[folklore]

@nrets:

There's an easier way to use Endnote and Pages - or just about any word processor that can save to RTF and has Unicode support: Put temporary citations in the paper, then format the paper in Endnote. Exactly what that's called varies by version of Endnote - earlier versions called it RTF Document Scan, more recent versions call it Format Paper. Check Endnote's help for the details on how to insert temporary citations and whatnot.

You should also check out Bookends. My research group and I just bought a group license for it and so far, no complaints. I haven't yet used it for a large project, however, so your mileage may vary. I was able to get my 800+ record Endnote library, complete with attached PDFs, into Bookends - something I wasn't able to do with Sente.

And since you've already eschewed Word, you might as well try Mellel. It's a word processor with built-in support for Bookends and Sente. Mellel was designed with technical and academic users in mind. If I didn't have to collaborate so much with Windows users, I'd probably be using it instead of Word.

[nrets]

The problem is that exporting a Pages document to RTF does all sorts of irretrievable damage to the formatting of the paper, while exporting to Word 2004 and back to Pages does minimal damage, other than changing the font in the headers and footers. I wish EndNote would simply add the ability to scan Pages documents, similar to what Sente does. Can Bookends format Pages documents? If so I might give it a try.

[folklore]

That's a good point.

Bookends claims to be able to scan Pages documents. I do not know how well it works, since I don't use Pages for work.

One "gotcha" about how Bookends works is that it does serious violence to tracked changes - tracked changes are not preserved. I found this out after having purchased Bookends.

Sente, Bookends, and Endnote all have their own quirks - it's just a matter of which trade-offs seem worth it. Luckily, Endnote's competitors have trial versions. I'd highly suggest using the trial version of either for a paper before purchasing them.

[Brettcamp]

Usually Pages will handle the Word docs I encounter (even those where we're using change tracking and comments) fine. When it doesn't, I can avoid using MS Office by using NeoOffice, which sometimes works when Pages doesn't. Also, for back and forth editing of Word docs, you might try Preview and save everything as pdfs. Preview's new editing features are great for adding notes and marking up text.

[MacOutlaw]

Yes, I'd like to know, if anyone has the experience, how well does Office open Pages documents?
Nothing too tricky, maybe just a chart included.
I have work to do with attorneys and doctors, and wonder if they'll have a problem opening my Pages text files?

Thanks for any help.

Pete

[MacOutlaw]

dipaanika;

Thank you for that,
It answered all my questions!

Pete

[nbidgood]

the fact that you can't email iWork documents (since they are actually packages) is a total deal breaker. sure, you can zip up the package, or export to .doc (for example), but this is annoying.

[dpaanlka]

The fact that iWork documents are actually packages is in fact one of my favorite features. With documents that rely heavily on graphics and other media, it is unnecessary to have to include all of those separately, as is often the case with Microsoft Office documents.

[Brettcamp]

You can always save as pdf as well, then email. For me, a single extra step ( save as or export) isn't so annoying as to constitute a deal breaker.

[folklore]

I just ran into the Pages document as package problem. I had a student who was trying to submit a paper via our university's course management system. Naturally, our website doesn't allow the student to upload a package - but different web browsers displayed that differently, and none of them really explained what the problem was. The end result was a seriously confused and frustrated student. After about 30 minutes of troubleshooting on my end, I finally realized that Page "documents" were actually packages. Try explaining that to a frustrated and freaked out student ten minutes from the a final exam deadline.

The funny thing is that if you email a Pages document via Mail.app, it zips it automatically without telling you. It's totally seamless. So my student had no idea why he could email his file but not submit it via the website - and naturally blamed it on our website.

[dpaanlka]

The fact that you didn't know Pages files are packages isn't Pages fault. Honestly, right clicking and selecting "compress" is about one eyeblink and two mouse clicks of hassle for something that really is so much more simple and organized than the alternative.

[folklore]

dpaanlka said:

The fact that you didn't know Pages files are packages isn't Pages fault. Honestly, right clicking and selecting "compress" is about one eyeblink and two mouse clicks of hassle for something that really is so much more simple and organized than the alternative.

I fail to see what's more simple and organized than a singular file that I can easily send to anyone using any mail program or web-based upload tool without additional fiddling.

Additional fiddling with things isn't really the simple "it just works" Apple way. For packages to "just work," the OS would need to zip/unzip them on the fly when they are requested for certain operations (e.g., uploading to a website). And while I'm technical enough to understand what a package is and why developers might choose a package over a single file as a document type, my students aren't and don't. Moreover, the file in question was a simple word processing document. Two pages of double-spaced text. That's it.

I agree that packages work well for some documents. For others, it adds a layer of complexity that is simply not necessary - and it just so happens that most of my work is of the latter category.

I'm not dogging Pages. It's a darn fine application for its age. I use it for flyers and whatnot. I can whip up a very pretty document in a hurry with Pages. But Pages has its quirks, such as the package thing, that simply make it undesirable for most of what I do at work.

[dpaanlka]

In the beginning of your response, you say you fail to see what's more simple and organized about packages, then near the end you admit you do see the benefits "for some documents" - I assume you recognized that it is far simpler for media-rich documents to be delivered as packages rather than folders full of many files about halfway through your post.

You are correct that for documents that are not media-rich, packages does add a (teeny tiny) degree of complexity, but is it really worth reverting to the old-fashioned way of sending lots of files, just for the sake of saving yourself a mouse click? Is that extra "layer of complexity" really that frustrating and/or confusing?

Basically, does that small negative really outweigh the great positive?

[kepardue]

Packages work well for programs storing a user's program data,but it is inappropriate for marking up fluid documents that may be mailed around to different platforms or collaborated on. It very much is a problem to ask a user to zip a file because it breaks a natural workflow and creates redundant data (which must also be decompressed and managed when recieving the document back from others). What does make sense is a platform agnostic format such as OpenDocument that consists of basically the same structure as a package compressed using zip compression. Try renaming an .odt to .zip and compare the two. iWork XML and ODF are similar in many respects...