Pages
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Pages | |
<tr><td colspan="2" style="text-align: center;">Image:Pages2.jpg | |
| Use: | Word processor / Page layout
<tr><th>License:</th><td>Proprietary</td></tr> |
|---|---|
| Website: | www.apple.com |
- For the Bering Strait album, see Pages (album).
Pages is a word processor and page layout application developed by Apple Computer and a part of the iWork productivity suite sold by Apple for US$79 in North America (£55 GBP in United Kingdom, €79 in most European countries). Pages 1.0 was announced at the beginning of 2005 and started selling in February 2005. As with most of Apple's other recent software, Pages runs on Mac OS X only. Pages 2, part of iWork '06 was introduced at the 2006 MacWorld Expo.
Contents |
[edit] History
Pages on Mac OS X is the successor of Apple's multipurpose office suite AppleWorks. The first rumors of a new Apple word processor to replace AppleWorks circulated the Internet through Mac rumor websites in 2003, suggesting a new software package to be released by Apple called "iWorks" or "iWork". Many Mac users were expecting the new program (which rumor sites then claimed would be called "Documents") in 2004 after reading the rumors. Steve Jobs, Apple CEO finally announced iWork '05 along with iLife '05 at the beginning of 2005.
There was a program of the same name made for NeXT computers by Pages Software, Inc., including similar WYSIWYG page layout features as Pages for Mac OS X. Since Apple acquired NeXT in 1997, this has led to suggestions that these programs are based on the same codebase. However, since Pages Software's NeXTSTEP assets seem to have been acquired by a Chicago-based IT solutions company, this speculation appears to be unfounded. It is known that Pages for OS X was developed by the same team that developed Keynote 2, a presentation program included in iWork.
[edit] Features
Pages includes support for multi-column layout, text paragraph styles, footnotes, and other advanced typographical capabilities. It makes strong uses of templates to get users started. AppleWorks and Microsoft Word documents can be imported, and files can also be exported to a variety of formats. Shapes can be drawn directly into documents, and their attributes changed instantly. Graphics can be inserted into documents, can wrap around text, and can also be manipulated with a shadow, different rotation angles and more.
Pages can create lists, columns, bullet point lists, URL links, dates and times, page breaks, and will accept data from iTunes, iMovie and iPhoto. Pages can be used to create newsletters, invoices, blank documents, essays, stationery, invitations, educational materials and other types of documents. Any documents created can be exported to RTF, HTML, Word, PDF or saved as a Pages document. It is generally considered that Pages is best suited for basic page layout and word processing tasks, while Adobe InDesign and Microsoft Word are more suited for publishing large-scale advertisement materials or an entire printed book respectively.
[edit] Pages and Word
Most people tend to compare Pages with MS Word 2004 for Mac OS X. Pages lacks among other things the following functions, which are present in MS Word:
- Visual Basic macros
- Revision Marks
- Comparison of two documents
- Versions
- Organization Charts
- Linked and Embedded Objects
- US Barcode printing
- Master documents
- Grammar Checks
- Vertical Script and Japanese furigana
- Word Art
- Drop Caps
- Intelligent caps formatting (like Title Case).
- AutoSave (which can be used to recover unsaved documents in case of a crash)
- Native "Save" of RTF and Word format (Pages "exports" to RTF and Word format, but subsequent changes have to be exported again through a number of dialogue steps.)
- Split document window
- Multiple document windows for the same file
- Italics and bold in fonts with no built in support for it.
- Word count of a selection
- White text on black background (option which sometimes is perceived as easier to read)
On the other hand Pages has for example the following functions, which MS Word 2004 lacks:
- Save and open Pages files
- Support for Mac OS X Services
- Image Masks
- Image Levels
- Snap images to Alignment guides
- Text fit/wrap along a curved border
- Customizable text shadows
- Multi-language dictionary
- Formatting previews (Apart from the Formatting Palette, the dialogues in MS Word do not show previews of formatting changes until they are applied.)
- Ligature control
- Advanced typography features (glyph variants, ornaments, etc.)
Neither Pages nor MS Word 2004 for Mac OS X has fully working support for right to left scripts like Arabic, Hebrew and Persian. Neither product supports Open Document format.
Other functions that exists in both products are often implemented in very different ways. They may require very different numbers of steps and be more or less intuitive in the two products.
[edit] Version history
| Version Number | Release Date | Changes |
|---|---|---|
| 1.0 | February 2005 | Initial release. |
| 1.0.1 | March 17, 2005 | Fixes isolated bugs and issues causing problems to some customers. It also allowed the deletion of template pages. |
| 1.0.2 | May 25, 2005 | Addresses issues with page navigation and organization. |
| 2.0 | January 10, 2006 | Released as part of iWork'06. Includes new templates, table calculations, photo masking with shapes and freestyle bezier curves. |
| 2.0.1 | April 26, 2006 | Pages 2.0.1 addresses issues with charts and image adjust. It also addresses a number of other minor issues. |
| 2.0.1v2 | May 1, 2006 | Pages 2.0.1 addresses issues with charts and image adjust. It also addresses a number of other minor issues. |
| 2.0.2 | September 28, 2006 | Pages 2.0.2 addresses issues Aperture compatibility. |
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Apple: Pages
- PagesUser.com Blog dedicated to Pages
- iWork Community
- iWorkAbuser Forums and Downloads.
| Apple's iWork |
| Keynote | Pages |
| Apple Computer software | |
|---|---|
| OS: | Mac OS X | Mac OS 9 |
| Consumer: | .Mac | iLife | iTunes | iWork | Mac OS X |
| Prosumer: | Final Cut Express | Logic Express |
| Pro: | Aperture | Final Cut Studio | Logic Pro | Shake |
| Bundled: | Front Row | iChat | Photo Booth | QuickTime | Safari | TextEdit |
| Server: | Apple Remote Desktop | Mac OS X Server | WebObjects | Xsan |
| Discontinued: | AppleWorks | HyperCard | MacDraw | Mac OS | MacPaint | MacProject | MacTerminal | MacWrite |
