“Dear oh dear. They really have done it, haven’t they?” Pierre Igot writes for Betalogue. “They have taken what had evolved into a rather decent word processor / page layout application and have eliminated so many useful features that it effectively is now a piece of useless junk, and I honestly have no idea for whom this latest version of Pages is intended.”
“It certainly is not intended for people who, like me, appreciated the combination of simplicity and power that was the hallmark of previous versions of Pages,” Igot writes. “I realize that it must be hard to maintain the right balance between simplicity and power when you try to add more features, more customizability, and so on. But Apple’s engineers appear to have chosen to keep the emphasis on ‘simplicity’ at the expense of ‘power.'”
Igot writes, “They have not just neglected to add features to bring the feature set of the application closer to that of a word processor like Microsoft Word. They have actually removed many features for no apparent reason other than to bring the application in line with its iOS counterpart, which is, inevitably, much less powerful… I guess that, for now, I will continue to use Pages ’09 with all the customizations that I have painstakingly created with AppleScript and Keyboard Maestro. But sooner or later, I will have no choice but to switch to something else.”
Much more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: No Pages 5.0 is not an unmitigated disaster. Some guy’s third-party macros no longer work. That’s it in a nutshell. 9 out of 10 Pages users will find Pages 5.0 is an unmitigated triumph!
If you’re a user that has created customizations with AppleScript and Keyboard Maestro then you’re not the demographic that Apple is going for. A free, simple word processor good for 90% of the computer using public is the demographic.
You are correct, but at the expense of existing users?
How many people are going to choose their next computer entirely on the basis of a free word processor?
How many people will be happy to use Pages on their iPad/Mac considering it’s free and they don’t need Microsoft Word? Plenty.
How many people won’t buy a Mac because Pages isn’t powerful enough for them? Zero.
You are correct again, people will not be put off buying a Mac because Pages may not be powerful enough for them. Although you talk as if a Microsoft Office is the only office suite available for the Mac, when that clearly isn’t the case. The previous price of iWork is no where near the cost of Microsoft Office, and those who previously choose to use Microsoft Office in preference of iWork may still choose to do so. I very much doubt any iWork users will move to Microsoft Office.
The bottom line is, of course Apple won’t loose any customers, how can they? It’s free! You are correct again people will not be put off buying a Mac because pages may not be powerful enough for them, although you talk as if a Microsoft Office was the only office suite available for the Mac, when that clearly isn’t the case. The previous price of iWork is no where near the cost of Microsoft Office, and those who previously choose to use Microsoft Office in preference of iWork may still choose to do so. I very much doubt any iWork users will move to Microsoft Office.
The bottom line is, of course Apple won’t loose any customers, how can they? It’s free! Like you said before, for most Mac users the new versions are fine for them.
Fred Jones, loose means not tight. Lose, think lost, loss, all have one letter o.
No, neither the grammar nor spelling police. It is that I see that mistake many times over. Though it may sound as though it has two letter o, it does not.
Cordially
Thank you for your keen observations.
The iWork disaster will not make me walk away from Apple. But if Pages 09 does not work under Mavericks, I will delay upgrading as long as possible — and that includes putting off the purchase of a two new Macs that would come with the new system. If Pages 09 works under Mavericks, then I can go ahead and upgrade and buy the new Macs. Then I will just have to be on the lookout for another page layout option — or for Apple to fix Pages 09 (which they now have no incentive to do since it is free).
I do a *lot* of writing on my iPad. However, after trying Pages on the iPad, I went back to using Notesy and writing in Markdown (plain text). This gets moved to the Mac for layout in Pages 09 (with a big, beautiful monitor). I really have no interest in “feature parity.”
“How many people won’t buy a Mac because Pages isn’t powerful enough for them? Zero.”
Well, I’m one not buying mac for this
I use pages 09 in a daily basis. I simply can’t make my work with new pages 13.
Now, we must change some aging mac-pros in office. But I’m not going to buy the new Mac-Pro-ThisIsNotAnAshtray!! we are going to build some hackintosh and install mavericks for free.
If stupid pages downgrade continues and next OSX is not compatible with iWork’s 09, maybe we will change to windows in the same hacintosh PC.
If I’m forced to use Office, I rather the original one than mac version, and all the other soft we use have PC versions.
So I’m the first one
No expense. Both versions of Pages can exist quite well together. The new one is installed in /Applications, and the old one is still in /Applications/iWork. I’ve got ’em both up and running in my new Mavericks machine at work.
I have a question for you !
My documents that I’ve already open with Pages 5.0 doesn’t work anymore with Pages 4.0, do you have a solution for me ?
Thanks a lot !
In Pages 5.0 go to File > Export to… > Pages ’09. You will be able to open the exported file in Pages 09.
So far, they work together. But when you buy a new computer you’re stuck with the new, substandard iWork.
Not true, like most of the comments made here. iWork ’09 works fine on new Macs and Mavericks, you just can’t double click open files because it opens the different versiuons at random.
Boy do I miss the good old days when Mac users weren’t such putzes!
How did you do that? I installed 5.2 thinking that If anything was wrong with it i could always continue using 4.3. But installing 5.2 has rendered 4.3 inoperable, with advice that I “may have to reinstall 4.3”. 5.2 is unusable for my purposes.
I was hoping to see at least a small bump up in functionality. It was weak, but not broke. Now it is both weak AND broke. Even preliminary efforts at use have revealed bugs. I HATE debugging software. If it doesn’t work out of the box, it used to be a Microsoft product. Apple is not supposed to be this bad.
Free my ass! I bought iWorks 09 and then used it enough to be proficient, and now they force a bs version of it on my professional documents! Totally unacceptable!
