You do not. Pages only imports AppleWorks text documents, and only the ones created by version 6 of AppleWorks.
However Numbers, which comes with iWork '08 imports AppleWorks spreadsheets.
Friday, December 22, 2006
How does Pages handle PDF-X files?
Pages does not handle PDF-X files at all, but MacOS X does through the standard print dialogue. There are some known problems with it - especially in Leopard, but if you have simple documents, it should work fine. Some of the problems are described here.
When MacOS X 10.4 prints to PDF-X it creates a PDF/X-3:2002 compliant file, probably regardless of the original content of the file. All fonts are embedded. RGB images without color calibration get a generic ICC profile called "Generic RGB Profile", if you generated the file from an English system. The file itself contains the specification of this profile. The ICC profile for an embedded image typically looks like this:
To see more of this data go to Applications > Utilities > ColorSync Utility > Filters.
In theory, it should be possible to create your own Filter and apply them with Automator. The general idea is to take an existing workflow from /Library/PDF Services and copy it under another name to your own equivalent folder ~/Library/PDF Services. Edit the PDF service and data with Automator and give it a PDF file as input.
However, the process to create new filters is buggy, unless you know exactly which way to take. It was bad in Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) and it is not better in Mac OS 10.5 (Leopard). The I work in Pages blog has one process which is said to work. Again, there is a list of known problems and workarounds here.
When MacOS X 10.4 prints to PDF-X it creates a PDF/X-3:2002 compliant file, probably regardless of the original content of the file. All fonts are embedded. RGB images without color calibration get a generic ICC profile called "Generic RGB Profile", if you generated the file from an English system. The file itself contains the specification of this profile. The ICC profile for an embedded image typically looks like this:
Profile version number: "2.2.0"The output intent of the file is defined as "CGATS TR 001 SWOP". This basically means that it follows an agreed standard for printing with CMYK color space. CGATS is the Committee for Graphic Arts Technologies Standards. SWOP is an abbreviation for Specifications Web Offset Publications. Both organisations are American but the standard could be applied throughout the world.
Color Management Module (CMM) type: "appl"
Profile/Device class signature: "mntr"
Color space of data: "RGB "
Profile Connection Space (PCS): "XYZ "
Magic number: "acsp"
Primary Platform: "Apple Computer, Inc. (APPL)"
Device manufacturer: "appl"
Device model: ""
Profile creator: "appl"
Creation date: "13/5/02 12:00"
Default rendering intent: Perceptual
Profile illuminant
- Illuminant X: 0.964203
- Illuminant Y: 1.000000
- Illuminant Z: 0.824905
Copyright information: "Copyright 2002 - 2003 Apple Computer Inc., all rights reserved."
Profile description: "Generic RGB Profile"
To see more of this data go to Applications > Utilities > ColorSync Utility > Filters.
In theory, it should be possible to create your own Filter and apply them with Automator. The general idea is to take an existing workflow from /Library/PDF Services and copy it under another name to your own equivalent folder ~/Library/PDF Services. Edit the PDF service and data with Automator and give it a PDF file as input.
However, the process to create new filters is buggy, unless you know exactly which way to take. It was bad in Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) and it is not better in Mac OS 10.5 (Leopard). The I work in Pages blog has one process which is said to work. Again, there is a list of known problems and workarounds here.
When I print a document or save as PDF, Pages crashes. Why?
This can happen if you have inserted a footnote in the document and then removed the footnote text, but not the footnote itself.
Monday, December 11, 2006
I just bought iWork and I think Pages is a horrible application. What do I do now?
Oh dear! That is a philosophical question. There are a couple of ways out.
1. Do not accept defeat. Learn to like it. All applications have quirks, and Pages is no exception. You may be surprised at what things turn out not to work, and which ones turn out to work very well. Try to see what the application is able to do. Stop trying to make it do what you thought it should do. It cannot make coffee or read rtf files with graphics, but it can do a lot of other things if you explore it.
2. Take it as an experience. You bought an application that did not do what you wanted it to do. Ok, that was a mistake. However, did Apple say it would do it? You thought Apple said so, but if you really read all the fine prints, does it say it contained the function you are so disappointed about not finding? Did you try it out, before you bought it? There are probably methods you could have used to verify this before you purchased iWork. Go through them. Learn from them. And next time you buy software, it is more likely that you will use those methods than this time. You learnt something. You are now a more knowledgeable person. Congratulations!
3. Tell Apple what you think at: http://www.apple.com/feedback/pages.html
1. Do not accept defeat. Learn to like it. All applications have quirks, and Pages is no exception. You may be surprised at what things turn out not to work, and which ones turn out to work very well. Try to see what the application is able to do. Stop trying to make it do what you thought it should do. It cannot make coffee or read rtf files with graphics, but it can do a lot of other things if you explore it.
