Apple's latest product, the 16-inch MacBook Pro, is the best MacBook in year, but only power users without a budget should go with this. See our full Apple MacBook Pro (13-inch, M1, 2020) review. Pages is a powerful word processor. Admin 25-03-2021 RAND-1-100 Comments Mac gives teachers and students new ways to create, learn, collaborate, and be more productive.This guide is designed for educators who are new to Mac, and shows them how to personalize settings, work with built-in apps and features, and explore a world of learning and teaching resources.
Review Of Apple Pages Free For AnyoneFrom Pages ’09 to 5Many long-term Pages users were not impressed when Apple updated the word processor from Pages ’09 to Pages 5 in late 2013.People who invested time and effort learning, mastering and tweaking systems around the earlier version of the software suddenly found their scripts and workarounds no longer functioned. On October 23, 2013, Apple released a redesign with Pages 5.0 and made it free for anyone with an iOS device.The simple answers is: Pages 5 is good enough for me, but it may not be right for everyone. That’s great, but is Pages 5 good enough for professional writer? Will we still need to fork out for Microsoft Office as well?Pages for iOS 1.7.1 introduced better compatibility with Word and Pages for Mac, and version 1.7.2, released on March 7, 2013, merely added stability improvements and bugfixes. Written with Beezixs trademark focus on clarity, accuracy, and the users perspective, this guide will be a valuable resource to improve your proficiency in using Pages.I write words for a living. What about words?I’m a journalist. In fact, I’d say Pages is mainly a page design tool.Pages makes sense if you want an alternative to Adobe InDesign for people who need to make words and pictures look good on a page, but don’t need professional level tools.Not that Pages can’t deliver professional-looking designs, but that’s not my focus here. Although Apple sold the software as a word processor, Pages is also a page design tool. Pages 5: The name says it allPages ’09 just wasn’t designed for writers like me.The name is a giveaway.In all that time, I’ve always sought to recreate the typewriter’s simplicity. I’ve used word processors for 30 years. I specifically ask if it does the job better than Microsoft Word:2011 and more basic tools like iA Writer.For writers of my generation — I started when magazine printers still used hot metal presses — the typewriter will always be the gold standard. I’m only concerned about getting the words down as efficiently as possible.Here I plan to discuss how well Pages 5 works as a tool for professional writers. Keeping software out of the writer’s wayNone of that interests me. You can import graphics, write mathematical equations, do mail merges and lots of other stuff journalists and writers simply don’t need. PR companies and organisations that want documents written and rewritten again and again love it. After all Word continues to sell. They bulk up their products with features designed to appeal to, mainly, the most lucrative users in big companies.No doubt the word processors that make it through the processor are what people want. In fact it does this well.When Apple remade Pages, it left much of the page design code in the application, but it also stripped back the interface. Pages 5 in the backgroundSo how does Pages 5 fare from this point of view? Can I ignore the fancy layout features, all the extra stuff that gets others excited but gets between me and the words I’m paid to write?The simple answer is that Pages 5 can do this. It is difficult to use Word the same way.However, over the years I’ve learnt to use Word in the most minimalist way possible. Italics or bold emphasis words.And it explains why I prefer iA Writer to Word.IA Writer is essentially a text editor. Heads and cross heads are in bold. I tend to use a single font for an entire document. If I need it later, the same command will bring it back.I also hide the tool bar. I set the display to full screen, turn off all notifications on my MacBook Air so I’m not distracted.The next thing I do is hit command-option-i to hide the inspector which sits on the right side of the screen. My minimalist Pages 5There’s an art to using Pages 5 in my minimalist Ernest Hemingway armed-just-with-a-typewriter style of working.When I start Pages I open a blank template — I use a custom template more about that later. I might just stick with it for the long-term. What is the best external dvd drive for macSometimes I add space between paragraphs to make long documents easier to navigate and edit.It would be better if Pages 5 could take me directly to this set up. I’ve just set body text style to Helvetica Regular 11pt and remove the headers and footers. Once again I’ve recreated the simplicity and effectiveness of the typewriter.My custom template isn’t fancy. But it is my ideal writing set-up.Apart from the right-hand scroll bar which, magically, only fades into sight when needed and a tiny lozenge at the bottom of the screen showing the number of words in my document, there is nothing but my writing. Ideal writing set-upAll this may sound fussy and petty. ![]() ![]() From the save dialogue you can choose to store documents on your Mac’s drive. ICloudIf you hit the Command-S to save, that’s the default option. It beats iA Writer at the moment because that otherwise excellent app doesn’t allow me to fiddle with the font size — something I had to do when I had serious eye trouble. Any spelling errors or dubious words are instantly visible thanks to red underlining.All-in-all it’s the most productive and trouble-free writing tool I have at my disposal. There’s almost no distraction. When the annoyed call came asking me for a readable version, I was about to board a flight. The file format mystified the editor. If there are still incompatibilities, I have yet to see them.Earlier this year I wrote a major newspaper feature in Pages 5 and sent the file to an editor. The iPhone isn’t an ideal writing tool, but at a pinch it gets the job done.I was nervous about doing this because the earlier versions of Pages had less than perfect compatibility across OS X and iOS, that appears to be fixed. Last week I managed to add some quotes to a part-written feature while I was out in town. I still have a Word license if I need to do that kind of work.If you’re committed to Microsoft Office or work with others who are, you may not want to switch.On the other hand, after ten days of using nothing else, I’ve found Pages 5 is at least as a productive as any alternative. That’s such a horrible and unproductive way of working that I try to avoid those jobs anyway. It’s not helpful for jobs where the client wants you to use change tracking. Apple Pages 5 for the writing professionalGiven that Pages 5 is free to many users and only US$20 if you need to buy a copy, it has to the best value Mac word processor around.Apple Pages 5 won’t suit every writing professional. I’ve sent 30-odd features written with Pages 5 but saved in Word format to various editors, no-one had said anything about incompatibilities.
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