Microsoft used to have Wordpad for that exact reason and nobody used it. I haven’t used iWork yet since upgrading, but the older versions simply could not come close to replacing Office for this user. Perhaps Keynote, but not Excel and Word.
Wordpad does not compare to Pages (old or new). Pages is infinitely more complete tool that Wordpad (not to mention more intuitive and elegant).
If pitched correctly, iWork can be one of the major selling points for Macs to first-time Mac users (“It comes with powerful free Word-compatible software! No need to spend extra $200 for MS Office!”).
I agree, if pitched correctly iWork could be a major advantage.
However, removing mail merge etc.. just kills that advantage with small businesses.
Mail merge. Seriously? I doubt most people that used the old Pages even know what mail merge even does. I remember using it about 20 years ago. The only thing mail merge is used for anymore is sending postal mail spam. The only legitimate thing it’s used for is banks sending privacy policies and real estate agents soliciting business and both of them can afford a 3rd party product.
Not true, small businesses use spreadsheets and mail merge as a research and filtering tool.
I serve small business clients and I have been surprised how often it is used and in how many different ways.
No, it’s used by small businesses sending stuff to their clients, NGOs and associations sending stuff to their members, etc.
Of course, you can do it with Word. But if you’ve been doing it with Pages because you bought into the simpler-but-capable Pages concept as a good environment for your everday office processes, then it’s a bit of a bummer to find out that the spftware has abandoned what you were using it for – without a warning. If they’d called it something else, or used a different file extension for the new format, it’d be fine.
My wife uses Mail merge for doing christmas envelops and mailing labels. She doesnt run a small business or spam mailing. We moved from Windows to Mac a few years back and Purchased iWork as to free ourselves from anything Microsoft. Most of the files have migrated and she has recently purchased a myPages book to help her do more with the word processor. Imagine how confused she was when she was using the book and the NEWER version of the program no longer had the features like inspector and mail merge that she had become used to. There should be two versions of this product the free DUMBED down one like it is and a professional or whatever they wanna call it version that has the enhanced functions.
I am hoping that Apple gets their act together on this and fixes it since I really do not want to purchase and install MS Office on my Mac.
That misses my point. I’m saying MS did the same thing with a simple tool in Wordpad and later with Works. A lot of PCs come with light versions of Office these days as well. I’m still perfectly happy with my two Macs, and when upgrade time comes my next purchase will be a Mac as well, but this is not a game changer for home users, and will in no way impact the professional business user like myself.
“professional business user” like you? Ha!
Is “professional business user” the new “clueless”?
I use WordPad over Word any day. I use TextEdit over Pages any day, too. I’m just not a power user. Just need something to take notes or read text. I’ll even create an email just so I can type something. Word and Pages are too difficult for me and/or I dont need the power.
In a way you are right. I have been using Word for twenty years plus because as a designer i have little choice, but neither I or my clients use it for very much complicated at all. In fact its when office workers try to be clever is when the problems start because pointless macros and attempts at styling actually make my job far more difficult. Now that we don’t live in a MS dominated world macros in particular are becoming useless beyond specific internal company purposes. Thats not what Pages is all about nor should it be.
Fact is from a creative point of view it is a dream to work with compared to Word which is a total bloated mess with U turns in the user interface constant yet not fully interpreted. Equally it wont even open older versions consistently that both Pages and Open Office will which is pathetic. If there are removed features this is to do with consistency between the versions so as to create consistency between iPad and Mac working methods and is why Apple has been able to achieve this far better then MS has managed with Office so far. What we will see is these and new features come back in when they can be added in an equally consistent manner. This may not please everyone but sometimes when you change the plumbing you have to go backwards to move forwards in a better way. sadly the minority has to suffer short term for the benefit of the majority but unless you take these decisions you get the mess that is Word or various Adobe products.
Exactly the same thing I used to argue at my last job. People are always touting Microsoft Word and its feature set, yet most people don’t use those features AT ALL, so what’s the point?
As it stands, I suspect most people use Microsoft Word not because they can use it well – most don’t – is simply that they are accustomed to using it in workplace environments.
Which is why nine-tenths of those people that use Word would just be satisfied by Pages, OpenOffice or any other word processor.
Apple offers TextEdit freely to all Mac owners – and it blows WordPad to shi_.
Pages is far more powerful then TextEdit and works on all Apple devices plus its a cloud base app too. Go Apple. Die MS.
TextEdit is simple but powerful, and I use it daily for good old fashioned writing.
Once a draft is done, into Pages, QX, or ID it goes.
Wordpad, which is still available in basic windoze install, compares to TextEdit. Pages is a quantum leap from TextEdit, so….
… “customizations with AppleScript and Keyboard Maestro” is not the demographic Apple was going for, why was AppleScript there in the first place? My wife, the luddite, did some significant customization (OK, had ME do it) to make it easier for her to write her plays. Is all that gone? How am I going to keep her from giving her money to MSFT if Apple has blown it all away?
Pages is free. iPads and other Apple devices cost money. Word costs money.
And Apple should care if she buys Word?
Not to worry. If she has iWork on her system (Applications > iWork ’09) then when she upgrades to Mavericks it will be there. The new Pages, Numbers, Keynote will be installed as individual apps, yet they will not incumber the folder iWork ’09.
Cordially,
Oh yes, Pages 5.0 is a real disaster, see below what they all removed. I was so keen to get the new Pages, and now it lost all professional approach, but I guess, a lot of the removed features in the list below would have been useful for non-pro users as well.
It makes no sense to remove anything in a new version. As a Pages-fan I was completely shocked, like a lot of other users. I wish Apple would have decided to kick Microsoft where it hurts, but this way they do help MS to sell their terrible MS Office. Apple should have added features, not removed.
Before you show me your north-korean middle finger, read this list carefully and think a moment, if you are able to. I use Pages every single day, may be more than anyone who now will give me one star. Those who really rely on Pages understand the issue.
