Author: Mark Crump

One of the oft-asked questions is if Pages 08 is a true Word replacement. The answer is not as obvious as you might think.

It is obvious if you work in a heavy MS Office environment where you exchange files with Word users on a daily basis. At the least, the need to export every Pages document to a .doc file is a hassle and leaves you with two copies: one in .pages format and one in .doc format. At the worse you end up dealing with inevitable file compatibility issues. In that case, sticking with Word is your only real choice.

Pages has gotten much better at reading Word files. During my test run I opened files from three document templates I use often: the manual style I use at my day job; the manual style I’m using for my tech writing class; and the manual style I’m using for a research paper. Here’s how they all fared.

Work File: This one is the most complicated file. There are graphics in the headers and footers, a Table of Contents, tables, and embedded Visio files–pretty much the worse case scenario. Pages 06 took one look at this file, cried for its mommy, and botched the job entirely. Pages 08 did much better. The header graphics came in fine but the footer graphics got cut off. The Visio drawings and the tables looked OK with some minor padding issues on the tables. The TOC didn’t come in well at all–it was too bold, too big and badly formatted. Verdict: Not bad. Most of the issues are minor. I wouldn’t want someone opening the file to collaborate with it, but just for reference reading none of the issues get in the way.

Tech Writing File: This was the second-most complicated file. It has a TOC, odd/even page numbering (where the page number is always on the “outside” of a page as this format is for a double-sided printed manual), call out boxes in the left-hand margin, and section breaks. Everything came in OK except for the page numbering format–that it insisted on putting on the right-hand side of the page. The section breaks, TOC and call out boxes all looked correct. Verdict: If the page numbering placement isn’t a deal-breaker, it came in perfect. I’d feel comfortable working on this in a collaborative environment.

The MLA-formatted Research Paper: Fairly basic document. Just double-spaced all the way through with some quotes indented. File came in perfect. Verdict: Simple file gave no problems. Zero issues in a collaborative environment. Pages also ships with a nice research paper template.

There was one common issue with all Word conversions: all styles were lost during the conversion. The text still looked right, but there were no corresponding Pages styles created.

Pages 08 does use Word-compatible commenting and track changes; it reads and writes them to Word with no problems. If you have occasional need to collaborate or exchange files with a Word user then Pages is a good low-cost solution, but I’d love for the ability to save as a Word compatible file, and save an opened Word file in its native format without needing to re-export the file. If Word compatibility is a daily issue you’ll want to stick with Word. In the past I recommended even college students get Word for ease of exchange. Now I’d recommend Pages for college students. It is possible to use biblio programs like EndNote with Pages, but you’ll need to jump through some formatting hoops–you can site references using the Services menu, but you’ll need to export the file as an RTF and run it through EndNote to do the formatting. I’ll cover how exactly to do this in another post. It’s also worth noting Pages opens files created in Office 2007 on the PC.

I’m undecided if I’m going to buy it. There’s no way I can fully escape Word’s shadow, but having a quick word processor I can load up and use when I don’t need the full weight of Word has value. There’s also no guarantee Word 2008 is going to open any faster than Word 04.

Edit:
I saw a report on the Apple discussion forums about Word files opened in Pages growing in length. This is something I can confirm. The research paper I opened in Pages was seven pages long in Word and is eight pages long in Pages. It looks like it added about 3-4″ of text length somehow. After doing some side-by-each testing, it looks like it’s because Pages line spacing is a point or so off from Word’s, causing a subtle creep in line spacing. This may also be an issue for folks.

Bank on it:

New iMac, the brushed screen version
Previews of iLife and iWork

50/50 Chance

• Sub notebook
• ILife bundled with Leopard

No Chance

• Leopard release date

PocketMac and I have agreed to start seeing other people.

While I haven’t uninstalled it yet, I’ve been using MissingSync and so far it’s been working ok. I haven’t actually tried tasks yet; while that was my beef with PocketMac, I’m finding ListPro lets me categorize them a little easier. That combined with an intense dislike for how iCal handles tasks hasn’t made task syncing a big issue.

Fair warning, though, I’ve only synced once so all bets are off on repeated syncs.

Oddly, PocketMac is the current leader on search hits for the site so I thought I’d give an update for anyone following along.

I’ve half given up.

