We have TOC again! Splendid idea, which makes me use Pages again after years of different (rather difficult) word processors novel-writing oriented. But which is the use of having a TOC if you do not see INSIDE IT where you are in your text while editing it or researching something? Or am I missing something?
Version 8
i did not like the fact that the ad did not state that one required os 10.15 to download pages 10.1. I wasted a lot of time trying to download it from app store.
Fantastic update! Just about everything I hated about the last version has been fixed! Haven't come across any bugs yet. I do everything in dark mode so the fact the old pages made it difficult to apply a dark background made me use the much less powerful TextEdit a lot more. Thank you Pages team for listening to people's feedback! Wow
Only Apple would come up with an app that doesn't recognise its own documents.
Advice: Don't update. You will no longer be gain access to hundreds of documents you created with a previous version.
As a member of a research team who plan and design academic and training courses, we switched back to using more 'industry-standard' apps to safely preserve our work.
An outstanding word processor , but not for everybody.
FOR WHOM PAGES IS:
Newbies, home users, students, and self-employed professionals can benefit a lot from Pages. Free of charge, fluid, easy to use, very comfortable interface, and never loses the work done. It has in fact so powerful autosaving features embedded that, in case of crash (very rare event) or blackout, it is possible to recover the document in progress even with the very last key touch saved.
Moreover it has a good compatibility with Microsoft Office, as opens and produces .docx files in a decent way.
It is also a good desktop publisher and far better than Microsoft Word in this specific aspect. It is a pity that these capabilities are unknown even to regular users of Pages.
FOR WHOM PAGES IS NOT:
Professional authors can find Pages insufficient for their scope, as they need more advanced features, as advanced bibliography, and others.
Those who work in a Microsoft-centric environment are at risk with Pages. Complex .docx files could be converted not in a perfect way, and his native format .pages cannot be opened easily outside the Apple ecosystem.
Moreover, .pages files require more space in the HD (ex. a 1 page CV is easily 700 Kb, but every additional page requires approximately the same disk space of a .docx) as .jpeg previews are included in the .pages format.
Those who need very specific or less usual features (ex. font embedding, advanced macros, mailing lists, .odf format, etc.) should use other softwares.
I haven't been able to download the new pages for some reason. I received a warning, oops I don't have the DMZ or whatever it's called so I can't give you a review yet. Douglas
I am very disappointed in Pages. Over the Years I have created Documents that Had important Business Information
I am a jewelry designer and I buy various one of a kind items. I always insert photos of these. I recently needed to review my Purchases from 2005 through 2008. To my horror the photos were all missing. Fortunately there were Appleworks Documents .cwk still intact. I was able to open them up and Copy them to Microsoft Word. I won't try to use this application again.
We have TOC again! Splendid idea, which makes me use Pages again after years of different (rather difficult) word processors novel-writing oriented. But which is the use of having a TOC if you do not see INSIDE IT where you are in your text while editing it or researching something? Or am I missing something?
Version 8
This software would improve by a huge margin if you could directly save to a Format like ooXML or ODF. Nobody can use the native Pages format, except other Pages users.
Discovered an alarming bug (or is it a 'feature'?) in the latest version of Pages. Documents created in V7.2 on High Sierra will still open in Pages 5.6 on El Cap, but when resaved in 5.6 on El Cap they cannot then be opened again. Same happens to Keynote files. Is this a bug or a deliberate move from Apple because El Cap is no longer supported? Beware or you will lose files and data this way.
I haven't played with Pages in some time, but this latest iteration seems stable; the dark theme is nice; and mostly (for me, at least), it once again opens and saves in rich text format.
Dumbed-down, stripped down version of earlier Pages version. Still using Pages 4.3 from iWork 09 bundle. "Streamlined" app means loss of features, and a more challenging GUI and UX when using the latest versions of Pages/Keynote/Numbers. I am assuming loss of features etc is to ensure compatability with iPad versions of the same apps. A pity - Apple dumbed down the OSX versions rather than beefing up the iOS versions.
