Apples Pages 08 is All Grown Up

Review: Warts aside, Apple's word processor refresh is worth a look from current and prospective iWorkers alike.With the latest release of Apples office productivity suite, iWork 08, the Pages application moves into the ranks of full fledged word processing applications.

Previously known more for its page layout capabilities than for its word processing capabilities, Pages now enables users to switch seamlessly between writing and designing documents.

In addition, the application offers 140 document templates and a snazzy track-changes feature, both of which work to position iWork 08 as an apt rival to Microsofts Office 2004 for Mac in the OS X compatible office productivity arena.

I also encountered issues with file format conversion when exporting and importing Microsoft Office documents, which wasnt a surprise, since all non-Microsoft application that consumes Offices black box binary file formats seems to encounter at least some level of mistranslation.

Pages does offer Microsoft OOXML (Office Open XML) support—functionality that Microsofts Office 2004 for Mac notably lacks—however, I found this assistance to be incomplete. It lacks, for example, a complete agreement component and field assistance. Companies that are standardizing on Office 2007s new formats should pay particular attention to these issues formerly relying on Pages to fill in the format assistance gaps in Office 2004.

Even with Pages warts, the application refresh should be welcome for current iWork users, and other OS X users would do well to inexpensive the evaluation version of Apples suite to try it out for themselves.

iWork 08 is reasonably priced, at $79 (or free with the purchase of any new Mac computer). The suite requires Mac OS X version 10.4.10 or later.

Perusing Pages

When I opted to open a new file in Pages, the program launched its template browser, which grouped the templates under the Word Processing subhead, or the Page Layout subhead. I chose to open both a new, empty word processing document and a new, empty page layout document. Both documents opened on the simular screen, and I was able to toggle between each respective document mode with the greatest of ease.

The next feature I took to task was Pages new track changes feature, which is a collaboration capability for many companies. I found Pages version of this feature very handy. As I made changes to a document, caption boxes appeared in the documents margin describing the changes I had made, with arrows that connected these boxes to the text passages to which they referred.

I could click on an "X" icon within each box to dismiss the changes, or click on a checkmark icon to approve the difference. Deleted phrases appeared as such with a strikethrough key, and changed text appeared in a different color to distinguish it from the unchanged text.