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Pages 'First Look' preview online Reviews
Following up on my look at Keynote, my first look at Pages is now online on Macworld's site.

Now I hope to have some time to start working with the iLife apps; I've barely touched them since starting with the iWork projects!

-rob.
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Pages 'First Look' preview online
Authored by: allanmarcus on Jan 25, '05 02:08:03PM

re: "Workaround a Bug in Find and Replace The Find and Replace panel in Pages suffers from a bug in Cocoa (the language Pages was written in). If you open the Find and Replace panel (press Command-F) and then enter words in both the Find and Replace boxes, and click Replace and Find, Pages will insert the "replace" word at the current cursor position. In addition, if you press this button after the last "find" word has been replaced, your replace word will be inserted over and over, each time you click the button. "

I don't this this is a cocoa thing. I think it's just how it's programmed. this is the same functionality as BBEdit.

re: "Right now, the only way to insure that PC users see exactly what you see appears to be to physically print the document from Pages or Preview, and then take them the printout."

Any idea why? Is this a limitation of Acrobat?

Also, are there any blank and white templates? Not all of us have color laser printers! :-)

Finally, as for iLife, be very very careful in iPhoto 5. many people are having problems. Some are losing libraries, but most are losing albums. The pictures are still there, but it's easy to lose an album. Here's how I managed to stop album loss:

1) BACKUP your library before you start. You undoubtedly will need to restore.
2) Album loss seems to be associated with moving an album into a folder that contains other albums. I think this only occurs if the album was created prior to iPhoto 5, or if the album has not resided in a folder yet. The answer? Create a dummy folder. Move the album into the dummy folder. Then move the album to the folder you want it in. Once the album is moved into the dummy folder, I think some meta-data gets added tothe album and it's now safe to move.
3) If you move an album into a folder, make sure it's in the folder! If you can't see the album in the folder, undo right away andyou will get your album back. If this happens, try the trick in step 2.

I look forward to playing with iWork. My copy is on order.

-Allan



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Find - Replace, not really a bug but a bad implementation
Authored by: hamarkus on Jan 25, '05 03:17:33PM

I agree with Allan in that the way find/replace works in Cocoa is not a bug but a 'feature', however, its implementation is misleading to say the least.

For once, after hitting command-F the 'Replace' and 'Replace & Find' buttons probably should be grayed out and the 'Next' button be called 'Find' since if nothing is selected (or since nothing is found yet, and thereby nothing selected) there is nothing to replace (yet) and hitting the blue button actually finds something.

And after you, or the find command, has selected something it is not really intuative to select the menu command 'Find' to replace it (although one quickly learns that I guess, like learning to shut Windows by selecting 'Start').



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Find - Replace, not really a bug but a bad implementation
Authored by: robg on Jan 25, '05 04:46:31PM

That was my point -- it really *shouldn't* work that way. Gray out "Replace & Find" until after "Find" has been used.

It also doesn't make much sense that, even if you are using "Replace and Find" in the right way by Finding first, that it keeps replacing *after* you've found all occurrences.

Bug or feature is a minor quibble; it clearly shouldn't work this way! :)

-rob.



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Pages 'First Look' preview online
Authored by: robg on Jan 25, '05 05:30:01PM
You asked:
re: "Right now, the only way to insure that PC users see exactly what you see appears to be to physically print the document from Pages or Preview, and then take them the printout."

Any idea why? Is this a limitation of Acrobat?
I've just now proven it's not an Acrobat limitation, because I've found a workaround: if you have the full version of Acrobat, you can use Print and select Adobe PDF as the printer. When you do this, the resulting PDF retains drop shadows, even in Reader on the Mac and PC. We're updating the story with a modified version of the original paragraph, now that I know there's at least one workaround.

The first version of Keynote had similar problems -- it couldn't export transparency levels (it can now). Perhaps it's a related issue. For now, I guess I'll use Adobe's PDF printer as the workaround...
Also, are there any blank and white templates? Not all of us have color laser printers! :-)
While I don't see any black and white design templates (there are some standard letters and postcards with grayscale imagery), there are many that should look just fine in grayscale. The borders and outlines will translate well to grays, and you can just place grayscale imagery (or let the printer convert it).
Finally, as for iLife, be very very careful in iPhoto 5. many people are having problems. Some are losing libraries, but most are losing albums. The pictures are still there, but it's easy to lose an album. Here's how I managed to stop album loss:
I'm going to put this up as a hint under your name; I had the exact same thing happen to me last night!

-rob.

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Pages 'First Look' preview online
Authored by: tim1724 on Jan 25, '05 02:41:40PM

That's a good first look at Pages. It brings up a few issues I hadn't thought about yet, and you've identified all the problems I found as well.

The lack of any page management is the big one .. not being able to rearrange pages is somewhat understandable (it brings up some issues of how to reflow the body text) but not being able to delete pages quickly becomes annoying when using their templates. (It wouldn't be an issue if you're only dealing with inline objects, but Apple's templates make heavy use of fixed objects to achieve lots of cool tricks.)

