[MW Forums]

Our look at the changes in the iWork '08 suite concludes with Pages, the word-processing and page-layout tool. Jeffrey Battersby finds that the major additions to Pages -- namely, better compatibility with Word, a contextually-aware formatting bar, and much-improved tools for tracking changes -- make this iWork component a viable alternative to Microsoft's Word. more

[Wyeast]

I agree that Pages 08 does a very good job with rendering Word's regular text and graphics, probably about as good as it can do without copying the layout engine exactly. (I saw a cumulative difference in text metrics that meant that pagination may not be maintained exactly.)
Unfortunately, because of how Pages specfies padding around paragraphs, the text formatting and layout of tables from Word is not as accurate -- Word will put a few points of whitespace around the insided of each table cell to separate the text from the table borders. Pages doesn't do this, and as a result, the text is right next to the cell borders and the text doesn't flow the same way as in Word.
Maybe the genius Apple engineers can overcome this and give fullly page-accurate layout for tables.
Untill then, Pages will be a good alternative for people who need to open and save Word docs casually, but not viable for those of us who need to fit into a Word workflow. (I don't really mean this as a complaint, just to clarify what Pages can and can't do.)

[drspkelly]

One, almost fatal, flaw with Pages 08: (still) no auto-save. I mean, WTF?? I lost a 40 page document today. Three hours of work.
Happily with a bit of applescript, automator and the rules-based preference pane "Do Something When" auto-save for Pages can be hacked together, but for the regular user, the first crash on a long document will kill Pages as an Office alternative.

[swokm]

That's interesting. I thought for sure that Apple would be able to nail technical documents (much text, index, section, referencing, etc.) but have a hard time with graphics and layout.
I guess I was wrong, as my little sample document imported all wacky, WRT headers and sections. TOC and the rest looks pretty darn good though. I though headers would be easy...
EDIT: Spoke too soon (sort of). Pages only misconfigured one setting ("same as previous header") in only one section of my document (?). Of course, it tumbles on and compounds errors later in the doc. Apple is really close on this one IMHO, thanks for the first look of page layout styles!

[jdb8167]

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One, almost fatal, flaw with Pages 08: (still) no auto-save. I mean, WTF?? I lost a 40 page document today. Three hours of work.

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You really work for hours without hitting command-s? It only takes a fraction of a second. Whenever I pause to think or to take a break, I hit command-s. I can't imagine losing hours of work because I didn't save.

[Luis_Alejandro]

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One, almost fatal, flaw with Pages 08: (still) no auto-save. I mean, WTF?? I lost a 40 page document today. Three hours of work.

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History shows that the majority of accidents are due to human fault.
You want to blame the "programmers' fault" because you did never save your work in three hours?
Although autosave is a must-be feature, do not blame other for your own lack of responsability.

[swokm]

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History shows that the majority of accidents are due to human fault.
You want to blame the "programmers' fault"

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LOL! Yet more evidence that programmers aren't human!
(sorry Luis, I kid) But programmers exist only to help humans make less mistakes. An auto-save option would do that. Personally, I'd just prefer Pages not crash... that eliminates the whole problem...;)

[Adwiz]

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You want to blame the "programmers' fault" because you did never save your work in three hours?

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I agree that it's wrong to blame the software when you fail to save, but I can understand how people get lazy when commonly used programs do auto-save for you. I've gotten used to Final Cut Pro auto saving for me and sometimes forget to save. If someone who uses Word most of the time uses a different word processor, it's easy to see how they might not think of saving.
I actually hate those auto save features because they do make us lazy about important habits. But they aren't consistent, which is where the problem begins. If this isn't a universal feature (generated by the OS) then it really shouldn't be used on a per-application basis, in my opinion.

[macwmaurice]

Are Pages and Numbers able to open and save ODF documents? I think now is the time to move away from custom formats, and move to real standards! Could help Apple win government contracts too...

[lt1]

Wow that formating bar changing..................is just like Office 2007. Sorry Office 2007 in fusion is better than this.

[neondiet]

One killer feature (I think) the author missed out on is the new Styles Draw that pops out the side. The little round blue style icon on the toolbar toggles it.
I'm a casual MS Word user, and I've tried tinkering around with Styles in Word before and found it way too unfriendly and confusing to be of any use. And if someone sends you a Word doc that uses some weird custom Styles you just can't get on with, good luck trying to change them to something you can live with. You'll be there all day and get no real work done at all.
But with Pages 08's Style draw, its amazingly easy to pick a style, change it to what you like inside the document and save it back. Or even change it and save it as a new style of your choosing. Hint: the little black triangle next to the style changes from black to red when you change the style.
it's so easy, try it yourself. Type a few lines, select them, then turn them into a bullet list by clicking in the Bullet List Style in the Styles Draw. Next open the Inspector and select the Text tab followed by the List tab. Now tinker with the bullet and text indent settings to change the way the bullet looks (e.g. 0.2 and 0.4) Notice now that the triangle next to the Bullet List Style in the Styles Draw has turned red. Click it to get the menu !!
Now you can Redefine that Style and change it to your new setting, or create a new List style of your own. You can do this as many times as you like. Personally I've never enjoyed this much control over a document before, and it's never been as easy as this. In typical Apple style, they just make it work /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

[jcr]

Does this new version support the Equation Editor? In previous versions you could create equations and then paste them into the document. Once the equation was in the document it was a graphic and could not be edited. Does anyone know if equations can be edited in the new version?

[HandyMac]

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Are Pages and Numbers able to open and save ODF documents? I think now is the time to move away from custom formats, and move to real standards!

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Apparently not. From the manual: "Pages can import the following file formats: plain text (.txt), Rich Text Format (.rtf and .rtfd), AppleWorks 6 word processing (.cwk), and Microsoft Word (.doc)." ... "You can share your Pages documents across different platforms by exporting them to other formats, such as Microsoft Word, PDF, or plain text. You can also save a document so it can be opened using Pages in iWork 05 and iWork 06."
This is pretty much a deal-breaker for me too. I'm sick of proprietary formats, and having to redo everything every couple of years when a publisher decides to kill a program for reasons having nothing to do with its capabilities or quality, e.g. my two favorite classic Mac apps, AppleWorks & PageMaker. Pages looks like it might be able to take the place of both (though it still seriously lacks some capabilities I'd relied on in AW & PM), but I'm looking more at Open/NeoOffice (and other open-source apps like Scribus and Inkscape), whose development life will be decided by what users want rather than by arrogant programmers ("We don't like AppleWorks because it was part of the 'old' Apple, so you're going to use this new app and like it!") and bean-counters who don't actually use the software ("You can make more money by creating a whole new program and forcing everyone to buy it.").

[swokm]

That is insightful. I hadn't even thought about the standards problem. However, I suspect that as ODF support is heavily rumored -- personally, I'd NEVER break a NDA -- to be part of the system in 10.5.
If it is a system component, perhaps that is why Apple is waiting for 10.5, rather than hacking together a separate ODF filterset just for Pages on 10.4.
Just my 2 cents.