2. Take it as an experience. You bought an application that did not do what you wanted it to do. Ok, that was a mistake. However, did Apple say it would do it? You thought Apple said so, but if you really read all the fine prints, does it say it contained the function you are so disappointed about not finding? Did you try it out, before you bought it? There are probably methods you could have used to verify this before you purchased iWork. Go through them. Learn from them. And next time you buy software, it is more likely that you will use those methods than this time. You learnt something. You are now a more knowledgeable person. Congratulations!
3. Tell Apple what you think at: http://www.apple.com/feedback/pages.html
How do I copy or delete a page?
The easiest way of doing this is by going to View > Show Page Thumbnails and then to click on a page and select Edit > Cut, Copy or Delete and then Edit > Paste.
But note that what you copy is not a "page" but a "section". A section can contain several pages. To split a section into several pages you go to Insert > Section Break.
If you want to copy just the objects (graphics, text boxes...) from one page to another, the easiest way is to highlight them all.
1. Shift-click object after object, until you have them all.
2. Go to another page.
3. Make sure that your cursor is not in the body text (you do this by clicking in the margin of the page).
4. Select Edit > Paste.
But note that what you copy is not a "page" but a "section". A section can contain several pages. To split a section into several pages you go to Insert > Section Break.
If you want to copy just the objects (graphics, text boxes...) from one page to another, the easiest way is to highlight them all.
1. Shift-click object after object, until you have them all.
2. Go to another page.
3. Make sure that your cursor is not in the body text (you do this by clicking in the margin of the page).
4. Select Edit > Paste.
How can I embed sounds or movies in a document for Windows users?
In Pages 3.0 you cannot. In Pages 2.0 there was a cumbersome and not elegant way to do it with HTML export.
Exporting to pdf or rtf will not embed movies or sounds.
Exporting to Word will link the movie/sound to the document, so it will play fine on your own computer. However, if you transfer it to another Mac, you will have to transfer the movie/sound as well as a separate file.
And even if you send both Word document and movie/sound to the Windows user as two separate files, it may not play on Windows. The help for MS Office 2004 for MacOS X says "Compatibility Report: Inserted QuickTime movies might not appear in Office for Windows."
Exporting to pdf or rtf will not embed movies or sounds.
Exporting to Word will link the movie/sound to the document, so it will play fine on your own computer. However, if you transfer it to another Mac, you will have to transfer the movie/sound as well as a separate file.
And even if you send both Word document and movie/sound to the Windows user as two separate files, it may not play on Windows. The help for MS Office 2004 for MacOS X says "Compatibility Report: Inserted QuickTime movies might not appear in Office for Windows."
What pdf features are supported in Pages?
When you create a pdf from Pages 3.0 in MacOS X 10.5 (Export or Print to PDF) it retains the following features:
* Hyperlinks defined in the Pages document
* Bookmarks defined in the Pages document
* Hyperlinks from the page numbers in the Table of Contents
* Scalable graphics stays scalable
* Transparency and shadows of graphics
* Well formatted unicode characters (like 日本)
It does not have any of the following features:
* Outlines (as a special side bar in Adobe Reader or Preview)
* Embedded media (sounds or movies)
Note that PDF/X files do not support any active content, like hyperlinks or bookmarks..
For advice about which method to use to create PDF files, see this entry.
* Hyperlinks defined in the Pages document
* Bookmarks defined in the Pages document
* Hyperlinks from the page numbers in the Table of Contents
* Scalable graphics stays scalable
* Transparency and shadows of graphics
* Well formatted unicode characters (like 日本)
It does not have any of the following features:
* Outlines (as a special side bar in Adobe Reader or Preview)
* Embedded media (sounds or movies)
Note that PDF/X files do not support any active content, like hyperlinks or bookmarks..
For advice about which method to use to create PDF files, see this entry.
Sunday, December 10, 2006
How do I express if-statements in a formula?
Pages 3.0 has if-statements built in, but in Pages 2.0 and earlier there are no conditional functions for the formulas.
If you still use Pages 2.0 you can simulate if-statements in some cases.
To illustrate the principle, you may want to show the biggest of two numbers. You can then type:
=(A1>A2)*A1+(A2>A1)*A2
(For this you could also use "=MAX(A1,A2)" directly, but that is not as fun.)
As another example, you may want to fill cells conditionally. Let us assume that F2 should be transferred to a cell, if the value of E2 = 1, but not if E2 = 2. You can solve this with:
=F2*(E2-2)*-1
Well... almost solve it anyhow. You will get a 0 in the field, if E2 = 2, and there is no way you can hide that 0.
If you still use Pages 2.0 you can simulate if-statements in some cases.
To illustrate the principle, you may want to show the biggest of two numbers. You can then type:
=(A1>A2)*A1+(A2>A1)*A2
(For this you could also use "=MAX(A1,A2)" directly, but that is not as fun.)
As another example, you may want to fill cells conditionally. Let us assume that F2 should be transferred to a cell, if the value of E2 = 1, but not if E2 = 2. You can solve this with:
=F2*(E2-2)*-1
Well... almost solve it anyhow. You will get a 0 in the field, if E2 = 2, and there is no way you can hide that 0.
