Pages (word processor)
 | |
| File:05pages screen.jpg Pages under Mac OS X. | |
| Developer(s) | Apple Computer |
|---|---|
| Stable release | |
| Operating system | Mac OS X |
| Type | Word processor |
| License | Proprietary |
| 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 $79. 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.
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 lead to suggestions that these programs are based on the same codebase. Apple has not commented on this issue. 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.
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, business cards, educational materials and other types of documents. Any documents created can be exported to RTF, HTML, Word, PDF or either saved as a Pages document. Pages is best suited for basic page layout and word processing tasks, while Microsoft Word and Adobe InDesign are more suited for publishing large advertisement materials or an entire printed book.
While Pages is praised for features like its paragraph style drawer, inspector palette, and integrated Mac OS X spelling facility, others criticize its lack of grammar checking, dictionary, thesaurus (although starting with Mac OS X version 10.4, Pages uses the operating system's included dictionary and thesaurus), and other features which Microsoft Word has.
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 |