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Pages 5 features checklist

As you go through the new Pages 5 can you please add an added, missing or altered features here please.


I will start with some culled from the general discussions and if you could correct any errors add them:


Added


1. Right to Left text ie Arabic, Farsi & Hebrew. Uncertain about Pashtu


2. Single model templates. You turn off document text to get rid of the default. Not sure if this then can be mixed and matched with Word Processing templates


3. Able to share outside iCloud


Missing


1. Selecting non-contiguous text gone


2. Outline view appears gone


3. Customizable Toolbar is gone


4. Many templates appear gone


5. Captured pages gone


6. Reorganize pages by dragging gone


7. Duplicate pages gone


8. Subscript/superscript buttons gone


9. Select all instances of a Style is gone


10. Retain zoom level of document gone


11. Facing pages gone


12. Endnotes gone


13. Media Inspector can't find iPhoto library on external drive


14. Update is missing for older installations, Apple is reportedly working on a solution via a redeemable code or update on the ir Support Download site


Altered


1. Language set under Edit > Spelling and Grammar > Show Spelling and Grammar now document wide


2. Subscript/superscript text is now a convoluted route Gear > Advanced options > Baseline > Subscript/Superscript


3. Header appears to be multi-column


4. New file format (but still .pages?) not backwardly compatible


5. Page numbering method changed


6. T.O.C. appears buggy


7. Template file storage location moved - to where?


8. Imported older .pages files are not translating properly


9. Text language is detected automatically now


Letting you know I can't test or verify any of these as I haven't got Mavericks yet.


Peter

iMac, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.4)

Posted on Oct 22, 2013 7:57 PM

Reply
1,554 replies

Apr 22, 2014 8:33 AM in response to PeterBreis0807

Apple proctors will probably toss this out, but I need to rant:

One early eWorld friend told me "Upgrade is setback" back in the day, and I scoffed. Maybe in PC world, but not the dear customer loving Apple corp. I now embrace her setback comment, especially with Pages, which will no longer embed tables the way it did, accept images into cells, and contains a slew of new procedures and conventions that appear to be change for change’s sake, rather than meaningful user improvements. Had Pages been like this, I would have never committed 4 years of documents to it, like I did to Claris, then Appleworks, which became unfunctional too. Once fooled on you, twice, on me. I am so skittish about upgrading to the new version since the last time I accepted the upgrade default, it took hours to problem solve the document problems that incurred, and the prolonged web search to unscramble the multiple setbacks. Now the constant irritating reminders to upgrade that can’t be turned off. Lemmings to the slaughter. Trust is critical in the user experience, and neo-Pages, as well as some meaningless, non-intuitive IOS changes, making targets smaller and words more difficult to read, strain my belief in the traditions of this company and the values of intuition and user modifiability I grew into since the LC.

Apr 22, 2014 8:56 AM in response to NRoitman

Rants are orthogonal to community guidelines. As this is a user to user community forum staffed with volunteer members, and not Apple-badged employees, your comments are redundant to what has been expressed without end — for years. You can express yourself with more focus on the Pages feedback page, though you shouldn't entertain any hope for sympathetic response.


Any document that I still create with Pages, is saved, and exported to MS Word .doc/.docx format in the same session. Before I close Pages, I validate that Word document in Office for Mac 2011, or LIbreOffice — for document continuity. I will never be abandoned on an Apple document island again.

Apr 22, 2014 11:21 AM in response to VikingOSX

VikingOSX wrote:


Any document that I still create with Pages, is saved, and exported to MS Word .doc/.docx format in the same session. Before I close Pages, I validate that Word document in Office for Mac 2011, or LIbreOffice — for document continuity. I will never be abandoned on an Apple document island again.


Some of us have been doing that since Pages 1.0. It is a good rule for any file that uses unusual formats to save a backup in a more commonly used format.

Aug 1, 2014 6:03 PM in response to Steven Levin1

It is now over 9 months since the train wreck that is Pages 5 piled up on everyone's Macs.


Apple belatedly completed its short list of "fixes" leaving the still growing list of over 110 missing features:


http://www.freeforum101.com/iworktipsntrick/viewtopic.php?t=424&mforum=iworktips ntrick


and long list of bugs unaddressed.


