Apple Pages Reviews

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.

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...

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 The advantage Pages has over other word processors is that it is template driven, which originally made it more accessible to non-expert (that is to say, average) users.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.

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.

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?

Avoid this misbegotten mess

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.

Finally Pages 5.6 will open Pages '08 documents. Long overdue but glad Apple finally addressed this oversight.

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.

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!

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.

I've already left a review, so posting only a comment this time. This new update still has no linkable text boxes, so for me is completely useless. For tasks that don't require this feature, it's OK. Swift Publisher makes quite a good alternative too, but as a rule I still stick with Pages 4.3.

The disappointment continues. The UX team at Apple has really been dropping the ball lately on things and I'm growing increasingly concerned. With Pages I am finding that it takes me 25-100% longer to perform tasks than with the previous version on this release. There are still some odd glaring issues such as eliminating feature like multi-selection within text. It is more time consuming to modify sections and other (probably) less accessed functions. The last version was more of a Word competitor than this and I find myself (very angrily) moving back to MS Word more and more with this release or simply using the old Pages where I can. I'm generally becoming disenfranchised by Apple with the UX team's focus on touchability and things that are not friendly to traditional power users. I'm sad to say that even problems are bleeding over into the OS design with Yosemite here and there. Apple, you really need to get it together and understand that differentiating user experiences for desktops vs mobile devises is NOT wrong.

Leaving aside the fatuous excuses for this really bad "upgrade" it is a lie to say that iWork '09 did not work with iPads and iOS. It did, and not much worse than this version does. It is hardly an improvement to drag down the Mac version to the iOS version level and even there still have features that you can't do in the iOS version. Pages has become abandonware. So many major features are gone, it doesn't take it up to the old Pages let alone MsOffice. If you are amongst the lucky few who haven't noticed much change, you haven't lost a file that won't open and never did much anyway so there is nothing to miss, even if the file can't be opened. So Pages, and the rest of the iWork apps, has become for users who never rise above a Twit or a selfie. So the reason it has been dumbed down the way it has is because Apple's users have been dumbed down. Try doing support for these on Apple's forums, you can not believe just how stupid and helpless the users have become. It has become a self fulfilling policy, the dumber the App the dumber the user, repeat.

I honestly think users need to determine whether the latest version of Pages is suited for their needs. Power users that do tons of formatting, etc., will likely not like the latest version. I happen to like it, but my word processing needs are very basic. Additionally, if you meet the "basic needs" criteria, then Pages integrates and syncs perfectly with iCloud Drive (of course, you have to have Yosemite installed)...and I do. This means it also syncs all your documents perfectly with your iOS devices. For me, this is important. Maybe rather than forcing opinions on folks who ask for help here, we should do our best to look at what the poster's needs are (if stated). For many years I've relied on MacUpdate for these valuable opinions and I hope I'll be able to continue reading them.

I liked iWork 09 but was okay with the update and decided to use it. (My needs are minimal.) I use Mavericks and have no plans to update to Yosemite. Nonetheless, nearly every time I open Pages or Numbers, I get a notice telling me that a new update is available; yet I can't use said update except on Yosemite. If I weren't already heavily invested in Mac software, I'd seriously consider looking into non-Apple alternatives. And I've been using Macs since 1987!