Sticking with iWork 09 apps for as long as OSX allows! 5 stars for '09 apps, 1 star for current.
I can't get why Apple now offers iWork's apps free for OS 10.12 and doesn't bother offering a DL link for El Capitan! :-o The only option is to use iWork '09 32 bits if you had it on a DVD with your old Mac...
Pages does not play well with my Intuos Wacom tablet, impossible to select a line or block of text, it becomes unselected right away. some people never use or even own a mouse..
I cannot get Pages 6.3.1 to open .doc or .docx documents (which I often receive from my Windows-using associates.) Accordingly, I have reverted to version 6.3 of Pages, which does not have this problem.
I want the most suitable version of Pages for my Early 2008 the last 17 inch MacBook Pro.
I have to use it with El Capitan, because it would not take Sierra!
I have to use 17 inch screen because of my eyesight.
Where do I get proper version of Pages?
I wish Pages could develop blue background with white or orange letters – best visibility of text, proven at stock exchanges and flight controllers. I am a journalist and translator and have to read hundreds of pages every day. I hope Pages with blue background would help me.
Mark Lech Jaworski latarnik@mac.com
When I tried Swift Publisher for the first time about 4 years ago, I was amazed how superior it is over Pages. It took me about 10 minutes trying to realize that Pages are simply incomparable to SwiftPublisher.. I don't even update Pages since then, and have no desire to do so. Because SP is the BEST.
This seems to be a fairly recently active thread, so if you've read the gist of my assertions elsewhere, please excuse.
Pages5, compared to the last usable version Pages4 (09), is nothing other than an iOS trinket of little value to the even most marginally serious writer-publisher. Apparently it has some value for slickened real estate sales flyers, holiday newsletters, and sundry brochures clogging up life while also littering the landscape. They're gee-factor is going to grow nauseatingly thin quicker than is currently imagined.
While Pages5 is not an acceptable document format for term-papers for most high schools in the US--conversion to Word notwithstanding because of the botched up result--you can still use Pages4 in spite of its age. If you have deleted yours or never had it, you can badger Apple on the phone if you have a computer that originally came with it (2012). Discs are available from Apple and will be sent to you free of charge shipping included. That's how I got my copy. I then had to then drag Pages5 to the trash over its unasked for attempts to interfere with Pages4 with queasy routines to "upgrade", prying into documents with itself without asking, and just general childishness. There was no loss.
Staring too hard into the stale brilliance of the iStuff light-bulb, Apple has blinded itself to the damage things like Pages5 have caused. When, very reluctantly, dedicated Apple computer users since the first iMac/MacBook G4's with OS X 10.0 leave for a seriously supported other, the gadget-crowd will follow them, not vice-versa in spite of proselytizing otherwise. The bottom will have fallen out.
Pages5, and I suppose its sister software, is the harbinger. Please excuse me for repeating this again, but for us Apple's reputation is self-sullied enough that at some point, regardless of a return to the software standards Apple once held, the cost in trying to regain it will become too expensive to sustain.
Also please excuse me for repeatedly embellishing someone's comment to an article that was unrelated: the what seemed to be the fantastic, "Apple declares bankruptcy in 2020-something".
More likely to be, "Tim Cook steps down as ....", but I have fresh evidence, our kids, who are now both near receiving their baccalaureates. Following their trail since we traded in their huge G3's for Christmastime MacBook Airs during 11th. grade. One still has his MacBook Air, because of the high school-furnished Word, hasn't brought either an iPhone or iPad in years. The other still has his traded for MacBook Pro, again because of university-furnished Word, and his iPhone6. There was a ping in his daddy's heart when he told me he too wouldn't buy either again--citing lack of quality. The mother did acquire his iPad, which she uses quite happily for putzing with emails and as a camera. She recently said she wants to get an iPhone from our carrier. Imagine her two tech-savvy sons (with a saddened husband boycotting in protest) telling her in unison don't. The quote is right in one aspect, 20-somethings will do it
Dumbing down their apps has been a common practice with Apple for years. Long ago they did it with iMovie. More recently they replaced iPhoto and Aperture with Photos. It's a habit they cannot seem to break. The only time they listened to complaints was with Final Cut, which they eventually brought back, more or less, to par. For the rest, there are alternative applications. The advantage Pages has over other word processors is that it is template driven, which originally made it more accessible to non-expert (that is to say, average) users. Problems arise when you ask it to do things it is simply not designed for. Or, in this case, to do things it is no longer designed for.
