A feature I sorely miss in Pages '05 is a thesaurus. Sure I can keep a Safari tab open on Thesaurus.com, or run Sherlock in the background, but it's a lot more convenient to be able to select a word while I write and see some common synonyms without interrupting my work.
Luckily, Nisus Thesaurus is a freeware program which offers an excellent thesaurus, and adds a system-wide service to boot. While in Pages, I can simply highlight the word I'd like to look up, select Nisus Thesaurus > Look Up Selection, navigate to a better word, and insert it with Nisus Thesaurus > Replace Selection.
Unforunately Pages uses the Comand-Shift-Comma and Command-Shift-Period key shortcuts to zoom in and out of your document, so you cannot access the thesaurus with them. In other programs, however, you can use these to look up and replace the selection, respectively. Hopefully Nisus will add support for custom key combinations in the next version.
[robg adds: 10.4 will add a system-wide dictionary and thesaurus, but until then, the free Nisus Thesaurus is a great addition. There are two ways around the shortcut key problem. If you'd like to leave Pages alone and don't mind editing plist files, you can change the default keyboard shortcuts in Nisus Thesaurus. There are three hints here that can help with the process. The much simpler solution, though, is to use the Keyboard Shortcuts section of the Keyboard preferences panel to reassign the Pages shortcuts. I set them to Control-Command-Comma and Control-Command-Period, and they work just fine -- both Pages and Nisus shortcuts work.]
Luckily, Nisus Thesaurus is a freeware program which offers an excellent thesaurus, and adds a system-wide service to boot. While in Pages, I can simply highlight the word I'd like to look up, select Nisus Thesaurus > Look Up Selection, navigate to a better word, and insert it with Nisus Thesaurus > Replace Selection.
Unforunately Pages uses the Comand-Shift-Comma and Command-Shift-Period key shortcuts to zoom in and out of your document, so you cannot access the thesaurus with them. In other programs, however, you can use these to look up and replace the selection, respectively. Hopefully Nisus will add support for custom key combinations in the next version.
[robg adds: 10.4 will add a system-wide dictionary and thesaurus, but until then, the free Nisus Thesaurus is a great addition. There are two ways around the shortcut key problem. If you'd like to leave Pages alone and don't mind editing plist files, you can change the default keyboard shortcuts in Nisus Thesaurus. There are three hints here that can help with the process. The much simpler solution, though, is to use the Keyboard Shortcuts section of the Keyboard preferences panel to reassign the Pages shortcuts. I set them to Control-Command-Comma and Control-Command-Period, and they work just fine -- both Pages and Nisus shortcuts work.]
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