It’s worth mentioning that PocketMac’s support has been very helpful; while they haven’t been quick, they’ve given me some good stuff to try. The last round was detailed instructions on how to uninstall PocketMac and reinstall it, which I did. That actually felt like it made things worse: some of the key components got buried into \library\pocketmac instead of \applications\pocketmac and I had a hell of a time getting it discover the PocketPC.

One of he symptoms I noticed before is the device name of the PocketPC would sometimes change in PocketMac (usually it would see the Axim as PocketPCPocketPCDellAximX54Vx). However, sometimes on connect it would see it as PocketPCPocketPCDellAximX51. If it saw it as a different device name, I was guaranteed to get duplicate tasks on sync. After the re-install I got duplicate tasks on just about every sync.

Since Calendar and Address Book info isn’t duplicating, which is the main reason I got the program, I’ve just started using ListPro for all my task management. It’s not quite as clean as doing it natively, but I can break the tasks down a little better so it’s a wash.

After reading the feeds to last year’s Jobsnote I was disappointed. While I could see a use for Spaces and the new Dashcode, the only new feature I really was interested in was Time Machine. While Leopard was a must-get for me, it was more because eventually apps I use would be Leopard only, so there’s no way to put off the upgrade.

This years left me really looking forward to its release. Now, I’m more interested in features that’ll make me more productive, so the 3d dock, transparent menu bar and the like do little for me. But the new Finder–who, boyo, do I want that now. Will they take a check?

I’ve lost track of the times I need to see the revision date/number on a document, or just need a live preview without waiting for Word, Photoshop, Preview, Reader to load and have it be in a separate window. The Cover Flow feature, which basically brings the iTunes interface to the Finder, allows you to scroll through some decent-sized previews of files. I’m leery to use the word “thumbnail” since it’s larger than that. But the best feature is you can flip through the pages of a document this way. Need to see if that PDF is the one with the index, or not? Just flip through it.

Will Apple take a check? October can’t come soon enough.

Well, things got off promising. PocketMac’s support team got back to me with some tools to run to clean out sync services and to delete two files from the PocketPC.

Unfortunately, cleaning out sync services didn’t work, and the two files were nowhere to be found on the PocketPC.

I’ve been escalated to the next level with no word in a week. I’ve requested if this is something that can’t be sorted out for a refund and license revocation.

I’ve got a Dell Axim PDA that’s heavily used; it’s the system of record for my to-dos and calendar items as well as little notes. For the last 5 months it’s existed as a stand-alone device–it never synced to a computer, and I’d periodically backup to a SD card in case of an outage. The problem with that is since the device sat in my bag, if I’d set up a reminder for a chore I wouldn’t see or hear it go off and it’s handy to view a calendar entry while on the phone.

So, I bought PocketMac Lite to sync the Axim to my Mac. It’s been anything but a bliss ride. The first problem–just getting PocketMac to see the Axim–was quickly resolved with a tech support ticket with PocketMac. It turns out there’s a bug in the Device Locator App and there’s a fix. I merrily started syncing away and noticed that after about six or seven syncs it would time out on the tasks a lot. A quick look at the Task app on the Axim showed I had a whopping 1300 tasks. There is no way I had that many tasks, and a little research showed there were six or seven copies of every task, including completed ones. A check of iCal aslo showed many duplicates. So, I deleted all of them on the Mac, did a sync which then deleted them off the Axim. I blamed it on the Entourage-to-iCal Sync Services and disabled that.

Now tasks from the Axim are showing up on the Mac, but Mac tasks are not getting to the Axim. I’ve still got the duplication issue, and I can’t figure out any rhyme or reason behind it; I can do five syncs in a row with no duplicate, but the sixth might be the one that duplicates everything. This is far from an ideal situation.

So, I opened up another ticket with PocketMac this morning that’s gone unanswered. Until I get it resolved, I’ve got two options: I can use a different task program on the Axim doesn’t sync with iCal, or I can break out my Handspring Visor which syncs well with OSX. Neither of these are ideal options. I won’t be syncing tasks with iCal, so I can’t view them on the Mac, and the Handspring is seven-year-old technology with a grayscale display (however, it does take AAA batteries so I can always keep a few around). I’ve got the extended battery for the Axim and it has a nice color display. While the Axim is my main choice, I think tonight I’ll be syncing with the Handspring to test that out, again.

Hopefully, I’ll get the PocketMac issue solved. I’m not hopeful, since a quick Google search yielded a post on MacUpdate by a person with the exact same problem and he hasn’t heard back from PocketMac yet.