Figure and Table captions

So far there's no automatic table or figure captioning, which limits Pages' usefulness for a lot of technical and academic writing.

As for multiple TOCs, each TOC you insert gathers headings up to the next TOC, so you can have separate TOCs for each section. However, if you want to have a separate TOC for illustrations at the beginning of a document, you can't do it.

A workaround, if you really need one, would be to include your figure or table caption style in the TOC then edit it manually. This would require you to be able to "flatten" a TOC as you can in Word, but I haven't tried in in Pages.

There are lots of things that limit Pages' usefulness.

Here's the question I have: Why does Apple make great hardware, a great OS but crappy everything else?

If you're gonna make word processor, why not make it a "Word killer"?
If you're gonna make a spreadsheet app, why not make it an "Excel killer"?

They didn't seem to mind making a Powerpoint killer! Unless you're making a presentation via committee (something I highly recommend against) there's nooo reason to use Powerpoint. Was it just an accident that it happened? Is there a group of people at Apple who hang their heads because they accidentally made a better office product than... well... Office? I can hear it now..."Sorry we didn't mean to make something better than Microsoft. We know. We were supposed to make something just good enough that everyone sees the potential in it but crappy enough that it really can't be used for anything other than Christmas letters and vacation photos. Our bad. You don't think Bill & Ballmer are mad do you?? Tell them we're sorry. We'll get it right with Pages 3 and Numbers... promise!"

I really don't get it.

Word is sorta like a mini-van in that it can do just about anything you'd need a vehicle/WP for. It just doesn't do any of them all that well. (My car salesman neighbor calls the mini-van the car no one wants to buy - but he sells more mini-vans then everything else combined. I see Word in the same light.) But Karl will never sell me a mini-van, though he has a shot at selling me Solstice this fall. And for me, Pages is like a Solstice - it ain't for everyone but it is for me. Pages is a Word killer, it just isn't your Word killer.

Yeah but I don't want cupholders, DVD players, folding rear seats, the thing to turn into a cannoli if I get into an accident... I want it to play nice with bibliography software and do TOC and TOF correctly. A huge piece of Apple's market share is in the university sector. Virtually all of these people need to create documents with references and multiple tables of contents and figures. I refuse to believe these facts did not occur to Apple when they were creating Pages and I refuse to believe Apple lacks the talent to add that functionality.

Yeah maybe... I wouldn't hold my breath. Sad to say.

Gee - I managed to get a Master's without any of that. What did I do wrong?

You didn't get the Ph.D.

dwb wrote:
Gee - I managed to get a Master's without any of that. What did I do wrong?

Hmm dunno, but I've heard that you guys on the other side of the big pond (i.e. Americans) can get a Master's degree without writing a thesis...
Otherwise this is somewhat inexplicable - at least to me:
Any advisor here in Germany would have bathed a thesis lacking proper captioning in red ink - and this for a good reason.

When I think of Pages, I tend to lump it in the same category as Nisus Writer Expres. iWork is $79, NWE is $49, so the cost between NWE and Pages is similar--I'm leaving the $80 version of Nisus out of the running since it's even with the cost of the iWor suite.

Now, Nisus Writer Pro does the things you're looking for: figure numbers, works with Bookends, etc. It doesn't track changes, though.

Where I'm going with this is what we're most likely looking for in Pages is out of the scope of Apple's design. iWork as a suite is good for the average everyday user that has minimal word processing and spreadsheet needs. Keynote probably beats PowerPoint because creating presentations in PowerPoint is a rough slog. But when people ask for a Word killer, I think they are really saying, "I want a program that does everything Word already does, but doesn't suck. Oh, and I want it to be part of a $80 suite, too."

I wish Pages did automatic figure numbering and integrated with a biblio program, too. But I think what it does as part of a $80 suite is **** good. But if it had the features here and the price point was closer to $150 it's getting into the "well, for that money I should just get Office" money.

I expect you'll apologize for this outrageously disrespectful remark once you've had a chance to realize how uncalled for it was.

Maybe this came up wrong.
I know at least a handful of physicists who went to the U.S. for a year abroad mentioning that in fact it is possible to gain a Master's degree without writing a Master's Thesis but by collecting credits.
However this type of Master's degree isn't recognized here in Germany - because they have not written a thesis.

What I wanted to point out was:
Figures and tables need proper captioning. If they don't have it, there will be a lot of red ink on your printout when it returns from your advisor - and this for a good reason.
A TOC also is pretty basic stuff that has to be present in any structured document more then a few pages long - something a thesis clearly qualifies for - and since a thesis often has a lot of figures and tables it's a good thing to provide a listing of both - depending on the University it may even be required.
So if you're claiming that you

dwb wrote:
(...) managed to get a Master's without any of that.(TOC, TOF, TOT...)

and ask

What did I do wrong?

Is it that absurd implying that you did not write a thesis?

So if your comment meant "You won't die from doing it manually - at least I did not!"
Then nevermind - you're right on that one and then I will apologize for my daring conclusion.
Nevertheless you're missing the point, because that's what software is made for:
Deliver us from or at leas assist us in accomplishing stupid, repetitious, error-prone tasks so that we can concentrate on the stuff that matters.

You can set a series of linked text boxes, each under your images and figures, each with a line in it that is preceded with fig 1... fig 2... etc.

If you create a separate Paragraph style you should be able to make a table of contents based solely on that style.

I don't have a copy of Pages handy to play with, but give it a go. Unless you are including an explanation of each labelled figure (as in: fig 1. although subject to debate, the minivan has become the workhorse of the soccer industry) your text boxes under each figure don't have to be any more than one line in height.

Good luck.

Gerry.

I would love to see this features in Pages. I will not be able to use it until this feature exists due to work requirements.

I think the issue is needing be able to create two table of contents, which I'm not sure Pages lets you do.