REMOVED:
Select non-contiguous text
Outline view
Customizable Toolbar
135 templates
Capture pages/sections
Drag reorganize pages
Duplicate pages
Delete page
Manage Pages
Subscript/superscript buttons
Select all instances of a Style
Retain zoom level of document
Facing pages
Layout Breaks
Layout Margins
Endnotes
Media Inspector links to iPhoto library on external drive
Media Inspector links to Aperture Library
Alignment Guides
Styles Drawer
Merge Fields
Drag and Drop VCards
Default Start Up page
Vertical Ruler
Style Function key shortcuts
Bookmarks and Links
Images within Tables
Import Styles
Clean Import of older .pages formatting
User Guide
Search Sidebar
Open Type features
Textbox linking
Background Object selectable
Storyboards
Text to Tables
Tables to Text
Tables in Headers/Footers
Export to .txt or .rtf
Multiple Comments view
T.O.C. clean numbering
Selective formating in Character Styles
Insert File Name
Search in Media Browser
Bullet points in comments
Search comments
Two up view
Paste and keep style
Accented characters in Footer
Mail Merge
Mask with shapes other than rectangle
Find & Replace special characters eg paragraph returns
… and more!
As I’ve already said to the other person who posted this list, alignment guides have NOT been removed; they are turned off by default. Go in to Preferences > Rulers and check both boxes. Boom. Alignment guides are back.
Yes, but they turn off every time you close Pages.
The alignment guides referred to are the drag out horizontal and vertical guides.
What exactly does anyone here actually do with their software?
Certainly don’t know much about it.
Yep, I agree. This version makes me miss AppleWorks…
Luckily Pages 09 remains on my hard drive. I will try this new version, but some tasks are impossible now that Apple decided to remove many useful features.
Search/Replace is one that hurts me most. Now it’s almost useless. Sad.
Not true. I didn’t check them all, but superscript and subscript are still there. You just have to click the little options icon (like a little flywheel). What I would like is a list that shows exactly what the differences are between this latest version and the previous Pages. Anyone know where to find such a list?
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5468056?start=540&tstart=0
Not hard to find and it keeps getting updated. The above list was from the 2nd day of release and we keep finding more.
The list of missing features is now up over the tonne!
101 to be precise. None of which will be missed by those who can barely use it, let alone anything else on the Mac.
Facing pages is still available. Click in the bottom left corner of a document.
Did that. Nothing happens. Can you be more specific? Thanks.
You are talking about Pages ’09 NOT Pages 5 which still has Facing Pages missing in v5.2.
Someone should label this WebSite macClueless.
Hmm. I’m going to miss those first two a lot. Outline view is mighty handy for composing school course curricula.
Is Nisus Writer still around?…
Darn! Darn! Darn! I binned my 08 and 09 folders before I knew of this complete disaster. Hopefully I still have the original install discs if they will work.
The old Inspector was initially a complex beast but familiarity soon made it easy. The new layout is simplified but I doubt its better.
I could not agree more as a person that use to like using Pages very much, this what I thought on the apple forum page…
mick205
Re: Is it no longer possible to make background objects selectable?
Nov 20, 2013 2:52 AM (in response to Mr. Bacon)
It much more than disappointing not being able to select background objects…..
I have to say it ****** me off when you get use to a great program and some super geek stuffs it up by playing with it… What wise arse thought it needed changing, who are you trying to impress?
TAKE NOTE: Apple Super Geek **** off and go play with yourself and leave a good thing along other wise your no different then Microsoft…
PS tried the whole master thing, didn’t work……………………………
I guess I will have to find a third party company to help as Apple support never gets back to any of these discussions either….
This is a backhanded compliment to those of us who get the most out of our software and a dig at dumb apple consumers who make up up the other 90-percent.
I say, you’re full of shit.
“A free, simple word processor good for 90% of the computer using public is the demographic.”
You don’t really think much of Apple consumers do you?
I’m a user who spent £2,500 on a MacBook Retina that’s just had one of my favourite productivity applications gutted and the four-year-old existing app thrown into a cupboard until the next iteration of iOSX kills it. Why should I be forced into using software developed for a child’s toy? Apple has, for some time now, shown that it doesn’t want people who can think for themselves as part of its customer base and this travesty is the straw which has broken my camel’s back. Apple shows no loyalty to its customer base and this particular customer has decided that the bootcamp partition with Windows 8.1 and MS Office 365 is now the default on his shiny MacBook. As soon as I get round to downloading the Adobe Creative Cloud apps for Windows then I’ve no need to suffer the indignity of being an Apple customer for much longer. Owning Apple kit was once an indication of style-aware, creative, not-part-of-the-herd, tech-savvy users. Now it’s an indication of having more money than sense, style-led, conformist, tech-stupid users. Tech for the masses is a great business plan but when it leads to enforced and compulsory dumbing-down for all, I’m out.
What is wrong with a BOTH AND approach. Apple could have BOTH enhanced Pages for power users AND provided a streamlined interface to be iPad-like, perhaps in a Pages-Lite version. They chose to abandon the power users who wanted the consistent stability of embedded graphics (which Word gets overwhelmed with handling) and only play to iPad users. This is disappointing. Like others, I will have to abandon Pages for my products and go to something more akin to Framemaker or Adobe of some sort.
