Does anyone know of a good app to replace the old Pages?

That would depend on your requirements for a word processor, and what features you actually used in the old version of Pages. You would have to export all of your older Pages documents to Word, before you would have compatibility with any other word processor.

Once Office 2016 for Mac gets more love from Microsoft, that would let you open/edit/save in native Microsoft document formats. This is your best bet for compatible document interchange with PC users with Office 2007/2010/2013. Any other vendor product uses translation on open, and save/export, not just Pages. Word may be an unpleasant user experience for its ribbon bar nightmare, but after 30 years of continuous development, it is why you hear many people express “but Word could do that.”

Anything other than Word, with dedicated development effort, will be Nisus Writer Pro (trial), Mellel (trial), or LibreOffice (Writer) (free, docs). Also in the OS X App Store is Swift Publisher 4, iStudio Publisher, PrintWorks, and iCalumus for greater focus on DTP, layout, and print. Check for the features that you need, and solid reviews in the OS X App Store.

Hi mofin,

The new pages is way inferior in its capabilities.

Have a play with Pages 5.5.3 and its graphic capabilities.

In Menu > File > New from Template Chooser, open a Blank document.

Insert a Shape (Menu > Insert > Shape)

or use the Shape button on the Toolbar.

For each Shape, select it and

Format Panel > Arrange > Stay on Page, and

Format Panel > Arrange > Text Wrap > None

Now Pages will behave as a Drawing app. You can drag a Shape and resize it.

Have a play with the commands in Format Panel > Style or Text or Arrange.

Format Panel > Arrange > Front

Format Panel > Arrange > Back

Too much information?

Have a play with drawing in Pages 5.5.3

Regards,

Ian.

Pages 5 is actually better at drawing, one of the very few things it is actually better at.

But it definitely is fairly hopeless as a DTP App.

Why not just continue using Pages '09 until something better comes along.

We are expecting Affinity Publisher early next year and they have done a good job with Affinity Designer and Affinity Photo.

Peter

I've also switched to Swift Publisher from Pages for DTP projects like posters and flyers. For my luck, it's relatively easy and has tools for drawing, working with text and images. I actually recommend it more than Pages for page layout. I still use Pages for some text work, only for text work.

Peace,

Alex

Another great discovery for working with text is Typed. I use it when I need to concentrate on my writing. Yet all the other times I completely rely on Pages which is probably my most frequently used app after Safari.

If you don't care that any vector art that you compose in any release of Pages constrains you to 72 dpi artwork, and will pixelate on enlargement, then it may be good enough. Otherwise, you will need an external tool that allows you to specify the image resolution, and provides more professional capabilities than offered in Pages.