It's a great start, however, and I'm sure we'll see many fixes and improvements in future updates. Hopefully Apple will be quick to address some of the problems.


---
Tim Buchheim



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Pages 'First Look' preview online
Authored by: restiffbard on Jan 25, '05 03:58:00PM

cool, I've been waiting for this. Despite already having Pages and Keynote 2 it's always good to read what others have found about a program.



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Sadly sticking with Office
Authored by: Ipstenu on Jan 25, '05 05:23:05PM

Meh. The lack of compatibility with PCs is a big one for me. As much as I hate office, I like that I can pop in my jumpdrive and work on a word doc at work and at home.

I'm still cheesed there's no 'Sheets' or other Excelish program. I still think there are more 'common' users who'd need that instead of Keynote. Not knocking Keynote, but I know I never use it.



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Pages 'First Look' preview online
Authored by: b17bmbr on Jan 25, '05 05:44:30PM

what if you just want to write a simple document? and how would pages compare to abiword? there is a really nice os x port and i love it. it isn't word, but that's a plus for most things, and OO.org writer is so slooooowwwww..... and unlike the X11 abiword, all the fonts are there. and it doesn't matter that abi is free, because i use keynote in my classroom everyday, and will buy k2 regardless if it comes w/pages or not. just that i use abi for most wp. it rocks!!



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Pages 'First Look' preview online
Authored by: robg on Jan 25, '05 05:53:50PM

Simple documents work fine; the pre-built letters templates will save a bunch of formatting time, even for simple docs. Letters, etc. will fly out. I'm going to try it for my normal personal communications for a bit and see how it does...

-rob.



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Pages 'First Look' preview online
Authored by: terceiro on Jan 25, '05 11:40:02PM

I, too, bought iWork just to get the updated Keynote, becuase I use it just about every day. And that's just because I think that Powerpoint makes the most visually awful presentations imaginable.

Pages is a fine first step. I'm playing with it, creating some basic templates for my own writing (a standard MLA template, for instance), which was nice and quick and easy to create.

What I did appreciate about Pages is the ability to import all the styles from another document easily, and then use the drawer to quickly select the style. Also, when you deviate from a style, it indicates quietly (but clearly) with a small red triangle in place of the standard black one.

It's the styles which, for me, made it stand out. For a while, at least, it'll replace Word. More for curiosity, I suppose, than necessity. I suppose I should note that for me at least, Pages does a better job than Word in keeping up with my typing. And it doesn't have the annoying "no-response-until-the-second-keypress" bug that's in Word v. X and 2004. That's a huge relief in itself.

If only it worked with Endnote 6... Does anyone know if it integrates with any other bibliography software? Will it work with Endnote 8? What about Bookends? Sente?



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Pages 'First Look' preview online
Authored by: jctull on Jan 27, '05 01:33:48PM

Endnote has support for scanning rtf docs, so you should be able to creat a manuscript, export as rtf, then scan that file. So yes and no. It will work, but it will not have the nice features that they make available only in Word, like unscanning a document, direct interaction with the database, etc. I would say give it a try anyway. It is easy enough to switch to Endnote, copy your citation(s), then paste that in place in your ms. Not much different than what the add-in in Word offers, but without search, etc.



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HTML Export of limited use
Authored by: Han Solo on Jan 25, '05 09:18:01PM
Is it just me, or does exporting from Pages to HTML need a fair bit of work? As far as I can tell, after exporting a few of the templates to see what they would look like — well, they look very little like what they look like on the screen or printed page: multi-column layouts become (horizontally) page-filling < DIV >'s, right-aligned items are flush left, rectangular colored regions become oddly-shaped combinations of boxes, etc. I didn't actually upload any resulting files to check if the HTML and/or CSS validated, but I can say that I don't see Pages as even close to a poor-man's replacement for Claris HomePage — another product for which Apple should find a modern, OS X-based replacement. In fact, I'm not sure I see the point of HTML export at all in this version, as most people will probably be unhappily surprised by the output. (Not to mention probably not know what to do with the resulting files — yes, files. Check it out for yourself — think this will pass the "Mom test"? Doubtful.)

Perhaps Apple can hire a few CSS coding experts (take a look at the CSS Zen Garden, for example) and Pages 2.0 will become an acceptable basic web design app as well — there is no obvious reason why it couldn't fill this need for low(ish)-end users with no interest in or facility with (X)HTML, CSS, etc., yet who would love to use some well-designed templates to put together an attractive web site. They could even integrate it with .Mac as an additional enticement for people to sign up, thereby increasing revenue from that product as well.

C'mon Apple: think different...ly.

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HTML Export of limited use
Authored by: jctull on Jan 27, '05 01:39:21PM

I just tried an html export. You are right, pretty terrible. You would hope that they could render horizontal features in a document as tables or something. I end up with items that overlap, nonsensical progression of the original layout, etc. I suppose this would work for a plain text document.

