Pages 5 features checklist

Look on the bright side. Pages 5 has excellent collaboration features!

The new Pages 5 and Apple's other Maverick pseudo iOS (without the touchscreen) apps would never have happened without it.

How's the Steve Jobs Replacement Committee (SJRC) working out Apple?

Peter

mephisante wrote:

I just want people to know Apple and other developers who "remove" features with major releases are maliciously removing your favorite feature…

At last confirmation from a developer as to what is really happening. 🙂

Peter

Updated Check List

New Pages 5 added, removed or altered features:

Added

+ Right to Left text

+ Single model templates. No More Word Processing/Layout templates

+ Share outside iCloud

+ Phonetic Guide for Chinese & Japanese

+ Custom Template names can be changed inside the Template Chooser by right clicking

+ Custom Templates can be deleted inside the Template Chooser by right clicking

+ Text language is detected automatically

+ Collaboration

+ Unite overlapping Textboxes

+ Extra Shadow effects

+ Double click to mask image

+ Instant Alpha target zoom

Removed

Select non-contiguous text

Outline view

Customizable Toolbar

135 templates

Capture pages/sections

Drag reorganize pages

Duplicate pages

Delete page

Manage Pages

Subscript/superscript buttons

Select all instances of a Style

Retain zoom level of document

Facing pages

Layout Margins

Media Inspector links to iPhoto library on external drive

Media Inspector links to Aperture Library

Alignment Guides

Styles Drawer

Merge Fields

Drag and Drop VCards

Default Start Up page

Vertical Ruler

Style Function key shortcuts

Bookmarks

Hyperlinks to external documents

Images within Tables

Mathtype Equations/Formulae within Tables (and other Objects?)

Grapher Equations/Formulae within Tables (and other Objects?)

Import Styles

Clean Import of older .pages formatting

User Guide

Search Sidebar

Open Type features

Textbox linking

Background Object selectable

Storyboards

Text to Tables

Tables to Text

Tables in Headers/Footers

Word export to iCloud

Export to .rtf

Import from .rtf

Multiple Comments view

T.O.C. clean numbering

Character Styles ?

List Styles ?

Selective formating in Character Styles

Insert File Name

Search in Media Browser

Bullet points in comments

Search comments

Two up view

Paste and keep style

Accented characters in Footer

Custom Auto-correct

Mask with shapes other than rectangle

Find & Replace special characters eg paragraph returns

Auto-Dates on opening document

Speech to Text

Format Bar

Open Pages '08 documents

Headers in Tables

Sync with iOS6

Auto capitalise sentence start

Open .doc files

Roman Numeral Page Numbers

Character count including spaces

Import linked Numbers Charts

Styles including bulletted lists

Recent fonts at top of Font List

Page of Page Count at foot of Window

Full Screen background color

Font name matching between OSX and iOS

Copy/Paste from Pages '09 to Pages 5

Certain Fonts eg WingDings

Saving onto Windows server

Status bar

Drag out inserted image to Finder.

Uninstall permanently

Altered

↪ Pages '09 files saved from Pages 5 in Maverick are not protected by a simple name change eg (converted appended)

↪ Pages '09 files previewed on iPad via iCloud are irrevocably converted

↪ Update is missing for older installations, Apple is reportedly working on a solution via a redeemable code or update on their Support Download site

↪ Wrap methods have been cut back severely

↪ Documents reconverted back to Pages '09 lose all template information

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

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

↪ Headers and Footers appear to be multi-column

↪ Text is not wrapping in Footers

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

↪ Page numbering method changed

↪ Custom Templates are now stored in ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.iWork.pages (a package)

↪ AppleScript Library for Pages 5 has changed with many classes and commands removed which indicates how the feature lists have been slashed

↪ Character Styles are in the Text Inspector under Bold, Italic etc

↪ Tabbing within Table cells appears to be inconsistent, tabbing internally with numbers.

↪ Drag and Drop text only works with .txt files now

↪ EndNote plugin is partially broken unable to cite in footnotes and problems with in-text numbering

↪ List options are now in a pop-down menu in the contextual Inspector

↪ .doc no longer supported, only .docx

↪ Text highlighting is now under Format > gear icon > Advanced Options > Character Fill Color > Color

↪ Mail Merge has changed. Some people are reporting links not working despite Merge is still in the Insert Menu

↪ Merging Table cells is now: select the cell/s > Format > Table > Merge

↪ Unmerge cells only undoes the above

↪ Table Borders is now: select the cell/s > Format > Table > Cell > click on triangle > choose

↪ Quicklook preview of Pages '09 files in Maverick is reportedly buggy

↪ Layout Breaks work differently. You select the paragraphs you want as an exception and then change the column numbers. Currently can't find how to set before and after spacing or margin inset btw This is a totally undocumented and hidden procedure.