Pages 5 – 102 Removed Features [so far]
Application
Full User Guide (there is a short online guide)
Video Tutorials
Many keyboard shortcuts
AppleScript support (only a few basic Library items left)
User Interface
Format Bar
Shortcut methods like the Subscript/Superscript buttons
Media Inspector links to iPhoto library on external drive
Media Inspector links to Aperture Library
Styles Drawer
Drag out Vertical (and Horizontal) Ruler Alignment Guides
Search Sidebar
Page of Page Count at foot of Window
Recent fonts at top of Font List
Full Screen background color
Search in Media Browser
Many Services no longer work in OSX 10.9 including Simplified to Traditional Chinese and vice versa
Gestures (such as pinch to resize images)
Speech to Text shortcut doesn’t work
> Customizable Toolbar (reintroduced in Pages 5.01)
Document
135 templates
Outline view
Capture pages/sections
Organise personal templates into sub-folders
Drag reorganize pages
Duplicate pages
Delete page
Manage Pages
Facing pages
Layout Margins
Retain zoom level of document
Vertical Ruler
Export to .rtf
Import from .rtf
Saving onto Windows server
Open Recent from Template Chooser
Copy/Paste Thumbnails across documents
OSX Spotlight Metadata
Roman Numeral Page Numbers
Default Start Up page
Display non-printable margins
Two up view
First Page is different in Sections
Clean Import of older .pages formatting
Multiple Comments view
Bullet points in comments
Search comments
Background Object selectable
Textbox linking
Storyboards
Auto-Dates on opening document
T.O.C. clean numbering (muddles Roman and Arabic)
Certain Fonts eg WingDings
Open .doc files
Open .rtf/d files
Open Pages ’08 files
Full compatibility with Pages ’09
Hyperlinks to external Pages document
Hyperlinks in exported pdfs fail after first page
Sync with iOS6
Audit of Imported .doc files
Printing to reduced percentage size chops off the top of the document
Export to ePub forces the T.O.C to the beginning of the document in front of the Cover Page
Text
Select non-contiguous text
Select all instances of a Style
Find and Replace severally cut back
Merge Fields
Layout Breaks with before & after and inset spacing
Drag and Drop VCards
Drag and Drop anything other than .txt files
Import Styles
Style function key shortcuts
Press and Hold to show accented letters
Open Type features
Insert Filename
Character Spacing
Selective formating in Character Styles
Text substitution doesn’t allow word spaces, so only does single words
Find & Replace special characters eg paragraph returns
Bookmarks
Copy Paste of citation text and footnotes
Font name matching between OSX and iOS
Styles including bulletted lists
Change tracking for non-body text
Character count including spaces
Copy/Paste from Pages ’09 to Pages 5
Auto capitalise sentence start
Last used fonts at top of list
Paste and keep style is buggy and has been removed from the contextual menu
Images
Drag out inserted image to Finder
Double click to fit
Duplicate offset to relative spacing
Charts
Import linked Numbers Charts
Group pie wedges in Charts
Custom number formats in charts
Tables
Ability to rotate
Images pasted into cells
Mathtype Equations/Formulae
Grapher Equations/Formulae
Text to Tables
Tables to Text
Tables in Headers/Footers
Customisable Currency
Unmitigated disaster? Hyperbole much? Why does MDN post this stuff?
MDN is MacDailyNews. Do you understand now?
But there are some new weird changes. Try customizing the toolbar, for example. Also the Style sheets are much more confusing.
I am quite worried about the dumbing down of iWork. Sure, it doesn’t make much difference for the casual user, but there are a lot of pro users who make a living with this software. It would be one thing if Appke had never made iWork and just introduced it as a new software. It is a different thing that we had this great tool that enabled us to advance our careers and now it is being taken away.
Maybe Apple should group the pro apps and spin them off like they did with FileMaker. That way the pro apps would get regular care and attention. Meanwhile Apple could still give away dumbed down versions for the larger consumer market.
Thank you. Dumbing down is a good word for the process.
That is exactly what Adobe did to us with Photoshop. In the Nineties we spent years perfecting our chops in Channels and Layers, developing award-winning in-house graphic assets without the benefit of Filters or plug-ins. Kai Krause was a god to me.
Over the years Adobe folded all of our “chops” into PS, calling them filters, and now it would seem anyone with an 8th-grade education can do these things.
I’m not saying Adobe put me out of work, I’m just saying Adobe has no respect for its artisans.
Kind of a grumpy guy…
Just another whiner who thinks that Apple or any other software provider should provide only what he/she wants and to hell with the majority of users.
CONSTRUCTIVE criticism is not whining. Whining is one thing, an oligarchy mentality against improvement is another.
Apple is FAR better than anything else, but it can still improve and that IS what they do.
Unmitigated disaster is much closer to the whining side of the scale than the constructive criticism side.
@flyboyrls is exactly right – Apple makes their decisions which they think is right for the majority of their customers. Exactly zero people will not buy a Mac because Pages isn’t as powerful as it once was. Plenty of people will buy a Mac because now they get a free word process (and full suite of apps) that can do most of what they want.
Apple already has all the power users they’re going to get. They need to get the people that buy PCs because that’s what’s out there.
IF what you are saying is true, then yesterday’s MDN post here:http://macdailynews.com/2013/10/23/apple-slams-shut-microsofts-window-of-opportunity-for-office-on-ipad/
. . . was 100% wrong!
I am the zero person who will not buy a new Mac because Pages isn’t as powerful as it used to be. I use Pages all the time for professional purposes. I wanted to buy a new iMac, but now I am worried that Apple will make it either into a children’s toy or a giant iPad or both. I like Apple, I like Macs, I hope they stage a comeback.
Apple screws up lots of stuff.
MobileMe to iCloud was no improvement and only with the release of Mavericks has iCloud returned to parity.
iTunes 11.1/iOS 7 has absolutely decimated the Podcast listening experience, all in the name of simplicity.
Final Cut X screwed up the workflows of countless production companies who had certain projects timed out to a tee in Final Cut 7.
You have to remember that a computer (and its software) is a tools that many people rely on to make their livings. You cannot change their tools willy nilly and expect them to remain productive.
