Using Pages As a Desktop Publisher

If it's just some text that is associated with the image, put it in a text box. Turn Wrap off for the image (if it's on) or the text in the box will be shifted.

Walt

Have you tried to use a blank template in page layout mode? No object can become inline on a page layout document.

From the Help menu you can download Pages User Guide. Read about the difference between Word processing document and Page layout document. It have a lot of information on using PAges

What I am looking for is the ability to open a new Pages document and treat it like a blank canvas

See the opening screen: Blank is one of the options. The title of this thread is ominuous, though. At the turn of 2008, a thread entitled 'Using Pages for high-end DTP' had over 100 posts and over 4500 views. Whether this is a DTP product, and to what degree, is an ongoing debate.

/hh

Hi Matt

Welcome to the forum.

As has been said to get a totally freeform document:

+Menu > New from Template > Page Layout > Blank+

…and construct everything with text boxes and image boxes.

Having said that and having done a lot of forms in my time, it would be better to use Word Processing mode set to a standard large exact line spacing, usually 18 or 24 pt and use inline boxes for the form inserts. This keeps everything in place, together and aligned.

All alignment is done with tabs and measured sizes of the inline object which can be stretched in place.

But it is all predicted by exactly what content you wish to add and how you wish it to be used.

Peter

If you're near an Apple Store, they do have a free workshop that covers the basics. If you've bought a Mac in the last couple of weeks from Apple, either in an Apple Store or from the online Apple Store, consider getting One-to-One.

There are tutorials: Apple, Lynda.com

Books: iWork '09 The Missing Manual, iWork for Dummies

An advanced Google search for the phrase iWork tutorials or Pages tutorials should find even more.

I've done all of my DTP in Pages since iWork '05 came out. Before that I used AppleWorks.

Matt

You will find a list of learning resources here:

http://www.freeforum101.com/iworktipsntrick/viewforum.php?f=15&mforum=iworktipsn trick

Whilst there have a look around. The forum contains a lot of compact detailed information and is growing.

Peter

On the whole 'Is Pages any good for DTP' issue... I read the previous thread too, and while Pages is clearly no InDesign and probably no good for big complicated projects like manuals, my experience was that it's fine for smaller things, like posters and leaflets.

At that level the only issue is bleeding and crop marks - if your printer needs them, then Pages won't be any good because it can't produce them. But for smallish runs of simpler things, where probably you're using a small high street print shop, it's fine because a basic pdf will generally be fine.

I just thought this was worth mentioning because having read posts focussing on complicated projects I toyed with shelling out the large price for InDesign. I didn't, and Pages did the job fine. InDesign would've been a sledgehammer to crack a walnut.

Even small jobs can be a problem:

http://www.freeforum101.com/iworktipsntrick/viewtopic.php?t=22&mforum=iworktipsn trick

P.

I understand the basics, but I want to do more with creating documents with multiple columns, pictures, and so on. One respondent to my question said I should download the manual, and I have consulted it, but is there another resource I could use?

In general, to use a publishing tool you need to know how the tool is wired into underlying publishing technologies, including page description models, models for converting font-independent character codes into font-dependent glyph codes, and models for converting device independent colour codes into device dependent colourant codes (RGB combinations, CMYK combinations).

If you have a 'missing manual' for the interface, you may learn a lot about functionality that is internal to the publishing tool, but you will learn nothing whatsoever about how to connect what you do in the interface to the underlying publishing technologies that let you collaborate in a publishing process where other publishing tools are also used.

How much of the underlying publishing technology one should strive to understand depends on what one is trying to do. A professional photographer may never use any other file format than TIFF and never use any other publishing tool that Adobe Lightroom for colour capture and Adobe Photoshop for colour correction, being completely ignorant of PostScript and PDF, for instance.

While there are limitations in almost all literature, often caused by commercial political considerations, a good foundation for production is provided in the following which is free:

/hh

http://www.pdflib.com/developer/technical-documentation/books/postscript-pdf-bib el/

Even small jobs can be a problem

The link points to a post by Magnus that says:

Colour and colour profiles will be stored in a way that may be accessible by Preview but not Adobe Acrobat.

Is there a reference to a knowledgeable resource somewhere?

/hh

Henrik Holmegaard wrote:

Even small jobs can be a problem

The link points to a post by Magnus that says:

Colour and colour profiles will be stored in a way that may be accessible by Preview but not Adobe Acrobat.

Is there a reference to a knowledgeable resource somewhere?

I'm pretty sure I did not use any references except this forum. Some people had complained about differences in colour between Preview and Adobe Acrobat.

To be honest, I am frustrated by the whole compatibility business. People post when they have problems, but they naturally do not spend time trying to isolate the exact elements that caused problems for their particular files. I do not blame them. We all have limited time. However, it also means that it is more difficult to help other people with similar problems.

Actually I have been very restrained with what I have posted on Pages in the iWorkTipsnTricks forum.

Compared with other posts elsewhere.

Right Magnus? 😉

Peter

I'm pretty sure I did not use any references except this forum. Some people had complained about differences in colour between Preview and Adobe Acrobat.

OK, then it's my mistake, sorry. I should provide references to technical resources from GATF, Adobe and so forth. For instance, Dov Isaacs and Leonard Rosenthol on PDF/X-4 here http://forums.adobe.com/thread/285723

To be honest, I am frustrated by the whole compatibility business. People post when they have problems, but they naturally do not spend time trying to isolate the exact elements that caused problems for their particular files. I do not blame them.

Everyday endusers don't understand the difference between a revisable and application-dependent file format, a non-revisable and application-independent page description format, and the increasing number of page description formats and sub-formats, nor do they understand that computerisation causes characters to be different from glyphs and colours to be different from colourants. This produces the problem that everyday endusers cannot detail the challenges they confront because they are comparing the incomparable.

Similarly, colour developers can be completely ignorant of composition and composition developers can be completely ignorant of colour which is to say that there is no common language for the two imaging models that must match if a page description is to be portable and repurposable. Software management and software marketing in Adobe, Apple, Heidelberg, Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft and so forth can be in a similar state. These problems are produced by organisations geared to engineering product, but not to using the product they engineer.

Apple's manuals are awful by the above argument, and the 'missing manuals' by technical publishers in the United States are based on the same awful assumption that application-dependent interface is the be all and end all of device independence, portability, and repurposing. These books are basically BAD, they are badly researched and they are badly reproduced, on bad paper, too.

/hh

…they may be bad but they make sure they don't bite the hand that feeds them.

There is a lot of money to be made in selling illusions.

Just some of the trillions that have been "invested" in the last decade.

P.