LibreOffice is a powerful app, and it's free, but it's intended to be a Microsoft Office replacement. It's overkill if all you want is a capable substitute for Pages.
Personally I like InDesign for layout and even word processing work. But it's not cheap. Recently I was helping a friend design a photo book. We tried it first in Pages, but couldn't get the page numbering to work. We switched to InDesign which handles things like that with ease. There was a bit of a learning curve as I taught my friend how to use master pages (over the phone, no less), but once he got the hang of the app, things went smoothly.
In the meantime, continue to bang away at Apple for how they disrespect users by stripping features out of their apps. It may not help, but it can't hurt.
Apple continue to dumb everything down because that is what they think of us. We are just dumb punters who finance there ambitions. We should look elsewhere for answers.
I'm so disappointed. I wish I could undo the update and go back to what I had before. The functionality of Pages is amazingly diminished. Makes no sense at all. I use pages for simple word processing, a few charts, and columnar lists. Nothing fancy; it's a simple program. I cannot duplicate half of what I have previously done, and I've had to re-do the forms that I've been using for years because Most of the styles and layouts are not available. Are they deliberately trying to get people to stop using Pages???
I am so frustrated with Pages 5.6.2 It came with my computer so I don't have the option of going back to an earlier version. I have spent literally hours trying to enter sequential. numbers. What ever I try it either starts at page 7 (title page Preface etc before actual page 1) or if I just enter page#2 then it enters 2 on every page. Cannot seem to separate the sections.
I still have version 4.Pages. Didn't use it for a while but it seems that it has been upgraded automatically ? I hate it. Nothing works anymore. I'm writing books and the links just disappear. I even can't copy a word text into the model anymore. Looking at the negative reviews of later versions I even don't feel like downloading a later update.
CAN I PPPPLEASE HAVE BACK MY GOOD, OLD APPLEWORKS?? No? Apple Write? No? MacWrite?
Where is the ruler of the footer? Stop searching, I tell you: REMOVED!
And this is only one of the many ways they made our life harder with no benefit at all!
What's the use to run after MircoBrain's way to 'develop' software (see also Skype, another destroied product, once wonderful, now all my notes disappeared, exempli gratia!)?
And the same for Numbers, another SW that brought me to stop to use Apple SW for spreadsheets, then Draw… Once upon a time all my high tech company business documents of this 3 types were made by anyone quickly, easy, with a light and perfectly integrated SW (AppleWorks), light as its document were. And the worst news is that no one else made a replacement of it.
I would like to say that my died litte brother Steve was innocent but he wasn't fully; unfortunatey I can't tell him anymore: STEVE, WAKE UP, YOU'RE GOING TO LOSE YOUR VISION!!!
In my opinion, the vast majority of complaints regards the reduction of functionality in Pages from v4 to v5 relate to functionality that is, (and again , just my opinion) more about desktop publishing as opposed to basic to moderate word processing. I'm not an Apple apologist, but it is clear what happened here, and anyone willing to step back and remove the emotion and think it through, it becomes clear.
Prior to overwhelming success of iOS, iWorks was on a path of constantly adding functionality. People saw it as the Apple answer to MS Office, not because Apple ever said that is what it would be, but because that is what many people WANTED and HOPED it would be, so they imposed their desire and reflected it in their reviews and feedback to Apple, which at the time, continued to march down the functionality curve of continued adding of functionality.
