What have we GAINED in Pages 5?

I personally like Pages 5.5.2 and I use it more than Word 2011. I'm not a "power user" and my publishing needs are fairly simple. In fact, I'm still figuring out how to better use Styles. The Pages interface is cleaner and most of the tools I use are right there in the sidebar so I don't have to search thru menus, the ribbon bar, or right click preferences. Two things Pages beats Word at...

1.) Alignment Guides. It so much easier in Pages to align objects to the page, the margin, or another object while editing. In Word, I'm always switching back and forth between Print View and Publisher View.

2.) Tables. Adding, manipulating, and even doing math in tables is a breeze in Pages. Word is always a fight.

I think Word has SO MANY features and options, it actually gets in the way of itself. It's a beast of a word processor but it's layout tools, at least for me, are unintuitive. I prefer Pages' "just click, drag, and drop" approach. I'd estimate 80% of the complaints here and other boards are about things Pages doesn't do in a Word way. I've never been up to my neck in Word and therefore don't have the muscle memory many users have. Pages is Pages and Word is Word. They work different and have different workflows.

Actually 95% of the complaints here are about what Pages 5 doesn't do that Pages '09 does.

Particularly work across Systems, maintain file formats, and the "clean interface" that actually hides functions in obscure locations, deep within the screen hogging UI. Highlighting text is just one classic example.

Not being able to open files is not a feature. Although it is one of the stand out results of using Pages 5.

Peter

Yellowbox wrote:

1. My Word Processing requirements are basic and
2. I am a Numbers person!

(BTW that numbered list took me 2 seconds in Pages 5.5.2)

That numbered list is no great achievement, most any text editor can do that, and faster. e.g. One or no click in Pages '09.

Now make me a structured list in Pages 5 without having to hunt around the 'Net for long hard to remember instructions. Which won't combine with the paragraph style that you really wanted. You can't even import the Style into the document once you have worked it out.

Try working with 2 documents open on a Laptop in Pages 5.

Completely forget about it if you want facing or side by side pages.

Not intuitive at all that the feature might be buried in there somewhere only to waste large amounts of time looking unsuccessfully.

I don't buy the frequent argument all the time that "my needs are simple". Textedit provides for that. As does other basic software.

Nor do I buy, "it could be worse". Everything could be worse. That it is, is Pages 5's biggest and most obvious "feature".

Peter

Now I agree with you ?

🙂

Well Csound1 it certainly isn't me who changed! 😉

Peter

PeterBreis0807 wrote:

Well Csound1 it certainly isn't me who changed! 😉

Peter

No, you still dislike Pages 5 just as I do.

But you're far more tolerant of the mess that it is than I would ever be, it doesn't deserve a break, it needs fixing.

That we are agreed on, but I don't think it is going to happen.

Meanwhile I keep a running watch and wait for Affinity Publisher whatever that may turn out to be.

Both Affinity Designer and Affinity Photo are looking very impressive and forward looking.

Peter

I moved to iDraw and Diagrammix early (from Adobe's offerings) I need flow charting, patch routing and general layout drawings, for size accurate ones I still use SolidWorks.

My needs are a powerful simple spreadsheet, (which hardly describes Numbers), and a simple word processor. Libra is free, Pages offers less at a higher cost. Seems a simple decision for me.

I would have moved to LibreOffice completely but it doesn't really do what Pages '09 does and it certainly has a User Interface that only a mother could love, so certainly does't have the productivity I am after.

But I still recommend LibreOffice to anyone who wants that MsOffice compatibility and but doesn't want to pay for it.

Also it has that other great feature of saving to open formats and gets lots of loving care from the users who also create it.

Pages has neither.

Peter

I've been in show business for forty five years, I can tell the difference between good staging, and good content.

So what do you think of Birdman?

Peter

Not seen it yet, but Citizen4 is good