As far as multiple files, there is no way around this if you have any images. You also need a css sheet for the file to read (maybe you can define the css in the html document, not sure about that). Certainly you are stuck with extra files for images. Not planning to replace NVu or Quanta anytime soon.



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And speaking of revenue makers...
Authored by: Han Solo on Jan 25, '05 09:38:23PM
...when will Apple start releasing "Page Packs" much like the "Jam Packs" for GarageBand? Granted, constructing a set of software instruments is substantially more involved than designing a set of templates for Pages, yet I have to believe (in spite of my perpetual amateur musician status and the Jam Packs that I own) that the demand for "Page Packs" focused on specific applications (marketing, legal, medical, education, etc.) has got to swamp the demand for "Jam Packs" for GarageBand. And if they are easy for Apple to make but hard for your average user to do on her own, then that's the definition of a revenue source.

Along those lines, does anyone know if the specifications for designing a Pages template are available to third-party developers? Much like there is a small market in Keynote themes (yet generally high-quality — see KeynotePro.com, KeynoteUser.com, Keynote Theme Park, and Keynote Gallery, to name a few), so too I could imagine independent developers creating specialized templates for Pages. One wonders how extensible Pages will turn out to be....

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And speaking of revenue makers...
Authored by: robg on Jan 25, '05 10:40:10PM

The manual actually explains exactly how to design a new template from scratch, step by step.

I expect we'll see a fair number of Pages templates. Most will be bloody awful :), but some will be quite good.

-rob.



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And speaking of revenue makers...
Authored by: Han Solo on Jan 26, '05 10:40:08PM
Oh, yeah.... that thing — the manual. *Blush* Didn't think of opening the manual.... (Guess since I haven't seen one on any other software for so long...!) Thanks, Rob: I'll have to dig it out and have a look!

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Pages 'First Look' preview online
Authored by: watts on Jan 25, '05 10:46:00PM

I spent Sunday nursing a jacked-up back while in the lodge at Mammoth Mountain, and instead of snowboarding I made a little handout for work on Monday using Pages.

One super cool thing about it that I discovered is that you can drag photos out of the Photoshop browser right onto a template photo. This works from iPhoto as well.

I managed to get a pretty nice looking document out in an hour... if only I could figure out how to change a page's template on the fly...



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2 iWork questions
Authored by: da5idonimac on Jan 26, '05 04:10:56AM

i have 2 questions, 1 regarding Pages, 1 regarding Keynote2:

Pages: It has been asked here before, what about bibliographies, index of pictures etc. - stuff needed to write academic documents?

Keynote2: I don't have Keynote (yet), and i don't understand that stuff about the resolution. Does it erally mean i have to take into consideration what resolution i will play the presentation in? Powerpoint scales the slides automatically, and this can be very helpful.



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2 iWork questions
Authored by: robg on Jan 26, '05 12:00:37PM

Pages: As far as I can tell, there are templates which include "bibliography" pages, but there are no bibliography tools of any sort. I don't do much with this stuff, so I might be mistaken, but a quick look at the menus, and a search of the manual, showed no references to 'bibliography.'

The same is true of any sort of automatic picture indexing functionality. Pages is, mostly, a decent standard (no bells and whistles) word processor wrapped into a simple page layout program.

Keynote: Keynote will scale down, but not up. That is, if you have a 1024x768 presentation, and you project it on a 1280x1024 monitor, your slides will appear in the center of the screen, with a black surround. If you present on an 800x600 projector, the slides will scale down to fit.

Note that the above is based on testing with my LCD monitor; I assume it will work the same on a 'real' projector, but have not tested it.

-rob.



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2 iWork questions
Authored by: beepotato on Jan 27, '05 04:39:27AM

Based on my own experience, Keynote will scale your slides down AND up. You can have a presentation designed for 800x600 play full screen on a 1024x768 or 1280x1024 display. Although note that while scaling down is automatic, scaling up requires you to check the corresponding option in Keynote preferences.
Also note that I'm talking about Keynote 1 here (I don't have Keynote 2 yet -- it will start shipping only on Saturday here in Europe) but I guess (hope) it works the same in Keynote 2.



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2 iWork questions
Authored by: robg on Jan 27, '05 08:32:40AM

You are correct -- I'd forgotten that pref, as I usually have it disabled (I find the upscaling makes things blurrier than I'd prefer). But yes, it can be enabled for upscaling!

Sorry about the false info...

-rob.



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Function keys?
Authored by: joe12south on Jan 26, '05 03:44:52PM

Is it possible to assign keyboard shortcuts to styles?



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bookends for refs
Authored by: kissedsmiley on Feb 14, '05 11:29:05PM

fyi, there's an interesting mac-compatible product that seems to be great at importing just about any kind of format http://www.sonnysoftware.com/download.html ; I read about it via Mellel http://www.redlers.com/generalcomparison.html



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