MS Office sells for +$100. iWorks was much less, and for some Mac owners came with their Mac. At some point point Apple started doing the math; "Wait, what are we doing here, we keep heading down this path, in 3 to 5 years people are going to be expecting Pages to be a competitor to Adobe InDesign, all for $20." Is the destiny of iWorks to be a Office or Adobe competitor selling for $150 or more? Is that really what we want?"
At that same time, iOS is taking off in ways Apple could not have even imagined, especially tablets, and the need to have some type of iWorks running on tablets, and the need to have a cross platform solution was more important that maintaining the functionality curve on the desktop. At that point, Apple had to decide if the desktop version of iWorks needed to be rebranded to a "professional" pro-sumer product, for several hundred dollars, with constant functionality improvements, while the iOS brand with greatly reduced functionality (due to the hardware/software limitations of tablets versus desktop) was maintained as a separate product platform.
The decision was this, if we provide cross platform products brands, this will improve the adoption of iOS and the tablet as a 'serious' platform that can do serious work, not just reading email and playing games. Once that decision was reached, limitations in iOS mandated and the need to have one code base, resulted in the desktop version having to be paired back down. Once desktop and iOS got to a common base, you now seeing functionality being added BACK in to subsequent versions of the desktop version and iOS version concurrently.
Having said that, Apple has decided the target base for Pages is NOT as a direct competitor to higher end document processors. Pages is not supposed to be "Adobe InDesign LITE" for lack of a better term, which sells for hundreds of dollars, while Pages is only $19.99 and for many if not most, if you first install iWork 09, the app store will still upgrade your copy to the latest (provided you have Yosemite or later). Some users are expecting InDesign functionality out of a $19.99 app.
I have not paid for any updates/upgrades to Pages, Numbers or Keynote since my original purchase of iWork 09, SEVEN YEARS ago. Lastly, people talk like they are being forced to upgrade. There are many options: 1) keep an old Mac around running older OS X and iWorks, 2) run virtualized installs of older OS X; 3) if you have a Mac capable of running older OS X and latest, partition the drive into bootable partitions of older and newer OS X.
Again, the expectations of what we want Pages to be need to be balanced by the fact that is is a $19.99 app (or a free upgrade to many/most previous users), which provides cross platform compatibility with iOS.. It is not Adobe InDesign Lite and never will be. That doesn't make Pages a bad product for NEW users looking for basic to moderate word processing.
I"m not discounting people's frustrations, I get it, so it isn't necessary to respond back about how much you invested in previous documents, and so on, I GET IT. For new users, considering Pages, they need to realize, that for $19.99, you are getting a very decent piece of software that is meant for entry level to low moderate document generation needs. Your a working Mom that needs to punch out a quick flyer or one page newsletter for your church or kids' softball group, and you only have 30 minutes? Pages is GREAT for that.
Now if you're a company, looking to do commercial level, or even pro-sumer level document generation, or if your needs lean towards to book publishing, template management, multiple master pages, complex text flow, etc, a $19..99 app is not going to meet your needs. Forget that the Pages from FIVE years ago could handle it. At this point, the reality is, stop expecting Apple to restore Pages to what it was; they don't want it to be the answer to Office or Adobe desktop publishing. iOS is the cash cow for Apple now, not desktop. The cart has become the donkey. Until the day there is a massive evolution in the processing and interface of iOS devices, and as long as they want to maintain some level of functional coherency between desktop and iOS, the desktop version will continue to suffer. Otherwise it's back to splitting up the platform versions again and functional disparity between the two platforms, and then you MIGHT see something like 'Pages Pro version" come out for the desktop, not for $19.99 but for $199.99. But again, there is no business reason for Apple to do that; why devote the development resources to a high end product that may only sell tens of thousands of copies, when you can devote that to the $19.99 product which drives sales of Mac hardware, desktop and iOS.