How do I reference a cell in one table from another one in a formula?
In Pages 5 (2013) you enter a formula (Insert > Function > Formula Editor) and click on the other table, and a table reference (usually something like "Table 1::A1:A2" will be added automatically.
However an imported Word document with referenced tables does not get converted properly. If you import that document to Pages, you will see that the cross reference is removed. How to do it in MS Word is described in MS Office help. It is not that easy, but you enter formulas from the Table menu and you have to add bookmarks to tables to be able to reference them.
In Pages 4.3 or earlier, this does not seem possible - not even using Applescript. If you open the Applescript dictionary for tables in 4.3, you can see that a table has no properties that are not also properties of graphics. This unfortunately means that a table works like a black box, whose content cannot be reached by the outside world.
However an imported Word document with referenced tables does not get converted properly. If you import that document to Pages, you will see that the cross reference is removed. How to do it in MS Word is described in MS Office help. It is not that easy, but you enter formulas from the Table menu and you have to add bookmarks to tables to be able to reference them.
In Pages 4.3 or earlier, this does not seem possible - not even using Applescript. If you open the Applescript dictionary for tables in 4.3, you can see that a table has no properties that are not also properties of graphics. This unfortunately means that a table works like a black box, whose content cannot be reached by the outside world.
Saturday, December 09, 2006
Why cannot Pages show pictures in .rtf files?
Part of the reason is that Pages is silly. If a picture is in a file, it should of course display it.
However, there is method in the madness. When it comes to rtf-files, Apple decided not to support pictures, as the rtf handling of images is too limited. Rtf supports only jpg pictures and png pictures and a number of "meta" image formats. This means that if you insert for example a small eps or pdf-file into an rtf document, MS Word will have to convert it to jpg or png, and then it is no longer scalable, even if you print on a printer with high resolution or with a large paper format. You can see this by simply increasing the view size in MS Word.
When an application like TextEdit saves to rtf, it instead uses rtfd, which allows for pdf and other high quality scalable formats.
If you open an rtfd from TextEdit in Pages the edges are still smooth with a high magnification. However, in any magnified rtf Word the edges of original PDF files are jagged.
So, Pages it not that silly after all? Oh, yes it is:
1. If a well formatted rtf file contains a picture, there is no excuse why Pages should not display it.
2. When Pages exports to rtf, it does not warn you that it is not going to export to rtf at all, but to rtfd, which no Windows application can read.
3. Not only that, the embedded picture in the rtfd file is not PDF! It is tiff, which is a rasterized bitmap format, so it still gets the jagged edges.
However, there is method in the madness. When it comes to rtf-files, Apple decided not to support pictures, as the rtf handling of images is too limited. Rtf supports only jpg pictures and png pictures and a number of "meta" image formats. This means that if you insert for example a small eps or pdf-file into an rtf document, MS Word will have to convert it to jpg or png, and then it is no longer scalable, even if you print on a printer with high resolution or with a large paper format. You can see this by simply increasing the view size in MS Word.
When an application like TextEdit saves to rtf, it instead uses rtfd, which allows for pdf and other high quality scalable formats.
If you open an rtfd from TextEdit in Pages the edges are still smooth with a high magnification. However, in any magnified rtf Word the edges of original PDF files are jagged.
So, Pages it not that silly after all? Oh, yes it is:
1. If a well formatted rtf file contains a picture, there is no excuse why Pages should not display it.
2. When Pages exports to rtf, it does not warn you that it is not going to export to rtf at all, but to rtfd, which no Windows application can read.
3. Not only that, the embedded picture in the rtfd file is not PDF! It is tiff, which is a rasterized bitmap format, so it still gets the jagged edges.
Friday, December 08, 2006
I really want to use Pages, but you keep recommending other word processors. Don't I ever need Pages?
No.
You never need Pages. It would be exceptional if you ever needed to do something that only Pages could do.
However, there are a lot of things Pages does really well.
If you want a great layout for a document with correct colours, shadows, typography and image handling, Pages does an excellent job for its price.
There is currently no cheaper program that handles that kind of layout tasks better than Pages. There are a few much more expensive programs of course, like Adobe Creative Suite. But many more expensive programs, like MS Word handles most layout tasks less well. MS Word is for example completely unable to handle ligatures or the typographic features of OpenType fonts, even though Microsoft were the ones who developed OpenType with Adobe.
Besides, if you think these FAQ are as much about what you cannot do in Pages as what you can do, that may be a sign that Pages is reasonably easy to use. What Pages can do is usually easy to do, so people will not ask how to do it. However, it is not always easy to see what limitations Pages has, so that is where people ask questions. And this blog tries to answer them.
You never need Pages. It would be exceptional if you ever needed to do something that only Pages could do.
However, there are a lot of things Pages does really well.
If you want a great layout for a document with correct colours, shadows, typography and image handling, Pages does an excellent job for its price.
