Pages 3.0 (iWork 08)

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KimTwemlow
Posts: 21
Joined: 2007-06-29 10:48:01

Pages 3.0 (iWork 08)

Post by KimTwemlow »

Just had a look at the demo of Pages 3.0. I still think it's a page layout app. trying to pretend it's a word processor, but it does have a few features that NWP lacks - comments, track changes, etc. (the usual suspects).

I'm not about to change horses but was wondering what everyone here thinks. In short: Pages vs NWP - what say you?
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scottwhitlock
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Post by scottwhitlock »

We've been talking about this under another thread on Track Changes...I'll repost most of what I said there here...

As a rule, iWork '08 is a great update. The comments and track changes translate seamlessly between Word and Pages, the only Mac native program other than Word that seems to be able to do this. And the three or four .docx files I have thrown at Pages seems to open without a hiccup. I do believe that, outside of NeoOffice, Pages does the best job at opening Word documents. And exporting them.

Pages, on the other hand, does NOT do a good job with .rtf, which is ironic, because it is the one file format they didn't really have to reverse engineer (unlike the .doc and .docx, both of which are read very well in Pages). For example, it will strip both your styles and your footnotes/endnotes from a NWP document when it is opened. It does the same thing when it exports its own files to RTF. This is one of the few drawbacks for Pages for me, because of Endnote/Bookends compatibility requiring an .rtf file to turn temp citations into perms (and no Word-like plugin available for Pages from either program). This is why I will always use NWP for most kinds of writing, like articles and books where I have to maintain citations, which nonsurprisingly is exactly what NWP was created for--serious writing. However, for document creation, Pages, imo, really can't be beat.

And I love Numbers, as it seems uniquely situated to everyday uses of a spreadsheet. For example, Excel was never good for grade keeping, because you get bound up by the grid. Numbers allows you to think outside of the grid. It is everything I have ever wanted in a spreadsheet app. It allows me to keep two different tables on one sheet and have separate formatting for both while allowing me to reference each in formulas. You can drop charts and images and everything else and Numbers handles it with aplumb.

And Keynote was great to begin with, and it's even greater now. I use it exclusively for my lectures where I would have used PowerPoint.

I really enjoy iWork '08. I was at the Apple Store the day it came out and probably bought the first copy. Does Pages replace NWP when I'm writing an article? Never. Does Pages do a much better job at making class documents, though, like handouts with graphics, charts, and docs such as syllabi and others? I would have to say yes. I just pretend that iWork '08 has one more program, and that program is NWP. And with them all, I can finally say good riddance to Microsoft. And anything that allows me to do that is perfectly fine in my book.
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joehardy
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Post by joehardy »

scottwhitlock wrote: Does Pages replace NWP when I'm writing an article? Never. Does Pages do a much better job at making class documents, though, like handouts with graphics, charts, and docs such as syllabi and others? I would have to say yes. I just pretend that iWork '08 has one more program, and that program is NWP. And with them all, I can finally say good riddance to Microsoft. And anything that allows me to do that is perfectly fine in my book.
NWP is still my word processor of choice, but the iWork demo has probably won me over for the update to Keynote and the addition of Numbers.
Pages apparently will also read the new Microsoft Word .docx format.

But NWP has indexing and handy palettes (which I prefer to the Inspector) including the handy spell check/thesaurus palette that regularly gives me better ideas for the right word than the one I just (correctly) typed.

Also NWP works on Panther and on a G3 iMac, although Express is, of course, faster than Pro on a G3. Pages requires at least a G4 and Tiger.
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