Well I sympathise but fact is if you don’t at times you get Windows 8 or for that matter most previous reasons when it just adds to the plumbing to try to make everything work but mostly fails and whats left is a bloated and complex mess. I agree apple can do better at times but most alternatives are NOT the way to go.
“You cannot change their tools willy nilly and expect them to remain productive.”
Agreed. I have not been able to transition to Numbers and Pages yet because they do not have the feature sets and power that is needed in my work. “I” don’t use all that power yet but co-workers and my company do and Pages and Numbers just aren’t able to match Office yet. With the “simplification” of these and Keynote (which I use often), It will be a long while before I can transition.
The fact that many like you bemoan the lack of feature equivalency between Numbers and Excel highlights the groundswell of people desperate to escape Excel (Microsoft).
I miss Scott Forstall. I imagine this wouldn’t be popular opinion here, the majority of you may prefer Ive’s direction in software aesthetics. However, when I think of ‘designed in California’, I think the essence of it remains more true with Mr. Forstall than with Mr. Ive.
I can understand that as I am not taken by the new look in its present form. However the old look was getting too intricate and looking stale. Funny enough the new icons on slides at the Event looked simple and great which I preferred to the old look after so many years with it. But what i see on iOS doesn’t seem to reflect those, they are simple but tasteless for the most part.
My wife would disagree with you, but she is wrong.
iOS 6 icons are too intricate. A full screen of icons gives me a headache. The simpler look makes it easier to identify and launch apps.
I have some friends who are already expressing disappointment with KeyNote in the same way. Some of the features of Keynote ’09 have been taken out of the new version, and when the new version opens the ’09 Keynotes, the latter features are stripped. From that point on, 09 cannot open the file again.
Being simple while being powerful does not have to conflict.
Examples?
I tried the new keynote with my older presentations and all worked fine (transitions, etc).
You scared me there for a moment though….
I think certain old transitions have gone from what I hear, I guess only if you have used them would you notice.
But once you open it in the new Keynote you can no longer open it in the old version.
It may have to if you want your app to run on Macs, iPads, iPhones, and in a web browser in a way that feels like a native app, all while losing absolutely no formatting of functionality between any of them.
In other words, something that has never been done with an office suite in history. Applescript and Keyboard Maestro don’t translate to all platforms, so they’re out.
It’s a simpler and more powerful message to say “hey, everything works everywhere, exactly the same way, and looks exactly the same way” instead of having to explain what is missing in each version.
This is one of the reasons I have resisted the move from Microsoft Word to Pages – I have years of specialized, customized spaced forms & templates developed over years of use – all in Word. I can’t afford to lose the time & work & precision I have in Word for Apple Pages, free or not. Some things, especially when they bring in your bread & butter are worth paying for. Thanks, you answered my question, I’ll wait, maybe forever, for a move to Pages. I’ve been an Apple guy since 1978… Apple ][ days….
LOVE IT!
I do believe that for the *majority* of the users, this new verso will do just fine.
However, I will really miss the Page Layout mode. This mode made Pages a very simple to use, but relatively powerful DTP app. Yes, for the most part they simplified funcionalities in favour of a simple and iOS compatible version.
To me this is a big loss, but maybe not to the majority of users.
There is actually a solution to this that I just happened to stumble across, as I was having the same problem.
I assume your problem, like mine, is that there used to be two types of blank document: one for word processing, one for layout and design. But there now only seems to be one for word processing.
This isn’t actually the case – they are both the same one now. Open a blank document. Then, click the ‘Setup’ icon in the top right. In the sidebar that opens, uncheck the box that says “Document Body” (you’ll probably also want to uncheck the header and footer options). Et voila, you now have a blank document for layouts!
TheMightyFinder,
You are absolutely right!
I followed your instructions, made a test and it does work just as I was used on the previous Pages version.
Your comment was very helpful!
Thank you very much for your correction!
No trouble! It had been baffling me as well, just glad I happened to find a solution!
That doesn’t mean there still aren’t 2 kinds of document. There still are, just now Apple has automated switching from one to the other by stripping out all the Document content.
A pretty drastic way to get from a Word Processing template to a Layout template.
Except even when you do this, text can no longer flow from one text box to another…’cause that’s another feature that was stripped. Not much of a page layout app anymore.
And for that reason, it’s useless for me. Sad, but free. At least I didn’t have to pay to try it out.
Have you ever actually used Page Layout mode? Sure, you can create blank pages in Pages 5, but you can’t link the text boxes on those pages to flow the text from box to box or page to page. That is the fundamental function of every desktop publishing program since before Aldus introduced PageMaker for the Mac/LaserWriter in 1985.
Amazing!
There always pops up the advice from people who have no clue how anything works and seemingly don’t even know how to use the program under discussion.
All that does is eliminate the document layer. Then you have the problem of how to have linked Textboxes (feature removed) across pages. Let alone the over 60 other features removed, but necessary to do more than basic work.
Thanks for that… I was about to throw my new macbook pro out the damn window.
“document body”…. I guess everyone should just know that.
Apparently I’m getting to be just like my grandmother…
This reminds me of the time when I had to show her how to hold the mouse with the cord away from her, and the ball facing downwards… In her defence, there were no instructions for that either.
“Unmitigated diaster” is clearly way over the top, but it is a continuing pain to have to cycle all the documents created in Pages ’07 through Pages ’09 in order to have them open in Pages 5.0.
There was no Pages ’07.
What computer are you using, and don’t tell me “A White One”?
I don’t think Apple ever intended for pages to be ‘closer to a word processor like MS word’ Actually, the further from MS shit, the better.
You sound suspiciously like MS paid Troll disguised as a disgruntled apple user!
Haha..that made me laugh. You must be new here if you haven’t witnessed some of my past opinions.