There is currently no cheaper program that handles that kind of layout tasks better than Pages. There are a few much more expensive programs of course, like Adobe Creative Suite. But many more expensive programs, like MS Word handles most layout tasks less well. MS Word is for example completely unable to handle ligatures or the typographic features of OpenType fonts, even though Microsoft were the ones who developed OpenType with Adobe.
Besides, if you think these FAQ are as much about what you cannot do in Pages as what you can do, that may be a sign that Pages is reasonably easy to use. What Pages can do is usually easy to do, so people will not ask how to do it. However, it is not always easy to see what limitations Pages has, so that is where people ask questions. And this blog tries to answer them.
People send me files with macros, but the macros will not run in Pages. What should I do?
Do not use Pages. Use the word processor that created the document. There is a fairly good chance that it is MS Word 2004. (MS Word 2008 for Mac does not support VBA macros.)
People send me .rtf files with pictures in them, but the pictures are not displayed in Pages. What should I do?
Do not use Pages to open those files. Instead use one of the free word processors like OpenOffice or NeoOffice or AbiWord or a pay for word processor like Nisus Express or Mellel or many other ones.
Apart from images, Pages 3.0 cannot handle RTF files with tables either. The solution is the same: use another application.
Apart from images, Pages 3.0 cannot handle RTF files with tables either. The solution is the same: use another application.
Sharing Pages documents with MS Word users with or without using the Export command
If someone tells you to use Pages to edit Word documents, I'm afraid you got bad advice. Pages has many features that will not show up in Word documents, and Word has many features that will not show up in Pages documents.
Pages is not built to edit Word documents, which is why you have to Export to Word format and cannot Save. You may like it or not, but that's the way things are.
If you are dead set on using Pages for your MS Word documents, there is a hack at Lee Findlow's site.
Otherwise try OpenOffice and NeoOffice. They are both free. If you do not like them, but prefer something that looks and feels more like MS Word, try MS Word.
Pages is not built to edit Word documents, which is why you have to Export to Word format and cannot Save. You may like it or not, but that's the way things are.
If you are dead set on using Pages for your MS Word documents, there is a hack at Lee Findlow's site.
Otherwise try OpenOffice and NeoOffice. They are both free. If you do not like them, but prefer something that looks and feels more like MS Word, try MS Word.
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Saturday, November 11, 2006
How do I spell and grammar check in another language?
If it is just a matter of spell checking in one document, you can change the dictionary in the Inspector > T > Other > Language. The language will be set for all currently highlighted text. Warning: when you change style, the language may also change.
If you want all new documents to use spell checking of another language, you have to go through the following steps, for each template you intend to use.
1. Open a new document with the template you want to use.
2. Open the Styles Drawer (View > Show Styles Drawer).
3. Select the first style in the list. (This is often "Free Form".)
4. Change the language in the inspector as described above.
5. Click on the red triangle to the right of the style name in the Style Drawer, and in the menu that pops up, choose "Redefine Style from Selection".
6. Repeat steps 3-5 for every Paragraph Style in the Style Drawer.
7. Go to File > Save as Template, and choose a good name of the template.
8. If you have only one template you always want to use, you can choose it in Pages > Preferences > General > For New Documents, where you select "Use template:..." and then click on Choose... and choose the template.
And now for some additional hints:
Note that you can have several styles in the same document for different languages. You can for example have one style called "French body" and another called "Italian body". You can even associate shortcuts to the styles, in the Styles drawer, so you quickly can change between one language and another.
Another way to change language spelling is to quit Pages, go to System Preferences > International > Language, and drag your favourite language to the top. Then restart Pages. The inconvenience here is that all menus change as well, even in other applications as they start.
If you want spell check in a language that is not supported by Apple, you can try the free CocoAspell by Anton Leuski. CocoAspell claims support for languages like Afrikaans, Amharic, Arabic, Azerbaijani, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Bengali, Breton, Catalan, Czech, Kashubian, Welsh, Greek, Esperanto, Estonian, Persian, Finnish, Faroese, Frisian, Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Galician, Gujarati, Manx Gaelic, Hebrew, Hindi, Hiligaynon, Croatian, Upper Sorbian, Hungarian, Armenian, Interlingua, Indonesian, Icelandic, Kurdi, Latin, Lithuanian, Latvian, Low Saxon, Malagasy, Maori, Macedonian, Malayalam, Mongolian, Marathi, Malay, Maltese, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, Chichewa, Oriya, Punjabi, Polish, Quechua, Romanian, Kinyarwanda, Sardinian, Slovak, Slovenian, Serbian, Swahili, Tamil, Telugu, Tetum, Turkmen, Tagalog, Setswana, Turkish, Ukrainian, Uzbek, Vietnamese, Walloon, Yiddish, Zulu. Pages does not support all those languages, but CocoAspell works with other applications as well.
If you want all new documents to use spell checking of another language, you have to go through the following steps, for each template you intend to use.
