Apple Pages ‘08 Is “Highly Recommended”

Don Lee of TecKMagazine took a look at Pages ‘08, part of Apple’s iWork software suite, and offered us a review of its features and functionality. The ‘08 version of the word processor application has included some additions, he tells us, with more features, compatibility and a greater ease of use to those inexperienced with Pages before this.

Lee writes, “When you launch Pages ‘08, you are greeted with a window displaying all of the available document options. From here, you can select to create typical word processing documents such as modern or traditional letters, envelopes, forms, resumes and reports as well as some not so typical options like screenplays, storyboarding, creative proposals, meeting notes, evaluation document and even a quiz. There are also a number of page layout options to help give you some layout ideas and ease you into your next project. Some of the page layout options include newsletters, brochures, flyers, posters, cards and invitations, business cards as well as some additional options that include page layouts for lab notes, education scrapbook, menus and travel journals. ”

The available templates are exceptionally helpful, Lee says, when you are racing a clock, trying to put together a project with little time to spare.

There is a format bar across the top where you can access basic layout functions for all the text and objects in the document you are working in. “The bar will change as you select each object. For example, select some text in your document and the bar will display the typical text formatting options such as fonts, text layout, line spacing, text colors and more. Select an image in your document and the bar will change to display options such as opacity, shadow, reflection, borders and more,” Lee writes.

What about the question so often asked, about compatibility with Microsoft Word?
No worries. It is fully compatible with Word 2007. What about older Word documents? With some minor exceptions, the documents will display just fine. When there are those minor exceptions, Pages offers an import document warning, giving details of issue at hand.

Tracking ability is a new feature that Lee was looking forward to; it allows you to keep track of the changes made in your documents. “Just click on the Track Changes button at the top of the document window, which will display a comments bar along the left side of the document. When you make a change to the document, a notation will appear in the comments bar. You can leave notes for others to read in case you have questions about some of the content. When you see a change, you can click on the checkmark in the comment to accept the change or click on the x mark to reject the change. You can do a global acceptance or rejection by clicking on the drop-down menu in the upper right area of the document.” He did run into an issue which he considered minor, which was that the tracking capability with the older document, because of border issues, failed to track some content which was not formatted with those Word parameters in question. Lee suggests that it might actually be an issue with the original document rather than with Pages.

One warning this user would like to issue, however: there seems to be a problem with opening a Word document and making changes from the Pages application which will save correctly once the document is closed. Although the “save” process seemed to be functioning, when the original document was re-opened, not only was the new material missing, but it seemed to have saved an even older version of the original document which was missing some other information as well. This could be a problem with this user, since I’ve been known to foul up, but it is something worth being aware of. To be safe, save any changes you make in your Word documents in both Word and Pages, so that you can go back and retrieve anything which might have disappeared.

Lee continues, “Another cool feature is the ability to make images transparent. Just select an image in your document first then choose Instant Alpha from the Format menu (Format>Instant Alpha). Then click on the area of the image and just drag your cursor around the area you want to make transparent. Only the area matching the initial color targeted will become transparent.”

The new version also requires less hard drive space — always a plus. Lee was able to install the program on his MacBook without having to make space for it. The required disk space was only 266 megabytes.

Lee’s final take on Pages 08 was a positive 4.75 stars out of five, giving it a “highly recommended” rating. “Overall, I found Pages 08 from the iWork application suite to be a very broad and encompassing application that is incredibly easy for novices to pick up and get working immediately on a variety of projects. Some more experienced word processor users will still find some features in Pages 08 to be very useful.

His last word? Apple Pages 08 is an easy to use application and is a worthy upgrade from previous versions or a great place to join to Apple ranks in turning out some high quality documents that will leave your colleagues in awe. Pages 08 is part of the iWork office suite.”