What is still missing in latest Pages 5.5

As far as I've heard, the only addition is that they now provide a script that allows you to do mail-merge, essentially in a separate app. And apparently images insert more easily now. That was never my gripe, so I don't know how it works, and I won't until the software includes such basics as flowing text boxes and facing pages view. Which it still doesn't.

I don't have a link to any lists for you, but 5.5 is basically the same as 5.2. I'm been using 5.5 for about two days now. It still has a long way to go to achieve the functionality of 4.3. My recommendation is for you to stay with 4.3

There were over 110 missing features in Pages 5.2 so I guess still over 100 now plus new bugs and the biggy of no backward compatibility for anyone not with the latest OS and Pages.

Still no facing pages, non-contiguous selection, combined list/paragraph styles, import of other documents and styles and many more features that mean Pages 5.5 is still crippled and largely unusable except as a basic WP that will have its file format constantly trashed by Apple.

This took a whole year, so heading for 2023 to finally get feature parity with 2009.

Peter

As far as I know, the only people who would not find Pages 4 superior to Pages 5 would be those who want to write in Arabic.

Or Hebrew.

Have they fixed the column order yet, Tom?

Peter

PeterBreis0807 wrote:

Have they fixed the column order yet, Tom?

Yes, in Pages the columns in a multicolumn text box get populated from right to left when writing arabic.

Noticed reference to omission of facing pages in these posts.

When opening a doc with facing pages from V 09 in V 5.5, am advised One Up layout available only. The Help menu gives guidance on Viewing Facing Pages in both thumbnail view and document window. It says to:

* click View in toolbar and choose Page Thumbnails to view facing pages in thumbnail view

* click Page View Control in bottom-left corner of the window and then choose Two Up from the pop-up menu to view facing pages side by side in the main document window.

Problem is neither of these options are available, suggesting they may be included in a later upgrade. Hopefully quite soon.

Boatfly wrote:

The Help menu gives guidance...

Problem is neither of these options are available, suggesting they may be included in a later upgrade. Hopefully quite soon.

Much more likely is that nobody ever revised the Help text to reflect the changes from Pages 4 to Pages 5. This kind of sloppiness is very common in Apple docs.

But you can always hope...

Or, looking on the bright side, Apple may bring the package in line with the Help text.

Boatfly wrote:

Or, looking on the bright side, Apple may bring the package in line with the Help text.

Not something I would bet on. The text is in fact just copied from the Help for Pages 09. Sooner or later they will probably realize they should delete it.

That would be a shame - being able to view facing pages is most useful when composing training manuals and books.

Stay with Pages 4.3... never change a good running version. ;-) - The new Pages is a joke! A bad one! The workaround for mail and data merge... is a form of anachronism - just forget it! Thanks Apple for the wonderful complicated workaround!

I went back to 10.9.5 and back to Pages 4.3 and quite happy with that. I wonder who is responsible at apple for such decisions...

I still have to revert to Pages 4.x to print comments. In Pages 5.x it's impossible to print comments.

Does anyone from Apple read these complaints of lost facilities that awash the Forum, with a view to bringing about a resolution to the problems?

Boatfly wrote:

Does anyone from Apple read these complaints of lost facilities that awash the Forum

It is most unlikely, the forums have millions of messages. They presumably read the feedback channel and should be paying attention to the reviews in the app store.