1. Open a new document with the template you want to use.
2. Open the Styles Drawer (View > Show Styles Drawer).
3. Select the first style in the list. (This is often "Free Form".)
4. Change the language in the inspector as described above.
5. Click on the red triangle to the right of the style name in the Style Drawer, and in the menu that pops up, choose "Redefine Style from Selection".
6. Repeat steps 3-5 for every Paragraph Style in the Style Drawer.
7. Go to File > Save as Template, and choose a good name of the template.
8. If you have only one template you always want to use, you can choose it in Pages > Preferences > General > For New Documents, where you select "Use template:..." and then click on Choose... and choose the template.
And now for some additional hints:
Note that you can have several styles in the same document for different languages. You can for example have one style called "French body" and another called "Italian body". You can even associate shortcuts to the styles, in the Styles drawer, so you quickly can change between one language and another.
Another way to change language spelling is to quit Pages, go to System Preferences > International > Language, and drag your favourite language to the top. Then restart Pages. The inconvenience here is that all menus change as well, even in other applications as they start.
If you want spell check in a language that is not supported by Apple, you can try the free CocoAspell by Anton Leuski. CocoAspell claims support for languages like Afrikaans, Amharic, Arabic, Azerbaijani, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Bengali, Breton, Catalan, Czech, Kashubian, Welsh, Greek, Esperanto, Estonian, Persian, Finnish, Faroese, Frisian, Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Galician, Gujarati, Manx Gaelic, Hebrew, Hindi, Hiligaynon, Croatian, Upper Sorbian, Hungarian, Armenian, Interlingua, Indonesian, Icelandic, Kurdi, Latin, Lithuanian, Latvian, Low Saxon, Malagasy, Maori, Macedonian, Malayalam, Mongolian, Marathi, Malay, Maltese, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, Chichewa, Oriya, Punjabi, Polish, Quechua, Romanian, Kinyarwanda, Sardinian, Slovak, Slovenian, Serbian, Swahili, Tamil, Telugu, Tetum, Turkmen, Tagalog, Setswana, Turkish, Ukrainian, Uzbek, Vietnamese, Walloon, Yiddish, Zulu. Pages does not support all those languages, but CocoAspell works with other applications as well.
I want to run Pages in one language but MacOS X in another. How do I do that?
Let's assume that you want Pages in Dutch and MacOS X in English.
1. Set MacOS X to run in English (System Preferences > International > Language, and drag English to the top of the list.)
2. Go to Applications > iWork.
3. Highlight the Pages icon. Type ⌘-i or go to the menu File > Get Info.
4. Expand the section for Languages.
5. Uncheck all languages except Dutch.
6. Start Pages. You are done.
You can of course replace Dutch and English with any other available language you want to.
1. Set MacOS X to run in English (System Preferences > International > Language, and drag English to the top of the list.)
2. Go to Applications > iWork.
3. Highlight the Pages icon. Type ⌘-i or go to the menu File > Get Info.
4. Expand the section for Languages.
5. Uncheck all languages except Dutch.
6. Start Pages. You are done.
You can of course replace Dutch and English with any other available language you want to.
Sunday, November 05, 2006
How do I upgrade to iWork '09?
Apple has no upgrade program for iWork. If you bought Keynote 1, and wanted Keynote 2, you had to pay for a full new license. If you bought iWork '05 you had to buy a full new license for '06. And the same for iWork '08 which had no upgrade from the previous version - iWork '06. And yet again, for iWork '09, you have to pay the full price again.
By not having any upgrade program Apple saves money on administration. They do not need to set up a verification system of old versions on your harddisk or license numbers. They do not need to distribute different versions and make sure that all shops have both versions available.
The money they save, means that they can keep the price of iWork lower for first time buyers. It also means that they get more money themselves, and it is a commercial company after all.
By not having any upgrade program Apple saves money on administration. They do not need to set up a verification system of old versions on your harddisk or license numbers. They do not need to distribute different versions and make sure that all shops have both versions available.
The money they save, means that they can keep the price of iWork lower for first time buyers. It also means that they get more money themselves, and it is a commercial company after all.
Saturday, November 04, 2006
What will be in the next version of Pages/iWork?
Apple rarely gives out such information and at their support forums discussions about rumours are discouraged.
That is not the case with blogspot and the rest of the internet however. Two rumour sites that have a fairly good track record with predictions about the future are Apple Insider and Think Secret. Search those sites to find out which the latest rumours are.
If you want to know for certain what the next version will contain, there is only one way, however, and that is to wait for it and try it out.
That is not the case with blogspot and the rest of the internet however. Two rumour sites that have a fairly good track record with predictions about the future are Apple Insider and Think Secret. Search those sites to find out which the latest rumours are.
If you want to know for certain what the next version will contain, there is only one way, however, and that is to wait for it and try it out.
I have a graphic in my document, which I cannot select. What should I do?
Go to the menu Format > Advanced > Make Master Objects Selectable.
How do I import more than one PDF page to Pages?
