Pages 5 features checklist

No, they've been reading the feedback submitted through the proper channels. You guys are fooling yourselves if you think this discussion thread has made a hill of beans' difference. It's just complaining for the sake of complaining. Besides, we have Peter's assurance Apple will no longer be improving Pages, and now the new Mac Pro will be the very last! he's so sure of it, even though he'll be the first to question how anyone can be sure of the contrary.

Kenneth Collins1 wrote:

Derick Fay wrote:

Apple has just posted a list of features "in upcoming releases in the next 6 months"

I see they've been reading the discussions. They wouldn't throw water on it if they didn't know it was a fire.

You guys are hillarious.

+100

KiltedGreen wrote:

Peter, I think you are being a little over dramatic here and getting into some serious flights of hyperbole which may make you feel better but you may want to go and punch a cushion instead.😁

Yes, we know that Apple knows that the Mountain Lion's share of its money comes from iOS and that share is growing and that from OS X (and desktops generally) is falling. However, by your logic they would have simply made Pages 4.3 Mavericks compatible and focussed all their new development efforts on the shiny new iOS version. Clearly that has not happened which implies that Apple is likely to have other, more favourable intentions for Pages.

Of course this is speculation but so is yours. We know what Apple have done before and some of that history may be applicable this time round and some may not. All we can do at the moment, as many including yourself have done, is to ensure that we post our clearly detailed and reasoned dissatisfaction with the direction of Pages 5 here and on the App Store and send Apple feedback too.

Anyone who is really keen could setup www.ihatepages5.com I suppose but that maybe going a little too far.

Since we've now crested 1,000 comments on this thread, any chance we can get a bump of the current list with the promised future additions added?

iWork 2013- rotten.

I've always updated applications as soon as they came out. No longer- too much hurt in a minimally invasive procedure- but it still hurts- you know----back there.

I don't understand why P5 is not able to open .pages files created with previous version of the application, I mean older than '09 version. I was forced to move all my documents to a friend's Mac and open->save them with (his copy of) iWork '09... It took us more than 8 hours! At least I used iCloud so the files were automatically uploaded and sync'd to my Mac. Usually you're not able to open files created with newer version of an app with former versions, that's quite normal, because technology goes on and many things change under the hood... but it's simply crazy that latest version of a software cannot open or import 5 years old files!

It's nice that Apple threw us a bone and plans to introduce some of the features back. I wonder how they decided on the features to restore first. They don't seem like the critical ones.

Looks to me like those are the easy ones, or some of them. I expectthat in the meantime they'll aslo be working on the ones that take more time and effort.

• Import of cells with images
• Manage pages and sections from the thumbnail view

Seem like the only ones that shoudl take any effort to implement, but a software engineer would know better than I.

Two things I see, one is most likely fact, the other perhaps conspiracy theory:

1. They are likely stripping down features to minimalise AMAP and then adding back the ones that are most missed.

2. They may be tricking us into opening up the App Store application as soon as we log on everyday to check for updates and perhaps fall prey to impulse buying tendencies.

Where are MERGE FIELDS AND SENDER FIELDS functions are gone ?

No way to make mailings !!!!!

This is not a professional tool anymore.

When are these features to be restored ?

A very desappointed user,

Jean.

I do agree with you !

what is Pages for if you can't make mailings,

and you can't import adresses from your adress book.

I can't understand this.

Jean.

Derick Fay wrote:

Apple has just posted a list of features "in upcoming releases in the next 6 months"

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT6049?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

including

Pages

• Customize toolbar
• Vertical ruler
• Improved alignment guides
• Improved object placement
• Import of cells with images
• Improved word counts
• Keyboard shortcuts for styles
• Manage pages and sections from the thumbnail view

While this is a small fraction of the functionality removed in the 4.3 → 5.0 upgrade, it also seems to include none of the (non word-processor) DTP functions, such as linked textboxes, rotating tables and charts, inserting tables and charts within table cells... 'twould be interesting (as in a socio-economical study) to know what percentage of the disgruntled Pages 4.3 users will decide to jump ship before at least the announced functionality is re-introduced, and how many will find this token improvement satisfactory or at least encouraging enough to "hang in there."

Tristan Hubsch wrote:

... it also seems to include none of the (non word-processor) DTP functions, such as linked textboxes, rotating tables and charts, inserting tables and charts within table cells...

I think becuase those are harder to impliment. They promised us the easy stuff soon, and said they'd be deliver "other" stuff later. I suspect that they're right now working on complex issues like tables and charts now, but don't want to promise it. This is how they try to do things: under-promise, over-deliver. not that they always succeed at that, but it does seem to be a part of their secrecy.

Taken from <http://support.apple.com/kb/HT6049?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US>,

In rewriting these applications, some features from iWork ’09 were not available for the initial release. We plan to reintroduce some of these features in the next few releases and will continue to add brand new features on an ongoing basis.

[Emphasis TH]

Just thinking out loud: Two or more textboxes (incl. the "text column"-boxes from a layout for a newsletter or such) and/or shapes can be "Unite"-d—while they are on the same page, whereupon text inserted into one of these objects will flow into the other; not sequentially, but making (I believe, correctly for the "Unite" function) the union of objects behave like one irregularly shaped and even discontiguous textbox. However, I have not figured out how to trick Pages 5.0 to "Unite" such objects accross two or more pages (to mimic the DTP linking of textboxes). Perhaps Apple could include that as one of the "brand new features"?

By the way, should you find this useful: if you rotate a textbox, and then unite it with another (unrotated) textbox or shape, the text will be reflown horizontally throughout the united irregular-shaped textbox—which you can now rotate as a whole.