There will be more when I get Maverick installed on a new external clean Hard Drive that won't screw up my own work.

Peter

Joey!! 【ツ】 wrote:

Regarding the list of changes, it looks like no further changes to the list have occurred for a while? I love how the list is created in a way that defocuses the improvements and emphasizes removed features. 😐 Biased I suppose, and that's the purpose of this thread anyways. I appreciated the list and was able to file several enhancement requests and one bug report (so far). But I don't care to flame and rant here about it, that won't do any good. Send the feedback to Apple folks.

As I have said elsewhere Joey, whilst I am happy to editorialise elsewhere, I have been very conservative and worked hard at making the list as accurate a summary of what Users have reported as possible.

I could not be more happy if there were more Added features. Do you know of any?

I will add them immediately, the Added list sure looks aenemic even though I split the Template Chooser editability over 2 items.

Some people have cited errors, usually because they only read the first version which came out almost immediately after Pages 5 was available. Mostly those errors were already fixed in subsequent versions, if not I immediately corrected my Master List on my desktop awaiting the next post. I can't put it up every single change and Apple doesn't permit a standing editable post here.

I am also conservative in removing items just on the say so of someone who may be misreporting what is actually happening. In some cases their report is not all it seems and is the step before the misstep.

I have become very conscious that many Users are like the 3 blind men examining an elephant and describing the trunk, legs and tail as three separate and different beasts. I also notice how unobservant Users are, that they miss features which are just in a slightly different but organisationally similar location. That is why I quiz them (they are not just in this part of the forum or even Apple's website) before adding the reported Added, Removed or Altered features.

I am not a programmer but I have managed media and other Informational projects and know how I systematically approach complex details. What I am doing here should have been done by Apple's engineers. Perhaps it has and I am only chasing their tails. The results clearly show however that this project is half baked, pre-release and not peer reviewed by Users.

Typically Apple lately in fact.

The one major omission, the ELEPHANT in the room (again) is the failure to protect Users work by saving it by default with a concatenated "converted" in the name. That is totally and utterly reprehensible.

Peter

Joey!! 【ツ】 wrote:

Well, you put a note of the file format in the changed list. I suppose that's appropriate, but it's also the biggest addition to the new Pages. "A new, unified file format, delivering perfect document fidelity across Mac, iOS and iCloud" (Apple's wording).

Exactly! Apple's wording. Considering everything else they said I'll believe that if and only if I have fully checked and confirmed it. As the 3 versions of Pages 5 OSX, Pages iCloud and Pages iOS do not have matching interfaces and features I really question that work created on one "delivers perfect document fidelity" across all three.

One for sure addition is the hugely significant undeclared document infidelity.

The corruption of work dating back 4 years.

You could also state it's a brand new design,

Being new is only a feature if it happens to be my pants, is drip dry in half the time, and has more pockets, that zip up and are better organised.

It reveals

You mean hides in most cases

only the options that are relevant to your current context,

Which is bad UI. You have to line up all the ducks in a row before you even know they are in the pond.

the new Full Screen view doesn't hide any tools - looks the same as in windowed mode which I'm sure many will appreciate (although I want to be able to switch between that mode and the previous simplistic full screen mode),

Subject to checking.

oh and it's 64-bit (better performance).

Again subject to checking. Apple's hype has long lost any creditability.

Probably also should put on the very first line under Added that it's a completely rewritten app.

Doh! …don't forget the New Icon too!!

A lot of folks think it's not, due to the lack of Apple stating that in the changelog. Next to collaboration, you could mention anyone can edit even if they don't have an iCloud account.

See + Collaboration

Full Mavericks compatibility.

Balanced by unusable anywhere else*.

Plus I'm sure they tied in bug fixes from the previous version.

Are you sure you are sure? How sure are you sure? How are you sure?

For example, I discovered Pages '09 would increase the file size of my documents significantly when editing on OS X and iOS. A simple text file approached 2 MB when it should be mere KBs. I'm sure that issue's reolved due to the new file format.

No resolved by Capture pages/sections the feature that made it larger.

To be nitpicky, "Quicklook preview of Pages '09 files in Maverick is reportedly buggy" isn't an alteration of Pages 5.0. That would be a Mavericks bug (that I have not seen personally).

Hence "reportedly".

* Thanks for raising a good point here. Unintentionally. Both my wife and sons' Macs can't be upgraded to Mavericks thanks to Apple's planned rapid obsolescence. What do they do "collaboratively"? Anything they create will be shredded by Pages 5 users and anything the Pages 5 users create will be unopenable by my wife and sons.

Should I put this down to "Enhanced security and confidentiality"?

Sorry the advertising man coming out in me.😉 We learnt to hone in on the critical failure and remarket it as a Feature.

Peter