Higher end users can go with Adobe, or you can run Office 2016 for Windows virtualized or with boot camp, and use Microsoft Publisher, which by the way, is a great product which basically comes included with most versions of Office.
Good Lord this update (5.6.1) is horrible. We were using Pages to create documents for our business that were accessible for our entire team without requiring advanced design software or skills. We had constructed nice style sheets for various types of documents only to have everything we had created stripped away with this update. No real Master styles anymore and when we import our old documents it removes our company logo from the header—A complete Hot Mess from Apple.
I gave it a 1 Star just so I could have the satisfaction of taking 1/2 of it away to return the favor for Apple taking 1/2 the products features away.
I loved this software so much that I very recently purchased another iMac, but the new version of Pages (5.6.1) is HORRIBLE!!! OMG I hate it! My older iMac has hundreds of frames, I can move sections between documents... UGH! Apple seems to have removed a lot of really nice features; don't know why, and honestly I can't figure out what they've added to improve it.
SHAME ON YOU APPLE!!!
Still a bungled mess: --no facing pages (or alternating left/right headers/footers) --no bookmarks (!) --no text-box linking (!) --no non contiguous selection --no mail merge --crippled find/replace --can't print comments --no interdocument hyperlinks --no support for RTF --clicking footnote number goes to note, but clicking note number does not go back to text: why?
I haven't tried it yet, but this update would seem to put to bed the concern that Apple will be abandoning the iWork apps—assuming the listed improvements, like improved compatibility with Word are all they're cracked up to be. This is good news for people who have developed a workflow around the iApps.
Still no linkable text boxes, this is a basic feature that's been around since at least ClarisWorks days. This alone makes Pages 5 unusable for me. If it wasn't for that, among a few other things, it could be such a good app.
I can not leave 0 stars, but if I could I would. As a long time Pages user who writes books and Newsletters for a living I had enjoyed Pages growing maturity on handling long files/complex layouts. Pages 4.4 was very good as a semi Page-layout programme, very flexible, quite powerful and a reasonable UI.
Then Pages 5! What a disaster. Apple put Pages back into nappies. I can no longer edit my Newsletter, I can't handle my books. It has been dumbed down amazingly.
Hopeless.
I have uninstalled V5 and reinstalled V4.
I know everyone on here is quick to bash 5.0 (and along with many others, I still prefer the interface of Pages 4) but there are some improvements. There's a more minimalistic design, it feels snappier when you're writing, the find and replace works better. Like another user said, as a word processor, it does what it's supposed to which is what I was looking for. Once you adapt to a few changes, it's not a lot different and doesn't warrant a two star rating.
I know everyone on here is quick to bash 5.0 (and along with many others, I still prefer the interface of Pages 4) but there are some improvements. There's a more minimalistic design, it feels snappier when you're writing, the find and replace works better. Like another user said, as a word processor, it does what it's supposed to which is what I was looking for. Once you adapt to a few changes, it's not a lot different and doesn't warrant a two star rating.
I converted from a PC to a Mac back in 2007. On the PC, I used MS Publisher, which was fine, but was very poor in the image management department. However, it did allow for many nice features such as mail-merge and working with booklets. When I moved to the Mac, I began to learn Pages. Since that time, I have become very comfortable with Pages (4.3) using it for most every document and publication that I create, which are hundreds each year. I do have an Adobe CC subscription as well, and have learned how to use InDesign, but prefer Pages over InDesign because it seems easier to use.
Even Pages 4.3 had its shortcomings though. One could not create booklets with ease, especially when it came to imposing. I needed to download a plugin in order to impose my pages into a booklet as part of the printing operation. It also did not allow one to choose CMYK output, which is needed for pre-press work. But I think the most frustrating thing was that, even though it allowed one to see a document as two-up, it did not allow one to spread a graphic across facing pages, which is required for many booklet-type documents. It also did not help with full-bleed documents, showing cut and safe lines. One had to size the paper larger to allow for the bleed.