If you import a PDF document with more than one page, only the first one will be imported to Pages.
However, if you first open the PDF file in Preview, you can highlight page after page and copy them and then paste them into Pages. (This does not work on all PDF files. Some PDF files have security settings that prevent it.)
However, if you first open the PDF file in Preview, you can highlight page after page and copy them and then paste them into Pages. (This does not work on all PDF files. Some PDF files have security settings that prevent it.)
How do I edit PDF files with Pages?
You cannot. No application can make any substantial modifications to PDF files - not even Adobe Acrobat from Adobe, who created them. The main purpose of PDF files is to print them. PDF is the end station.
You can import PDF files, like you can import images, but you cannot open them.
You can extract data from some PDF files in a few different ways.
The most obvious one is to simply copy the content from the PDF to Pages.
In some cases you may want to keep the layout of the pictures, and in that case a screen shot may be better. To make a screen shot hold down command-shift-4 and drag the mouse over the area you want. If you want high resolution, you need to increase the zoom the PDF is displayed in.
If you use the free Adobe Reader, you can export the text using File > Save as Text. No formatting and no pictures will be exported.
If you invest in Adobe Acrobat Pro, you get some more export options: HTML, JPeg, RTF, Word document, XML and others, and the result is sometimes acceptable. There is even a menu option to export just the images: Advanced > Export all images.
If you export to RTF, remember that Pages cannot render pictures in RTF files, so you will have to open it in another application like MS Word or NeoOffice.
Also note that there are PDF files that are locked, so you cannot extract any data from those files with any legal program. This is often the case with e-books for example, but also other material where the authors want to protect their copyright.
You can import PDF files, like you can import images, but you cannot open them.
You can extract data from some PDF files in a few different ways.
The most obvious one is to simply copy the content from the PDF to Pages.
In some cases you may want to keep the layout of the pictures, and in that case a screen shot may be better. To make a screen shot hold down command-shift-4 and drag the mouse over the area you want. If you want high resolution, you need to increase the zoom the PDF is displayed in.
If you use the free Adobe Reader, you can export the text using File > Save as Text. No formatting and no pictures will be exported.
If you invest in Adobe Acrobat Pro, you get some more export options: HTML, JPeg, RTF, Word document, XML and others, and the result is sometimes acceptable. There is even a menu option to export just the images: Advanced > Export all images.
If you export to RTF, remember that Pages cannot render pictures in RTF files, so you will have to open it in another application like MS Word or NeoOffice.
Also note that there are PDF files that are locked, so you cannot extract any data from those files with any legal program. This is often the case with e-books for example, but also other material where the authors want to protect their copyright.
How do I password protect a document?
From Pages '09, you set the password in the Document Inspector's Document pane.
In previous versions, you could not do it from Pages itself. The following describes ways to handle the problem with previous versions of Pages.
The safest way is to create an encrypted disk image using Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility, and put your document on that one. You get 128 bits encryption, which should be good enough for most purposes. Apple has more detailed instructions.
Using an encrypted disk image is more convenient than many people at first assume. It is high security. It is one password. And you can put a large number of different files on it (Pages, Numbers, pictures, mp3s...).
At first glance MS Word encryption seems simpler - just add a password to the document itself. However, it is not to be trusted. According to Microsoft themselves their passwords for file modification is not a security feature. It is a collaboration feature, and it can easily be hacked. According to Lastbit, no MS Office passwords before MS Office 2007 were secure. And with MS Office 2007, only the passwords for opening a document a document are safe.
From Pages you can get some kind of a Windows-compatible password protection by printing the document to PDF and encrypt it. However, neither you nor the reader will be able to easily modify the document. The encryption in the first versions of Leopard and earlier is just 40 bits RC4, which means it can be cracked with some patience. However, from Security Update 2008-002 (early 2008), the encryption is 128 bits RC4, which should be safe enough for most of us.
You could also use standard file system security (File > Get Info in the Finder), but any other user of the Mac with admin rights will be able to get to the file fairly easily. This kind of security is useless if you put the file on a memory stick or send it over the internet.
Also remember that no security mechanism is safer than the password you choose. If you choose "password" or the file name as password, it is easy for anyone to guess it and access the file content.
In previous versions, you could not do it from Pages itself. The following describes ways to handle the problem with previous versions of Pages.
The safest way is to create an encrypted disk image using Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility, and put your document on that one. You get 128 bits encryption, which should be good enough for most purposes. Apple has more detailed instructions.
Using an encrypted disk image is more convenient than many people at first assume. It is high security. It is one password. And you can put a large number of different files on it (Pages, Numbers, pictures, mp3s...).
At first glance MS Word encryption seems simpler - just add a password to the document itself. However, it is not to be trusted. According to Microsoft themselves their passwords for file modification is not a security feature. It is a collaboration feature, and it can easily be hacked. According to Lastbit, no MS Office passwords before MS Office 2007 were secure. And with MS Office 2007, only the passwords for opening a document a document are safe.
