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Written by Don Lee
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Monday, 11 August 2008 |
 Pages 08 is the word processor application in Apple Inc.’s iWork office
suite. Apple has made some nice additions to this particular
application. Pages 08 has brought more features, compatibility and a
greater ease of use to novices as well as experienced word processing
users.
When you launch Pages 08, you are greeted with a window displaying all of the available document options. From here, you can select to create typical word processing documents such as modern or traditional letters, envelopes, forms, resumes and reports as well as some not so typical options like screenplays, storyboarding, creative proposals, meeting notes, evaluation document and even a quiz.
There are also a number of page layout options to help give you some layout ideas and ease you into your next project. Some of the page layout options include newsletters, brochures, flyers, posters, cards and invitations, business cards as well as some additional options that include page layouts for lab notes, education scrapbook, menus and travel journals.
The list of available templates covers most of the projects and topics that make word processors such a great tool when you are in a bind and need to put some type of project together at the last minute and I am sure all of you reading this have encountered a situation like that at some point.
Let's Get to iWork
The format bar across the top offers quick access to all of the basic layout functions for all text and objects in a document. The bar will change as you select each object. For example, select some text in your document and the bar will display the typical text formatting options such as fonts, text layout, line spacing, text colors and more. Select an image in your document and the bar will change to display options such as opacity, shadow, reflection, borders and more.
 Now you are probably wondering about the compatibility with Microsoft Word but you don’t have to worry about that because Pages 08 is fully compatible with Word 2007. Now that is great and all but I was wondering about some of my older Word documents. I tried to open my resume that I created using a Word template from Office 2000. Surprisingly, the resume displayed fine with the exception of the header information. Pages 08 displayed an import document warning that said “Paragraph border behave differently in Pages. All borders except the complete outside borders were removed.”
Another new feature that I was really looking forward to is the tracking ability. This feature allows you to keep track of all changes in a document. Just click on the Track Changes button at the top of the document window, which will display a comments bar along the left side of the document. When you make a change to the document, a notation will appear in the comments bar. You can leave notes for others to read in case you have questions about some of the content. When you see a change, you can click on the checkmark in the comment to accept the change or click on the x mark to reject the change. You can do a global acceptance or rejection by clicking on the drop-down menu in the upper right area of the document.
A minor issue I discovered is that the tracking capability with this older document. It appeared that the content not bordered would be tracked but the content formatted with the special Word parameters would not have its changes tracked. This is probably an issue with the document than an issue with Pages.
Another cool feature is the ability to make images transparent. Just select an image in your document first then choose Instant Alpha from the Format menu (Format>Instant Alpha). Then click on the area of the image and just drag your cursor around the area you want to make transparent. Only the area matching the initial color targeted will become transparent.
The Final Word
Overall, I found Pages 08 from the iWork application suite to be a very broad and encompassing application that is incredibly easy for novices to pick up and get working immediately on a variety of projects. Some more experienced word processor users will still find some features in Pages 08 to be very useful.
Apple has done a great job decreasing the amount of hard drive space this application will take up compared to previous versions. I was able to install this program on my MacBook without having to make space for it. It took up about 266 megabytes of disk space.
Apple Pages 08 is an easy to use application and is a worthy upgrade from previous versions or a great place to join to Apple ranks in turning out some high quality documents that will leave your colleagues in awe. Pages 08 is part of the iWork office suite.
Apple Pages 08 earns 4.75 stars out of 5. Highly recommended. You can click HERE to purchase Apple iWork 08.
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