It’s human nature… Everyone hates change…
I can think of a change that I wouldn’t hate.
Let me guess? Complete change of the Republican Party into one that cares about people and the US?
nah, not a republican…nice try.
The word “hate” is massively overused in the modern world.
Too many people confuse it with “disagree”.
Change can be good or it can be bad.
Why remove features for no reason if they cause no harm. If you personally don’t need them, don’t access them. We are long past the days when every little byte of hard drive mattered.
If we keep going the way I sometimes think we are, spell checkers will refuse to acknowledge words that are higher than 3rd grade level. Gotta have “equality” ya know, and can’t have “haters” “hatin on” those who need functional features, so lets make spell checkers “comfortable” for the lowest level.
Actually we have been begging for change for years.
Notice the word “change” NOT “Total load of useless shit!”
If one of my employees delivered this, I’d be back checking their CV for fraud. Actually they wouldn’t be my employee in the first place. I check that people can actually do their job before I hire them and that isn’t check references, read up pretty CVs. They actually have to demonstrate they can do the work required.
Having said that this smells to me of mediocrity filtering down from the top. Steve Jobs is gone and this lot are a committee of Wannabees.
Designing for the lowest common denominator is not a very good move, but apple has forged ahead in every software attempt lately to do so. Final cut drove lots of supporters away. I stuck with it but use both fc6 and x. iWork is the same way, I wish I could walk from office but I cannot. I use iWork as much as I can for the light duty work. But if apple is going to claim to replace the most used software in the world (ms orifice) then they need to put some effort into it. The changes made in the new version were to facilitate the web application I am guessing. No matter what Aplle has the ability to make it work and be powerful. It’s always one step forward and two back with Apple. Always has and I hope that will change soon, it may if people step up and ask and demand better. If not Apple will design for the lowest common denominatior. They stopped asking the outside world a long time ago what it wants, now Apples size and leadership arrogance (sir j I ) is building products they tell us to use. iWork needs to grow up so it’s not just for school kids and home use. Watch the 1984 mac ad again. Who is the man on the screen now?
There are a lot irate users in the Apple discussion forums because of numerous features having been removed from Pages 5.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5468056?start=0&tstart=0
Here is a list of features missing according to the above link:
Updated Check List
New Pages 5 added, removed or altered features:
Added
+ Right to Left text
+ Single model templates. No More Word Processing/Layout templates
+ Share outside iCloud
+ Phonetic Guide for Chinese & Japanese
+ Template names can be changed inside the Template Chooser
+ Text language is detected automatically
+ Collaboration
Removed
Select non-contiguous text
Outline view
Customizable Toolbar
135 templates
Capture pages/sections
Drag reorganize pages
Duplicate pages
Delete page
Manage Pages
Subscript/superscript buttons
Select all instances of a Style
Retain zoom level of document
Facing pages
Layout Breaks
Layout Margins
Endnotes
Media Inspector links to iPhoto library on external drive
Media Inspector links to Aperture Library
Alignment Guides
Styles Drawer
Merge Fields
Drag and Drop VCards
Default Start Up page
Vertical Ruler
Style Function key shortcuts
Bookmarks and Links
Images within Tables
Mathtype/Grapher Equations/Formulae within Pages
Import Styles
Clean Import of older .pages formatting
User Guide
Search Sidebar
Open Type features
Textbox linking
Background Object selectable
Storyboards
Text to Tables
Tables to Text
Tables in Headers/Footers
Word export to iCloud
Export to .txt or .rtf
Multiple Comments view
T.O.C. clean numbering
Character Styles ?
List Styles ?
Selective formating in Character Styles
Insert File Name
Search in Media Browser
Bullet points in comments
Search comments
Two up view
Paste and keep style
Accented characters in Footer
Mail Merge
Mask with shapes other than rectangle
Find & Replace special characters eg paragraph returns
Altered
↪ Pages ’09 files previewed on iPad via iCloud are irrevocably converted
↪ Update is missing for older installations, Apple is reportedly working on a solution via a redeemable code or update on their Support Download site
↪ Wrap methods have been cut back severely
↪ Documents reconverted back to Pages ’09 lose all template information
↪ Language set under Edit > Spelling and Grammar > Show Spelling and Grammar now document wide
↪ Subscript/superscript text is now a convoluted route Gear > Advanced options > Baseline > Subscript/Superscript
↪ Header appears to be multi-column
↪ New file format (but still .pages?) not backwardly compatible
↪ Page numbering method changed
↪ Template file storage location moved …somewhere?
↪ AppleScript Library for Pages 5 has changed with many classes and commands removed which indicates how the feature lists have been slashed
↪ Character Styles are in the Text Inspector under Bold, Italic etc
↪ Tabbing within Table cells appears to be inconsistent, tabbing internally with numbers.
↪ Drag and Drop text only works with .txt files now
Thank you. This is the comprehensive list I’ve been looking for. Hell of a lot more than “some guy’s third-party macros,” isn’t it?
It sure is!
It took me SECONDS in help to find that Export to .txt is under File/Export — which is a lot more sensible than “Share”, where it was before.
How many other items on this list are there because the contributor didn’t bother to check?
Several. Endnotes and Mathtype for example. Still, there are quite a lot of things gone or made more difficult to do. Slightly compensated by some things easier to do. I was so hoping for an enhanced pages rather than a stripped down pages. I hate Word, but I’ve got to have something functional. Having to go to the trouble required just to subscript or superscript now almost makes this a deal breaker. Luckily, installing did not remove Pages ’09 so I can still use that.
When I open a Pages 4x document in Pages 5, not only can’t I create an endnote within a text box–“footnotes” is grayed out. Exporting to .rtf is missing and almost anything with complex formatting exported to .doc is seriously scrambled. Superscripts require 5 clicks several inches apart instead of one click in the toolbar or a keyboard shortcut. Most fundamentally, the basic tool in every Mac page layout program since 1985 (linked boxes with flowed text) is gone completely.