From Pages you can get some kind of a Windows-compatible password protection by printing the document to PDF and encrypt it. However, neither you nor the reader will be able to easily modify the document. The encryption in the first versions of Leopard and earlier is just 40 bits RC4, which means it can be cracked with some patience. However, from Security Update 2008-002 (early 2008), the encryption is 128 bits RC4, which should be safe enough for most of us.
You could also use standard file system security (File > Get Info in the Finder), but any other user of the Mac with admin rights will be able to get to the file fairly easily. This kind of security is useless if you put the file on a memory stick or send it over the internet.
Also remember that no security mechanism is safer than the password you choose. If you choose "password" or the file name as password, it is easy for anyone to guess it and access the file content.
How do I add Greek symbols to my document?
For the most basic characters, use the following keyboard shortcuts (if you have a US keyboard).
∑ - alt-w
π - alt-p
Ω - alt-z
µ - alt-m
For any character beyond that, use the character palette (Edit > Special Characters).
If you want to type long Greek texts, activate a Greek keyboard in System Preferences > International > Input Menu.
The keyboard simply called "Greek" is good if you type in modern Greek.
The keyboard called "Greek Polytonic" works better if you type text in Ancient Greek, which has more accents and some archaic characters like digamma (ϝ), sampi (ϡ) and koppa (ϙ). The polytonic keyboard lacks some mathematical symbols and a few punctuation marks, that can be found in the "Greek" keyboard.
To see the exact differences between the two Greek keyboards, use the Keyboard Viewer.
Greek Polytonic keyboard.
If you type in ancient Greek, you may run into something that looks like a problem. In unicode there are two versions of accented Greek characters - with tonos (τόνος) and with oxia (οξεία). Luckily they look the same in most fonts. Here is epsilon with tonos: έ. And here it is with oxia: έ. However, in some fonts there is a very clear difference, like in Tahoma:
If you use a font with a difference, you should really use the oxia version with the slanted accent for ancient Greek. But Apple's keyboard only allows you to type the tonos version.
The solution is very simple: use a font where even the tonos version has a slanted accent.
∑ - alt-w
π - alt-p
Ω - alt-z
µ - alt-m
For any character beyond that, use the character palette (Edit > Special Characters).
If you want to type long Greek texts, activate a Greek keyboard in System Preferences > International > Input Menu.
The keyboard simply called "Greek" is good if you type in modern Greek.
The keyboard called "Greek Polytonic" works better if you type text in Ancient Greek, which has more accents and some archaic characters like digamma (ϝ), sampi (ϡ) and koppa (ϙ). The polytonic keyboard lacks some mathematical symbols and a few punctuation marks, that can be found in the "Greek" keyboard.
To see the exact differences between the two Greek keyboards, use the Keyboard Viewer.
Greek Polytonic keyboard.
If you type in ancient Greek, you may run into something that looks like a problem. In unicode there are two versions of accented Greek characters - with tonos (τόνος) and with oxia (οξεία). Luckily they look the same in most fonts. Here is epsilon with tonos: έ. And here it is with oxia: έ. However, in some fonts there is a very clear difference, like in Tahoma:
If you use a font with a difference, you should really use the oxia version with the slanted accent for ancient Greek. But Apple's keyboard only allows you to type the tonos version.
The solution is very simple: use a font where even the tonos version has a slanted accent.
How can I insert HTML links to other documents?
This entry was written for Pages 2.0. In Pages 3.0 HTML export was removed completely, even if a document can be exported to iWeb.
You cannot.
Pages HTML support is very, very basic. If you really want to create a web page, use any other tool.
However, if you already have a Pages document, which you have created for some other purpose, and you suddenly decide that you want to publish it as HTML, by all means, use the Export to HTML feature. Just be prepared to clean it up manually, before you publish it.
You cannot.
Pages HTML support is very, very basic. If you really want to create a web page, use any other tool.
However, if you already have a Pages document, which you have created for some other purpose, and you suddenly decide that you want to publish it as HTML, by all means, use the Export to HTML feature. Just be prepared to clean it up manually, before you publish it.
How well does export/import of MS Word documents work?
Before Pages '08, very few people complained about the import of MS Word documents to Pages.
However, when you export a complicated Pages document to MS Word you are likely to lose some formatting, and the layout will change to some degree.
Some features are not supported. Note that not all Word documents contain this kind of features.
With Pages 3.0 came the possibility to import .docx files from MS Office 2007. At the same time, there seems to be an increased number of complaints about MS Office compatibility in general. It is unclear if this is because the compatibility has become worse, or if more people have started using Pages for Word documents.
The standard Word format version we have come to expect Pages to support is the one used by Word 97 through Word 2003 for Windows, and versions from Word 98 to Word 2004 for Mac. (Internal numbers are Word 8 to Word 11.)
Pages '08 cannot open Word 6.0 or Word 95 formats or earlier. NeoOffice can open them and save to newer versions of Word, which Pages then can read. Even TextEdit can open them but almost all formatting will be lost.
