[se12]

Basically, what is the difference between these two? Well, really my question is about Pages 2. Is Pages a word processor(couldnt really tell)? Now, I know Appleworks is, but I wasn't sure about Pages 2. I need a word processor, but I don't want to use Mac Office.

[se12]

Well, I found this iWork ’06:
Keynote 3 and Pages 2, the two remarkable applications in iWork ’06, make it easy to create stunning presentations and media-rich documents. With Keynote 3, a cinema-quality presentation application, you can create interactive slideshows, portfolios and storyboards. With Pages 2, a powerful word-processor, you can create stunning letters, invitations, newsletters, brochures and more. Visit the iWork ’06 website for more details.

So you can use it to actually type on, or take notes? As you can tell, im coming from a Windows and I'm trying to find some good software to go with my MacBook.

[TETENAL]

AppleWorks has more components than iWork: word processor, spreadsheet, drawing, painting, presentation and a database. iWork only has a word processor and the presentation software. However AppleWorks is horribly outdated software and no longer under active development (apparently). You wouldn't want to use it.

Pages is a word processor with some influences of page layout sofware. So yes, you can actually type in that program to write letters and stuff. For note taking particularly there might be other software that is better suited for that task.

[lookmark]

Pages (haven't used Pages 2) is a decent WP. Some have found it a little sluggish for very long documents, though perhaps Pages 2 has addressed that to some degree. Its styles feature are quite good, much more intuitive than Word. It can save as .doc and opens Word documents.

If you also can find a use for Keynote, iWork is a great deal. If you don't need Keynote and only need Pages for WP, and no page layout whatsoever, it's less of a great deal, but it still may serve your purposes. BTW, your options are MS Office, iWork, or the small guys: Mellel and Mariner Write. (Or the free open-source AbiWord, if you stand it.)

[monkeybrain]

Pages takes a different approach to Word, and emphasises it's page layout techniques. I find it a bit less intuitive to do some things, like change fonts, in Pages, because it likes to use the font palette.

What you need to think about is what you want out of your word processor. If you want full compatibility you make have to use Word X or Word 2004 for OS X.

Other ones to consider are Mellel and Nisus Writer Express. Also, Textedit can do a lot: styles, tables, many fonts with all the built in shadows and effects etc. I've also found Word terrible at displaying other languages.

[se12]

I think I'm going to use Pages 2 now for sure, and it's only $49.99 on the education site.

[jamil5454]

If you don't mind a little bit of sluggishness, OpenOffice is great. It's free and supported by Sun, too.

[TETENAL]

The Mac version of OpenOffice is not supported by Sun.

[peeb]

Neo Office 2 is now out, the osx version of openoffice - and is pretty good.

[Jonesy]

Originally Posted by jamil5454

If you don't mind a little bit of sluggishness, OpenOffice is great. It's free and supported by Sun, too.

And if sluggishness is OK then Pages will be good too. They haven't really fixed the slow-down with typing in the latest version of Pages still. Even with computers which are well above the minimum requirements. Long documents are a real problem sometimes.

In spite of that it does tie into all of the system tools like the spell checker nicely and it is easy to turn out a well laid out document.

Hopefully they are working on a fix for the delay between typing and words actually appearing on the page. This is one of the biggest gripes on the Apple Pages discussion boards.

Keynote is great. Beats PowerPoint hands down. Almost worth the money for that alone if you will use it.

[Jonesy]

By the way this should be in the Applications forum. I guess the mods will notice soon and move it.