I’m glad that Granny won’t be confused when writing a letter to her progeny, but literally millions of existing documents are (at best) uneditable in Pages 5 and (at worst) subject to being irrevocably corrupted so that they can’t even be edited in Pages 4. In the old version, you could open a document in iOS Pages or iCloud to view it without altering it. In the new version, opening a file overwrites the original with an incompatible Pages 5 document that can never be opened in Pages 4.
The EndNote plug-in IS broke and EndNote recommend users don’t get Pages 5. The MathType isn’t entirely broke but as well as may be and they suggest cumbersome work arounds which beggar the question, why use it all?
Export/Import .rtf is gone, not .txt
I strongly suggest you actually research the problems yourself, because the people who helped create the list in Apple’s forums, it took quite a while of testing and rechecking, certainly did.
Those claiming the features haven’t been removed really, Really, REALLY don’t know what they are talking about and are muddying the issues out of sheer ignorance.
Of course the ignorant, clueless, doesn’t know what is going on user is now Apple’s target consumer, so I guess they’ve clearly hit that target dead centre.
Interesting! I must be their target customer. I do not see anything that I have ever used. I stopped using Word a few years ago to get away that bloated software that was doing things automatically for me that I would have to fix.
One thing: alignment guides haven’t been removed, but they may be turned off by default. You can get them back by going to Preferences > Rulers and then checking the two boxes.
Something that Pages 5.0 calls “alignment guides” can indeed be turned on and off. They are temporary markers for the edges and/or center of an object while you are moving it. Unfortunately, that is not remotely the same thing as the persistent lines called “alignment guides” in Pages 1x-4x (which allow aligning multiple objects), and they cannot be used with the vertical ruler because there is no vertical ruler.
I have not used Pages 5 yet, but I can say I’ve been very pleased to date with Pages 4. Upgrading to 5 will not delete 4, but both won’t play nice with each other. At this point they should be seen as separate apps (based on what I’ve read):
* Pages 4 as the personal/small business page design/word processing tool, and
* Pages 5 as the scaled back version that enables real-time web collaboration.
While Pages 5 may eventually restore lost features, I find it inexcusable for Apple to scale back so much. I won’t recount all the take-aways here, but it’s more than mere Applescript macros and marginal items.
I’m a user experience analyst for a software firm. One of our governing principles in our product development is this: “We do not remove functionality from our users. We sustain it, or replace it with something users have proven to be better.”
Apple gambled on replacing a lot of features in iWork with better web collaboration, apparently. And I fear that wager will cost them.
Nothing is stopping users from using the previous version of Pages if they are unsatisfied with the newest version.
In yesterdays MDN was this post:
IN learning of the simplification of Pages and Keynote, and probably Numbers, these will NOT be a threat to MS Office.
No I talked with an apple representative yesterday, I upgraded iWork on my iPad and iPhone first. with no warning that I cannot reinstall the old apps, If i opened any documents they would be converted to the new format. there is no warning of this until you have downloaded and upgraded the software. Apple should have made sure that people were aware there is no return if you do this. so I was forced to go through and update to 10.9 in my work iMac to get some jobs done. Apple needs to realize they are reckless and not listening to its user base thats using these tools for work.
And nothing to stop people being really pissed that after several years the “upgrade” to Pages is a crippled iPad-like version.
I don’t generally like the bombastic over-the-top language that some writers and forum posters use for anything they don’t like – such as “unmitigated disaster”. But we’re talking utterly basic functions here. I use table to text practically every day. Similarly with exporting to txt. Background object selectable is very handy. Some of the functions in that list are a bit esoteric, but I use many of them — and I’m not some kind of power user.
If that list is accurate, this is nonsense.
No, nothing is stopping us from using an application that Apple has clearly signalled is now obsolete and that won’t be developed in future. We’ll be able to use it until Apple decrees that it shall be removed behind our backs then all the work that many, many people have done that is any more than a two line note to the milkman in Comic Sans is lost forever. However, why would anybody want to do that? I used Pages as a daily tool with templates I created for letterheads, for reports, for invoices, for mailings to my local club’s members, and it was a great tool. I didn’t need Word because I had Pages. Now, I need Word because Pages 5 destroys the work I did in Pages 4.3. So now I’ve to go and buy Word (or more likely Office 365) and recreate all my workflow for Word then go through all of my Pages 4.3 files and save them as .PDF. Luckily enough I know enough AppleScript to partially automate this process, otherwise I’d have to plough through literally hundreds of documents to make sure that they’re saved in a format that I will be able to open for audit in future. The new Pages 5 isn’t a development of Pages. They could have released it with a different name more fitting to the dumb-users all-Apple-platforms route – iLounge maybe – and left iWork alone. Instead, Apple has taken a careful decision to shaft everybody who has made this Apple product part of the way their business works. Pathetic.
“real-time web collaboration”
Totally critical for the 12 people who have actually used it more than once.
Designing by committee fails every time its tried unless you lower your creative standards to make everybody happy; Final result: ain’t nobody happy!
How do you think they came up with this load of Shite!? A. Collaboration.
COMMITTEE: A social construct to lower the collective IQ.
Agree 100%!
Apple is gambling that users of $2,000 Macs want the exact same features as iPad and iPhone users. Microsoft did the same with Windows 8. We know how that gamble worked out.
iOS, without giving us desktop touch screens!
Apple: Genius is not quite the word!!!
I find the Nisus Writer Pro to be the perfect replacement for MS Word.
