I’ve been using the demo version of iWork for a bit less than a week. Actually, I should say that I’ve been using Pages semi-seriously and have taken a quick look at Numbers and Keynote. I find that I need to actually use a program in my everyday workflow to get a feel for it.

Keynote I’m totally sold on already. I have to start creating presentations for a series of classes in a couple of weeks and am looking forward to doing so in Keynote. As for Numbers, I just haven’t needed to work on a spreadsheet. I’ll need to do that also in the next week or so I’ll have a chance to kick the tires there also.

So, on to Pages. To say that I was underwhelmed by the last version would be putting it mildly. The idea of an integrated and inexpensive writing and page layout program is very attractive but Pages was sort of a bastard hybrid that did neither in an elegant say. I never used it for writing or editing, only for page layout. It was okay for that, reasonably capable and reasonably easy to use. Not the best either way but an adequate compromise. It wasn’t a everyday program but something that I pulled out occasionally. I do end up writing pretty much every day, just not with Pages.

I’m happy to say that may change. Apple must have realized that the Pages paradigm wasn’t working because they split the page layout and writing functions into separate, well I’m not quite sure what to call them; Apple uses the term modes. They could have just as easily split the program into two, one a word processor and one a page layout program. The screens and experiences are different enough to justify that decision.

The page layout mode is basically the old Pages. There are some tweaks and extra templates but changes are pretty minor. What’s new is the writing mode, and that’s what has me re-examining my bias against Pages and that’s what I’ll be describing. The short of the matter is that I like it. A lot.

Obviously anything made by Apple will look polished and Pages does. And it’s fast. I opened a website proposal that I had started in Word as my first trial document. The difference in speed was noticeable. And this was on a g5 iMac and Word v.X, not running Rosetta on an Intel machine. Pages opened quickly, ran quickly and scrolled quickly, even on a 120 page document (not the proposal). Now going back to Word is annoying. Maybe the new version of Word coming out next year, running Intel native will be faster but for now, no. I’ve ordered a new iMac and iWork, so I’m looking forward to even a bit more speed out of Pages next week.

Beyond the speed, I’m enjoying the uncluttered interface. Word allows for very fine grained toolbar customization, so my version displays only what I want it to. What I found interesting is that the default Pages toolbar is almost exactly what I had set up in Word. I guess my needs are pretty standard. But the Word toolbar now looks dated to me and a bit amateur, sort of the way that PowerPoint templates look amateur after using Keynote. But that’s probably not fair comparing a brand new program to one that came out five or six years ago.

Opening Word documents with Pages is straightforward. I’ve run 10 pretty heavily formatted Word files through Pages and had minor formatting errors on about half of them. But I have the same problem opening some of my old Word 98 files and documents sent from Windows. All in all, import and exporting Word files is straightforward. But it is importing and exporting, not simply opening and saving documents. If I had to send files back and forth a lot I might find that a bit annoyance. Whether that annoyance is greater than the experience of using a slower Word is something I’ll have to see about.

Beyond the formatting issue, Pages actually improves on Word’s experience of tracking changes. Instead of hard to read pop up change notes, Pages displays them in a side column. Word changes seem to be imported and exported accurately, so sharing a group edited document works well. I find it hard to express how much I like the side column approach. The side column is not just for change tracking. It also adds the ability to write notes attached to words or characters in a page. Notes are always visible but out of the way. You can print them or not when printing or exporting to PDF. It’s one of those touches that seems so right and obvious that I wonder why everybody doesn’t do it. Jer’s Novel Writer is the only program I’ve used that offers this touch. Words sticky type notes, modal dialog boxes and side sheets all work but don’t work nearly as well.

Not an Office Killer

Most of the standard word processor features seem to be included but if you are a Word power user you won’t feel any threat from Pages. There is no macro ability. Mail merge works beautifully from Address Book but not from any other source. If someone sends you a spreadsheet of addresses you will need to import that into address book to do a mail merge, unlike Word which can use Excel as a mail merge source. One lack I find strange is the inability to get live updates from Numbers spreadsheet that have been place into Pages. If I remember correctly, even Appleworks did that. If you create a data table in Numbers and place it in Pages, it works beautifully. If you update the date in Numbers you need to re-import the table into Pages. The updates are not transferred. Tables created in Pages have some basic number crunching ability but, while useful, that’s not the same thing.

If you are doing technical writing you will probably want to look elsewhere. Pages does basic footnotes but doesn’t seem to do endnotes. And it doesn’t integrate with Endnote. If you write academic or scientific papers you would be better served with Word or Mellel or the new Nisus Writer Pro.

Search and replace are adequate but basic. Searches and find and replace work as you’d expect. It looks like Pages uses the same find functionality built into TextEdit. You can search by whole or partial word and make the search case sensitive or not. Niceties like regex search included in Mellel or Nissus Writer, along with similarity search, saved searches and batch searches seem to be missing.

Pages also doesn’t seem to offer indexing, cross referencing or line numbers. But honestly, how often does the average user need these features? Pages is not a tool designed for the technical writer or corporate document creator, nor at its price point would I expect it to be.

$So What?

Pages does not do what some other programs can. What is does do, it does beautifully. It shines at page layout. It make document formatting easy. It offers a nice working environment. It is user friendly and has some beautiful templates included. In other words, Pages is an excellent choice for the typical home or SOHO user.

As a web designer I want the most capable software for my work. As a small business person I need the ability to write letters, reports and proposals. With Pages I have all that I need. I can create standard business documents and beautiful ones at that. Pages integrates with other Apple programs like iPhoto and Address Book, though to be honest so do most other Mac writing programs. I foresee that Pages will become my default word processor. I’ll still keep Word around for those times when I need capabilities that Pages can’t offer. I doubt that will more than a couple of times a month. I’ll still do my coding in a dedicated program, http://barebones.com”BBEdit. I’ll continue with my attempt at a novel in the brilliant writing tool, Scrivner, but I’ll move the chapters into Pages for editing. I love Pages’ revisions and notes implementation.

Conclusion

Could I do all my writing, editing and document creation in one program, say Word? Sure. Could I do my work as quickly? No. Could I produce as beautiful formatted marketing brochure or newsletter? Probably, though with a lot more effort. Am I a convert to Pages? Absolutely.

Value: 5

Ease of Use: 5
Documentation: 4
Features: 4
Macness: 5
Highly recommended

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This entry was posted on Saturday, August 18th, 2007 at 12:18 pm and is filed under Software Review. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.