Pages as replacement for Word ?

I agree with you. Avoid the bloat at all cost!

My favorite word processors for every day use are Appleworks and Pages... in that order. I use Appleworks because of its excellent compatibility with OS 9 which I am still using and its fantastic database and mail merge. I use Pages because I love many aspects of the interface. It reders fonts beautifully and has awesome tweaking tools to get the page to look just how you want it. The line and character sliders in the Inspector are ingenious.

I'd be happy if Apple did with Pages what they did with Garageband: Improve performance. Low resolution previews might stop this program from being so sluggish and could be a user preference.

Kurt

Evan C. wrote, "since it's made by Apple, you know it works great!"

To which I say, "Oh no it doesn't!". Pages cannot even keep up with me as I type if I view two pages up, or if I view at higher magnification than 125% or if I'm in a large document. This is a crude flaw that was not fixed with the latest Pages updates.

I've tried every other fix possible too, but the fact is that my Mac Mini has 32 megs of video memory (just meeting the minimum requirements). It generously surpasses all of Pages' other system requirements. The typing lag makes it truly unusable. And this is just regular text. No tables, images, etc.

Unfortunately, this ONE thing is the bottleneck that makes Pages 2 unusable on my Mac Mini with a 23" cinema display. On this very same system Pages 1 works WELL, as do Word, AppleWorks, TextEdit, BBEdit, um... sticky notes... ANYthing else I type in.

This is such a clunky flaw I can't believe Apple hasn't fixed it. And if Pages 1 was fine, why can't they fix Pages 2 for something (I assume to be) so basic such as keeping up with typing plain letters on the screen?

Excuse me, but are you using a template?? If you are, did you ever try reducing the amount of words that are already on the template, then typing??? It works on mine. It's only common sense.

Pages is sluggish. You can improve it in several ways. My most sluggish docs are the ones where I show the entire page on the screen (with columns like legal landscape for example). If I make the Pages legal half and use Cocoa Booklet to print them they perform better.

Wrapping seems to slow the program down. Pages is basically trying to redraw the page each you move or type. With wrapping off on objects I get better performance.

If you turn off the Pages thumbnails performance improves slightly.

It would be nice to see these things fixed in Pages 3 at least.

OSX keyboard performance drastically improves if you open the System Preferences in the Apple Menu, click on 'keyboard and Mouse' and set the 'Key repeat rate' to the fastest setting and 'delay until repeat' to 'short'.

Kurt

Addendum:

If you have a desktop picture take it off and use a solid color option for the desktop. This improves the page redraw for me.

Kurt

Kurt- Thanks much for your suggestions. I had not thought of the solid desktop color.

With thumbnails off, rulers off, no columns, no object, a solid desktop and the keyboard set to a quick and rapid repeat rate, Pages remains every bit as sluggish when viewed over 125%, with multiple pages, or with long documents.

Evan C- Thanks for your common sense suggestion about using an uncluttered template. It's a good one. I am typing only plain text on a completely empty document and performance is nonetheless sluggish.

I bet that the "speed fix" in Pages 3 will be to simply list the official system requirements as 64 megs of video memory (versus 32 now). Unfortunately, my 1.42 mhz Mac Mini (with the minimum required 32 megs video memory) and a 23" display simply cannot handle Pages 2.

I think the problem is the combo of Pages 2, Mac Mini and 23" display (Pages 1 was fine). This is not surprising as the Mac Mini is not a speed demon. I bought it because it's perfectly silent and tiny. 🙂 The reason I have this monitor is to be able to view full pages. Perhaps I am the only Pages user with a Mac Mini and this 23" monitor who wants to type plain documents at a normal rate.

If Pages 1 worked fine, but Pages 2 doesn't, I doubt Pages 3 will be a slimmer, faster program. Apple Pages has driven me back to Word for everyday word processing. Since my days of using PC-Write (1986), I believe Pages 2 is the only word processor I've encountered that can't keep up with itself for just plain typing. Other than that, it's very elegant and would be nice to use.

various macs... Mac OS X (10.4.6)

We have several users whose computers are equivalent or have even lower specs than yours - without the complaint of sluggish typing. The significant difference being the display. I wouldn't be surprised if you are on the right track in that the issue is the mini's graphics card. I'd be interested to see if your performance improved with a smaller display.

dwb- My performance does improve with a smaller display, such as when I force my monitor down from the max 1920 x 1200 to a lesser resolution (such as 1024 x 768).