I had really hoped that the new version of Pages would have become more and more robust as a publishing tool, much like PageMaker or InDesign. Unfortunately, Apple decided to forsake its "professional" users in favor of the "template" user, in essence dumbing it down to allow it to match its iOS devices. I'm sure of one thing, I will not be using my iPad or iPhone to design an 8-page booklet any time in this lifetime. That's precisely why I bought a 27" iMac and added a 28" monitor beside!
Apple, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE stop forcing your power users to use a mickey-mouse app that someone would use to make a party invitation once in their lifetime! Instead, make an app that competes with the professional stuff that is out there today. I know you can do it, and I know that people would be willing to pay real money for it!
There's a lot of talk about how Apple took features away in the latest versions of Pages, based upon Apple's effort to make it work the same in the iOS and desktop environments, and while that 's essentially true, much of that lost functionality has been added back.
It's a versatile word processor that exports to Word and other formats, and is easier to use than Nisus Writer Pro (it's also less powerful, but why use a howitzer when a .45 will do just as well?) and does what it's supposed to do.
Its development has been a bit uneven, but it feels to me that all the rough spots have been sanded smooth, and it's well-worth the (very reasonable) cost.
Additionally, it's available via iCloud in browsers, on iOS devices and the desktop application, all able to work seamlessly with each other.
Apple has absolutely lost their way! The new Apple Pages is worthless Garbage! The numerous reasons why. Have been exposed many times over. But for myself, the Search or Find option/tool in Pages 09 Version 4.1 (923) is the feature I miss most.
Unfortunately, I have not been able to discover another Word Processor with a comparable Search/Find option/tool. It is/was the best and most uniquely functional and I say this after trying the available alternative Word Processors. Calligra Words is the only W.P. I found to have a functionally comparable Search/Find tool. But that was on a Linux OS and the OS X version is unfortunately, not yet ready for prime time.
Sadly, Apple has forced myself and many others to continue using Pages 09 until it no longer works or Apple rectifies their insane blunder. If they do not realize and correct their egregious err, I will never, install or use the "New" Apple Pages!
Their latest egregious software blunder has forced me to uninstall iPhoto and the new Photos Application, in favor of alternative software, Lyn and Gimp. They just don't get it!
Pages 5.x is the worst part of new iWorks. There are missing a lot of features which has been in previous versions. One and half year and we are still waiting…
I've had my mac for about 4 years and love it. Also loved Pages. Could do anything with it, easy to figure out and understand. Then Best Buy destroyed my computer and they bought me a new one - with Pages 5.5. Hate it, hate it, hate it. Can't open my old documents without updating them to the new version, can't find commands that were on the old version - terrible. (simple example - when I made a change to a document on the old pages and didn't like it, I just shut it down. It asked if I wanted to save the changes, I said no, and it didn't save the changes. Simple. Not pages 5.5! I found out the hard way that it doesn't ask, it just saves. So I finally found the "save as" command. STILL didn't save the old version of the document. Just one of many, many things that have been totally screwed up.
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How would you rate Apple Pages app?
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--no facing pages (or alternating left/right headers/footers)
--no bookmarks (!)
--no text-box linking (!)
--no non contiguous selection
--no mail merge
--crippled find/replace
--can't print comments
--no interdocument hyperlinks
--no support for RTF
--clicking footnote number goes to note, but clicking note number does not go back to text: why?
Avoid this misbegotten mess
It's a versatile word processor that exports to Word and other formats, and is easier to use than Nisus Writer Pro (it's also less powerful, but why use a howitzer when a .45 will do just as well?) and does what it's supposed to do.
Its development has been a bit uneven, but it feels to me that all the rough spots have been sanded smooth, and it's well-worth the (very reasonable) cost.
Additionally, it's available via iCloud in browsers, on iOS devices and the desktop application, all able to work seamlessly with each other.