might never apply, so that Adobe has one more argument for selling acrobat + distiller for mac.



    some of the others can be done in a .5-release.



    some need more work, like equation editor.



    anyway, my priority would be the following:



    1. equation editor

    2. better footnotes/endnotes handling

    3. better text-control (ligatures, drop-down....)



    oh. just forgot one more thing that is really nice in framemaker:



    side-line text.



    This is a text-style that automatically goes to the side of the text, and flows with it. You don't need to put special text in a box or something. very very very neat indeed.



    anyway, with all the features that I have mentioned built in, then this app really is competing with framemaker, and framemaker is one of the most advced text-editors. ok, ver. 2 is going to rock... as always, until then: this is a good buy.
  • Reply 6 of 18
    chychchych Posts: 860member
    I find that using MathType is great as an equation editor, you can just copy the equations and paste them into Pages and works flawlessly. You can also copy it back into MathType and edit it again.



    Anyone find an easy way to caption figures in Pages? I don't really like making a text box and aligning it under the figure...
  • Reply 7 of 18
    chych: i if you by caption figures mean drop-letters, then no. I don't think it is there, which is a bit bad. ok, possible, as you say, to do it manually, but not that much fun, especially not if you have a lot of pages...



    one of the missing stuff, probably awaiting next version. But if they change it properly, it might even get into textedit.. it it becopmes part of "core text".
  • Reply 8 of 18
    As someone pointed out Pages draws heavily on OS X technologies, that means that when OS X is upgraded, there's a good chance that Pages will get better too e.g. PDF support has increased with every release. Anyone running Pages on a Tiger beta want to comment?



    Also note that unlike MSFT with Word, Apple has no reason to jam everything into Pages e.g. Apple provides system wide spellchecking, and if they add grammar checking it would probably also be system-wide therefore making it available to any competing wordprocessor app on the Mac platform rather than trying to lock-in people to their Office suite. (I believe this is the #1 reason that Internet Explorer will never have native spell-checking, as it enables web-based competition for Word). I think there are already third-party plug-ins that check spelling and grammar in a variety of apps though I have no experience myself.
  • Reply 9 of 18
    lucylucy Posts: 44member
    By captions, I believe chych means putting a little description of a picture under it like you often see in text books and other documents.



    Is there an option to turn off the auto-detection of hyperlinks, because that might be a deal killer for me (as ridiculous as that sounds, I don't have much reason to buy iWork anyway, so something that annoying might just put me over the edge.)

    Points two and three also look fairly annoying. Does point three mean there isn't an insert page function? Because that is one of the very few things I want that is not in text edit.



    I'll probably buy it and use it maybe two times before '06 comes out like I did with keynote, but it would be nice if it was useful to me.
  • Reply 10 of 18
    1. haven't tested your caption., but I belive you can, but manually. LIke, you will end up havingto make an other box with the text, unless, of course, you don't have the picture flowing with the text, then any headline would make it as a caption...

    2. auto-detection of hyperlnks can be turned off in preferences

    3. you can inser new pages, of course. But only after the first page, not before. You end upp moving text if you want TOC for the entire document and have forgotten to place a TOC-page



    got to try mathtype, thanx for the tip!
  • Reply 11 of 18
    chychchych Posts: 860member
    Yes, I was referring to making a title under a figure when referring to captions.



    The http underlining can be undone by hitting cmd+z right after it highlights it, annoying but it's a small fix (works in word too).
  • Reply 12 of 18
    3. you can inser new pages, of course. But only after the first page, not before. You end upp moving text if you want TOC for the entire document and have forgotten to place a TOC-page



    Or you can just use insert/page break and be done with it...
  • Reply 13 of 18
    tried that, but not as smooth (or maybe i did it wrongly?). Anyway, do it first and then you have no problems.
  • Reply 14 of 18
    Quote:

    Originally posted by franckroussel



    Or you can just use insert/page break and be done with it... [/B]



    Yeah, this is an old MS Word trick.



    Well, i usually create a single COVERPAGE document.

    A document that only covers the frontpage. That simple. Next...



    BTW, does Pages open RTF documents

    properly, without a hitch, i mean ... none

    reformatting, substituting and such?



    First hand experience preferred.
  • Reply 15 of 18
    Btw, does "Pages" on opening memorize the last state

    of your doc? Does it jump on opening to page no 99,

    if you had quit the app and had a doc open in page no 99?

    That would satisfy me.
  • Reply 16 of 18
    hobbeshobbes Posts: 1,252member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Vox Barbara

    Does Pages open RTF documents properly, without a hitch, i mean ... none reformatting, substituting and such?





    I've been converting my (fairly basic) TextEdit RTF documents into Pages -- no problems so far. Keeps the formatting. Works fine.



    Quote:

    Originally posted by Vox Barbara

    Does "Pages" on opening memorize the last state

    of your doc? Does it jump on opening to page no 99,

    if you had quit the app and had a doc open in page no 99?

    That would satisfy me.[/B]



    Yes, it remembers, and opens the document at the last point in which you edited. Of course if you move the cursor to page 99, but make no changes, and close the document, Pages (sensibly enough) won't know but open at your most recent edit.
  • Reply 17 of 18
    keshkesh Posts: 621member
    Unfortunately, Pages does not do the one thing I was hoping for.



    See, I have these RTF files with tables in them. TextEdit never displayed the tables right, as they're apparently not part of the standard RTF format, but something Microsoft added to RTF through Word. And Pages does about the same thing to the files that Text Edit does, mangling the table data into one continuous paragraph of information.



    I may have to find a way to convert the RTF files to real Word documents, and see if it can handle that. Otherwise, I'll have to spend hours fixing the tables by hand when I open the RTF in Pages.
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