This reliably improves performance, but of course it defeats the purpose of having a nice wide display. Pages 2 simply isn't right for the setup I have, though it fully meets the requirements.

This is relevant to the thread only in that Word can run on my setup, but Pages bogs down, so it's not a Word replacement.

Incidentally, here's a reliable way to test typing lag using key repeat rate: Paste 5 or 6 copies of the phrase "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog's back." (or any other phrase). Put the cursor at the end of the “paragraph” and time how many seconds it takes to delete back over the whole paragraph. Trying the same exact test at various views (125%, 300%, 2 pages up, 1 page up, 1024 x 768, etc.) or with various factors (an object wrapped, columns, whatever) will clearly show any typing lag.

Yes folks, I know this is not the most efficient way to delete a paragraph. That’s not the point. This is (one) way of reliably testing how various factors affect key repeat rate, which is one way of seeing a typing lag. It’s much less iffy than saying “I notice the typing maybe slows down sort of a little when I view two pages up”. It’s much less iffy than saying: “press and hold the ‘a’ key until it has appeared on your screen 1,250 times.” (I make these preemptive comments because last time I proposed this keyboard input test people suggested I merely select the whole paragraph and press delete, Presto!)

Mac Mini 1.42GHz, 1 GB RAM, 23" display. Mac OS X (10.4.6)

This is relevant to the thread only in that Word can run on my setup, but
Pages bogs down, so it's not a Word replacement.

Two points:
First, I suspect one of the reasons Word keeps nimble, even when creating a graphics intensive document, is because it doesn't try to be WYSIWYG all that hard. I never use Word for anything but text - whenever I needed graphics I'd break out InDesign or Pagemaker. Until I learned better it used to infuriate me how I'd place a line just so only to see it printed not quite just so at all.

Second, the mini was built as an entry level computer and not many entry level people run a 20"+ monitor. I'm not sure it is fair to fault Pages here.

Actually I think it is fair to fault Pages since other apps perform better.

There seems to be no question in my mind that Pages is performing some kind of video acrobatics in its redraws of the pages. A low resolution preview mode would benefit the program. Pagemaker has this and screen redraws are improved dramatically. After all the work is done I re-enable the high resolution so I can inspect the page. (By the way, I have better performance in Pagemaker on my iMac with 1/2 the video ram of my iBook.)

This feature alone would be worth the price of an upgrade.

Has anyone tested Pages without adding graphics, strictly as a Word processor? My main use of the program is layout oriented.

Kurt

Just as a quick check, can anyone experiencing a typing lag confirm that their video cards are 16MBVRam?

My iBook is 32M, twice the speed of my iMac. Pagemaker is snappy on my iMac with lots of graphics and a large file (low resolution preview enabled.) Pages is sluggish on my iBook.

Maybe the question should be:
Is anyone not experiencing this?

Someone posted earlier of an excellent performance boost when using one of the new Intel machines.

Kurt

I might have solved it!

Remembering how well Pagemaker performs in low resolution mode I change my screen resolution to 800x600. The result:

Typing improves drastically!
Objects move smoother/faster!

I am going to work in this mode from now on.

Kurt

Maybe the question should be: Is anyone not experiencing this?

Kurt,

I'll assume you're making a joke. Thousands of copies of iWork have been sold, and only a couple of dozen or so people have reported in this forum that they're experiencing a typing lag. I'm willing to believe that many more people are expieriencing it, and either gave up using the program right away or aren't inclined to join a discussion group to complain. Still, my guess is that a tiny fraction of purchasers is experiencing the lag.

The problem doesn't seem to be machine-dependent. For every person with a pokey iBook, there's probably a lot more folks on whose iBooks Pages runs just fine -- including mine. I wrote a 415-page book with it, and believe me, I wouldn't have suffered a typing lag.

All that being said, I feel bad for the people who desperately want to use Pages, but are turned off by the lag. I'm glad you found a solution that's helping you. I'm sure it'll help a lot of other people, too.

-Dennis

20" Intel iMac Mac OS X (10.4.6) 1.5 GB RAM, iBook 14 incher, iPod

Great idea. I ran the test you described on a system with a number of apps open just to simulate my usual environment. I used the 'Quick Brown fox' phrase five times and did the deletes. The results:

Word - 24 sec.
Pages - 24 sec.
TextEdit - 24 sec.
Text Wrangler - 24 sec.

Not exactly what I would have expected. They were all exactly the same. Very interesting.

Eric