Has anybody tried using the new version of Pages with Scrivener’s RTF output? As I recall, the old version was pretty bad…
It’s a shame. Pages still does not import footnotes.
I suppose you could go Scrivener: export as rtf-> Word or NeoOffice: save as doc-> Pages. That should preserve footnotes, I guess.
Pages '08
Yep, it still doesn’t import footnotes, which is a serious bummer. Other than that, though, it’s really pretty great. Excellent Apple interface, FINALLY a quick-format bar so we don’t have to do EVERYTHING through the font inspector, and a bunch of other nice tweaks. It finally feels like a usable program, and I may, in fact, use it for shorter documents or things in which I want some more layout control (it’s sort of like a cross between Indesign and Word, minus the idiocy and feature bloat). Oh, and it has one absolutely killer feature for me: Word-compatible commenting and markup. In law, folks are absolutely ADDICTED to the built-in versioning in Word, and it is a freakin’ JOY to be able to not have to open that nightmare of a program to go through those.
So what’s this mean? Well, for straight word-processing with footnotes, NWP all the way. It has one of the more fantastic style sheet management systems I’ve seen, and it handles footnotes just fine. For everything else, I think I’m going to end up using Pages, because the interface is so good. Other than footnotes, it does everything I need incredibly well.
Pages '08
Yep, it still doesn’t import footnotes, which is a serious bummer. Other than that, though, it’s really pretty great. Excellent Apple interface, FINALLY a quick-format bar so we don’t have to do EVERYTHING through the font inspector, and a bunch of other nice tweaks. It finally feels like a usable program, and I may, in fact, use it for shorter documents or things in which I want some more layout control (it’s sort of like a cross between Indesign and Word, minus the idiocy and feature bloat). Oh, and it has one absolutely killer feature for me: Word-compatible commenting and markup. In law, folks are absolutely ADDICTED to the built-in versioning in Word, and it is a freakin’ JOY to be able to not have to open that nightmare of a program to go through those.
So what’s this mean? Well, for straight word-processing with footnotes, NWP all the way. It has one of the more fantastic style sheet management systems I’ve seen, and it handles footnotes just fine. For everything else, I think I’m going to end up using Pages, because the interface is so good. Other than footnotes, it does everything I need incredibly well.
I was checking out all versions of iWork, but this is the first one I actually buy. Pages is really refined (the compatibility with the comments is really a blessing), Keynote was great all the way, but no dealbreaker for me - it’s Numbers that finally got me. With two clicks you can generate diagrams. In 10 years of Excel use I’ve never learned how to do that. To be honest, I’ve never really tried - but that’s what I like about Apple. You don’t have to try or to dig for it.
I ran the demo of Pages 2008’s new change-tracking function and it looked very pretty. It does appear that it opens up the prospect of a Word-free future, for those who need this functionality.
Two questions occur to me (as a relative Mac newcomer):
- am I correct in thinking it’s the only alternative to MS Word on any platform to provide this functionality?
- will Scrivener be able to re-import Pages 2008’s output for further editing (once any tracked changes have been accepted within Pages, of course)?
H
Edit: I see that, not surprisingly, Pages 2008 can export its output in RTF; does that mean Scrivener will import it?
Hugh: I read somewhere yesterday that Mellel has this feature, but haven’t had the time to look into it…
OpenOffice/NeoOffice has the same change track function as Word.
Mellel has not it yet, but it is discussed and among the features that might appear sooner or later.
I like very much the way it is implemented in Pages.
Paolo
Can you buy iWork as a download, because if you can, why buy it for £55 from Apple UK’s site when it’s $79 (or £39) on Apple US’s?
I can only see references to shipping on both sites.
I don’t think it’s a download, but I could be wrong. I just purchased iLife '08 and they’re sending me a physical box.
(fwiw)
You can download a trial version of iWork, then buy a serial number from Apple to turn it into a fully working version. I don’t know if there are any kind of safeguards in place to prevent you from buying a US version from the UK.
I’ve downloaded the trial version. If I decide to buy iWork at the end of the 30 days, it looks as though I can simply purchase a licence key for the downloaded program, so I may as well buy from the US for 79 USD instead of 55 GBP. Mind you, if they add VAT at 17.5%, it won’t be such a saving. And they may automatically switch me to the UK store when they see where I live.
If I do buy it will be because Pages can read Word 2007 files, and maybe because of the spreadsheet.
cw
Edit: My post has crossed with Antony’s, I see: two minds…
Nice to see your monicker again after a bit of a hiatus, crimewriter! I believe I’ll try
iWork as well. I’m already a keynote addict, and if pages can track changes that
track with Word, I’m sold. The spread sheet is a bonus. I love Excel’s utility, but its
quirks and limitations drive me bonkers sometimes.
Best,
Tim
I’m not sure you can just buy the key - it looks like you have to buy the box with the CD/DVD, so they’ll presumably add shipping costs, and as someone said, VAT. So the £55 is probably what it’ll come to…
I can’t believe Apple’s marketing bods have missed that particular trick.
I was playing with Pages earlier too, and it seemed to be doing some Word style ‘features’ involving formatting lists and styles, as though it too keeps the info ‘in’ the paragraph mark. And it seemed a bit erratic about the hotkeys I’d assigned, too.
Overall though, it’s very nice, though a teensy bit sluggish on my G4 iBook.
Numbers is brilliant. Some high-end raw-power functionality is lost, but for 95% of people it’s more than adequate, and so much easier to use/better looking/intuitive/etc than Excel. I’ve already converted all my old accounts sheets over.
Rob Griffiths has an excellent review of it over at Macworld.
Numbers is quite good. It’s worth buying iWork 08 just for that I think.
I usually cut and paste from Scrivener to Pages for formatting. However, I don’t require footnotes or endnotes in my work. The Help section for the new Pages says:
“In a word processing document, you can add special marks (numbers or symbols) in a document that link to notes at the bottom of a page (footnotes) or at the end of a document or section (endnotes). You can’t mix footnotes and endnotes in a document, but you can convert notes from one type to the other.”
So there is some footnote and endnote support in Pages.
Also, Numbers does not have subtotals. Maybe this does not affect Scrivener directly, but it means that iWork '08 has shortcomings.
I don’t know what I will use, but I am also looking at Papyrus which combines word processing, a database and spreadsheet (tables) as an alternative to iWorks '08. Papyrus supports separate footnotes and endnotes:
“Footnotes my be numbered either Page by page restarting at “1” on each new page, or By document, in which case you can also set the starting number of the first footnote (this is helpful if you plan to combine several documents into a larger work)… Endnotes are independent from footnotes and are managed in a special database that is linked to the document (similar to the HyperOFFICE links used for bibliography references, but may be used independently).”
Regards,
Gene
Can anyone tell me where to find a trial download of iWork. I’ve scoured the Apple
sight and can’t seem to find it.
Thanks,
Tim