Users are still as lost as ever on the eternal flipping between versions and corrupted files sent by email, plus all the export problems.


Apple has compounded the problem by stuffing up these forums as well, such that most users seem to have given up using them. Like most Apple software these days.


My original calculation of restoration of all the features that were in Pages in 2009, is now stretching out to "not till 2023", (calculated from 8% of features in 9 months).


That is assuming that Apple even intends restoring anything else. It certainly hasn't said or given a timeline to do so.

Aug 3, 2014 8:49 AM in response to PeterBreis0807

PeterBreis0807 wrote:


It is now over 9 months since the train wreck that is Pages 5 piled up on everyone's Macs.


Apple belatedly completed its short list of "fixes" leaving the still growing list of over 110 missing features:


http://www.freeforum101.com/iworktipsntrick/viewtopic.php?t=424&mforum=iworktips ntrick


and long list of bugs unaddressed.


Users are still as lost as ever on the eternal flipping between versions and corrupted files sent by email, plus all the export problems.


Apple has compounded the problem by stuffing up these forums as well, such that most users seem to have given up using them. Like most Apple software these days.


My original calculation of restoration of all the features that were in Pages in 2009, is now stretching out to "not till 2023", (calculated from 8% of features in 9 months).


That is assuming that Apple even intends restoring anything else. It certainly hasn't said or given a timeline to do so.


Is Pages promoted by Apple any longer? It does not appear on the first page of the App Store. It used to deserve a place on the Top Paid list in the past. It does not appear as an option when you buy a new Mac. There is no box with iWork to pick up when you walk around a physical Apple Store. How do people even learn that it exists?


I have a feeling that someone is holding a nail ready to push into the coffin.

Aug 6, 2014 3:19 PM in response to SermoDaturCunctis

Magnus


You may be right about the last. Apple has stuffed this up big time and as is their habit, they won't backtrack and confess the error. They'll just stop talking about it and sweep it under the carpet.


As to why you don't see it anywhere prominent in the App store anymore, that is because it is so has such low ratings.


Before it was popular and got a high approval rating which kept in the top 3 or 4 Apps.


Back when you had to pay for it. Now it is free and seen to be what it is worth.


I'd happily pay for Apple to fix it, if they only would. Think there are many of us in the same boat.


Peter

Sep 18, 2014 4:37 PM in response to PeterBreis0807

Thanks for responding. I found your post via google and it was created last year. There were so many comments, I couldn't mentally keep track. I am using pages 5.2.2.


I called 1-800-my-apple. When I finally got to the right department, with the question if I could go back to the original pages I paid for prior to mavericks, they "accidentally" dropped my call.


I got my first mac in 2011. Pages Layout enabled me to look like a power user. Without it, I feel like an idiot.


I can still access my old files, but if I duplicate it, in effort to build on parts of my tree, it is very foreign.


I will look into pages '09.

Oct 18, 2014 12:55 PM in response to NRoitman

Well here we are over a year later from Pages 5 with Pages 5.5 the most incompatible version of Pages yet.


We have yet another (how many does this make?) incompatible file format. It is only a 0.5 update but none of the previous versions of Pages 5 can open it, certainly none running in Mavericks, let alone all the other versions of OSX.


It can only be opened in Pages 5.5 running only on Yosemite, iOS 8 and iWork for iCloud beta. Really! What could possibly be in a file format for a word processing/DTP application that requires a specific OS? Particularly when it hardly pushes the boundaries of WP & DTP. In fact does less than its 5 year old predecessor.


It still does not do most of the basic features users have been begging for ever since it was launched, only now the little it does can't be shared with most Mac users. Not just everyone else. And it is absolutely totally unparsable should you need to rescue it.


Still, oddly enough, users persist with it.


Someone may enlighten me. I read a book a few years back called the The Corporation, The Company or something like that, which turned out to be a huge HR experiment to see just how far management could go tormenting its employees with random and nonsensical directives, endless changes and a deliberately misdirected reward system. From memory the employees ended up burning the building down.


Looks like someone at Apple thought this was an experiment worth pursuing.


Peter

Pages 5 features checklist

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