“Disaster?” Not sure about that, but it definitely has lost a lot of its power. The goal was to make the desktop, web, iOS version work in perfect synch–meaning we have a web app on our desktop. I’ll also keep the previous version around as I’m already struggling to deal with the features removed. I’m not a Pro user, so it is not as catastrophic, but, yeah, it was 2 steps back not forward.
Remember what Eddie Cue said at the Keynote — the Mac version of iWorks apps have been completely re-written from the ground up. My guess would be that, similar to what happened to iMovie and Final Cut when they were redesigned and re-written, there will be a few iterations of iWorks that will seem to lack features from the old versions. However, eventually they’ll not only catch up, but be significantly better for the long term.
As Jessie Ventura once said, “I aint got time to bleed”
Apple should release when its done and will be stable and be worth business peoples attention, they should not release until development exceeds current features. That cannot be too much to ask, can it? Why do they release programs that are not well developed release it when its not even close release over years small additions features playing sloth catchup games and then change it again, this cycle is crazy for producers, workers and those that make living on their machines, maybe for kids, light users and fan boys its ok.
Yeah, but Final Cut and iMovie took a complete left turn when getting redesigned. iWork pretty much looks and feels the same. I hope you right though, lets hope they add these features back…I mean how can you get rid of OUTLINE VIEW.
Different yes? New setup yes? Maybe a feAture or two from prior versions missing? Maybe ? Unmitigated disaster? Hell to the NO. A free risk free choice to try and see if it works for you or not? Definitely
Risk free? Don’t think so. Evidently you didn’t read Reece’s reply to trondude above.
I used to think typical Mac users were smarter than typical Windows users, but no more. The rampant, unjustifiable, Apple-can-do-no-wrong, fanboy attitude expressed by so many posting here (along with many, but not all MDN takes) when someone expresses an opinion counter to their narrow Apple-centric world view makes that notion unsupportable.
“Risk free? Don’t think so. Evidently you didn’t read Reece’s reply to trondude above.
I used to think typical Mac users were smarter than typical Windows users, but no more.”
I remember when there were strong arguments between Mac users and PC users that dealt with the acceptance of “Good enough” (PC Users). The MS Word fiasco in the mid-late 90s drove Mac users away. Developers often wrote that Mac users expected the best, or they would not purchase it. There were huge amounts of shareware and apps for Windows that were just crap. Not so for Mac users because they would not tolerate such junk. Just a few negative responses would keep Mac users away in droves from such stuff.
As to the “Risk Free”. Nope. Once you try it on an old but important document, that document doesn’t work on the old App anymore.
Sadly everything you say is true.
Apple has really swept the users up off the bar room floor and made them their new customer base!
All I will say is that I am so glad I got iWork ’09 on physical media, so I can keep using it, rather than through the Mac App Store. Features have been slashed across the suite – Numbers has *no* Applescript support anymore. It’s not “a feature or two” missing, it’s dozens.
One cannot alter the width of a single cell in a table. One has to change the width of the whole column.
I have to use tables in which I can alter the width of single cells as required. In Ms word, that. Is easy to do – I just drag a side wall of the cell.
Everyone here knocks Ms Word but I have used it for years and find it to be stable and reliable. I might use only 5-10% of its features but it is not difficult to use, is solid and it does everything I need.
I would like to use pages but the inability to change cells in tables prevents me from doing so.
I haven’t posted in a while. But having updated 5 machines to Mavericks and 6 iOS devices to 7.0.3, I am of the opinion that Apple’s overall package is still the best deal. When it comes to iWork, I think the iOS version gained some great improvements (e.g. comments and change tracking), while the OS X version may have in fact lost some features. Clearly there is a platform unification process afoot here.
In my professional life (one of them anyway), I am a university professor. Most, if not all, of what I require of my students can be done with Pages. However, when I move the same product to doctoral students working on a dissertation, Pages won’t suffice. Several essential elements are missing. That makes the application neither bad nor good. It is simply what it is.
Perhaps for the majority of consumers, Pages is more than enough. There are specialized users, however, that will still have to depend on Microsoft Word. Examples are business users that merge large distribution lists, doctoral students writing dissertations to specific formats etc. But that is a minority.
Even though this article is about Pages, let me speak of Keynote. In my opinion, I can state unequivocally, that Keynote is the best presentation software available. The new version has moved some things around and there is a small learning curve. But I opened it for the first time and promptly changed my lecture slides for a class I taught last night. Beautiful.
My final thought is this. Apple may be taking a middle of the road strategy where the needs of the “typical” user (whoever they are) are met. There will be some on the fringes for whom iWork and other Apple software just aren’t suitable. Those users can certainly use other applications on the Mac OS X platform.
Cheers!
I’ve been using NeoOffice since 2008. I’ve also have Pages and have used it on occasion; haven’t used the ‘New Pages’ yet. Neo Office is a very powerful Office-like suite designed for the Mac platform and is available through the App Store for $9.95. 🙂
Pages is a nice, but lightweight word processor. I have been trying to integrate it into my business work flow for a number of years, but the lack of a serious mail merge prevents this. How is it that in Pages ’09 you could merge with CSV, or Numbers, but not Filemaker or Bento? In the business world, the ability to generate reliable, consistent documents through merge is very important, yet what meager merge capability they had is now gone. I really like the cross platform capability of Filemaker, but with FM12 I have lost even the ability to do a merge into Microsoft Word. Out for almost a year, and still no updated ability in FM12 or Word to talk to one another.
This was a perfect opportunity for Apple to step up and say to business that Pages is a serious contender in the business world, that they support their business platform called Filemaker (having killed off Bento) and they have failed.
From the point of view of an enterprise user, as opposed to a mom and pop, or a graphics based solo or small business owner, Pages has taken several steps backward. Collaboration on one document does nothing, if I then have to address 1,000 of them by hand because there is no merge capability.