One may note that even MS Word for Windows is not fully backward compatible with itself without a registry update.
A Pages document that almost was saved as a Word document.
However, when you export a complicated Pages document to MS Word you are likely to lose some formatting, and the layout will change to some degree.
Some features are not supported. Note that not all Word documents contain this kind of features.
- Pages does not support separate page orientation per page, so if you have a Word document where all pages except one have portrait orientation, there will be no difference in Pages. Pages will use the page orientation defined for the first section in the document.
- Pages does not support text frames.
- Pages does not display the full content of table cells that span several pages.
- Word macros will not work.
- Partial paragraph borders will be simplified. All borders except complete outside borders will be removed.
- Italics and bold of fonts without italic and bold typefaces will be lost.
- Asiatic vertical text orientation and furigana/ruby/phonetic guides will also be lost.
- And so on...
With Pages 3.0 came the possibility to import .docx files from MS Office 2007. At the same time, there seems to be an increased number of complaints about MS Office compatibility in general. It is unclear if this is because the compatibility has become worse, or if more people have started using Pages for Word documents.
The standard Word format version we have come to expect Pages to support is the one used by Word 97 through Word 2003 for Windows, and versions from Word 98 to Word 2004 for Mac. (Internal numbers are Word 8 to Word 11.)
Pages '08 cannot open Word 6.0 or Word 95 formats or earlier. NeoOffice can open them and save to newer versions of Word, which Pages then can read. Even TextEdit can open them but almost all formatting will be lost.
One may note that even MS Word for Windows is not fully backward compatible with itself without a registry update.
A Pages document that almost was saved as a Word document.
Can I convert a Pages document to CMYK?
You can print to a PDF with CMYK using ColorSync. The result may not be good enough for professional printing though. The printer shop may prefer the "original" RGB files, which they then can convert themselves to the right CMYK profiles appropriate for their physical printers.
A better alternative to get a printer ready document is often to print to PDF/X.
A better alternative to get a printer ready document is often to print to PDF/X.
I have one thousand Pages documents to give to someone with Windows. How do I convert them all?
Open Applications > Applescript > Script Editor.
If you have Pages 3.0 and Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) create a new script and paste the following code:
If you instead have Pages 2.0 and Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) create a new script and paste the following code:
In both cases, save the script as an "Application".
Drag your 1000 Pages documents to the new file.
Sit back and wait for all the files to be processed.
Part of this code written by Dale Gillard of dmg software. Thanks Dale!
In case you wonder where the document type "SLDocumentTypeMSWord" is defined, it can be found in the Pages package Contents/Info.plist. Look for the node CFBundleDocumentTypes and number 6. The other numbers refer to other document types you also can use in this kind of script.
In case you want to convert AppleWorks documents to Pages, Yvan Koenig published an AppleScript to do just that at Apple's discussion forums.
In case you want to convert to PDF instead of MS Word, you can easily change the scripts above to do just that. If you are on Mac OS X 10.4, replace ".doc" with ".pdf". If you are on Mac OS X 10.5, replace "SLDocumentTypeMSWord" with "SLDocumentTypePDF". You can also use this script by Yvan Koenig.
If you want to export all files in a folder back to the same folder can also use the script by Yvan Koenig.
If you have Pages 3.0 and Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) create a new script and paste the following code:
on open theFiles
tell application "Pages"
repeat with aFile in theFiles
open aFile
set docName to name of front document
-- Remove .pages extension.
set prevTIDs to AppleScript's text item delimiters
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ".pages"
-- Add .doc extension.
set docName to first text item of docName & ".doc"
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to prevTIDs
-- Save file to Desktop.
set docPathAndName to (path to desktop as string) & docName
save front document as "SLDocumentTypeMSWord" in docPathAndName
close front document
end repeat
end tell
end open
If you instead have Pages 2.0 and Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) create a new script and paste the following code:
on open theFiles
tell application "Pages"
repeat with aFile in theFiles
open aFile
set docName to name of front document
-- Remove .pages extension.
set prevTIDs to AppleScript's text item delimiters
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ".pages"
-- Add .doc extension.
set docName to first text item of docName & ".doc"
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to prevTIDs
-- Save file to Desktop.
set docPathAndName to (path to desktop as string) & docName
save front document as ".doc" in docPathAndName
close front document
end repeat
end tell
end open
In both cases, save the script as an "Application".
Drag your 1000 Pages documents to the new file.
Sit back and wait for all the files to be processed.
Part of this code written by Dale Gillard of dmg software. Thanks Dale!
In case you wonder where the document type "SLDocumentTypeMSWord" is defined, it can be found in the Pages package Contents/Info.plist. Look for the node CFBundleDocumentTypes and number 6. The other numbers refer to other document types you also can use in this kind of script.
In case you want to convert AppleWorks documents to Pages, Yvan Koenig published an AppleScript to do just that at Apple's discussion forums.
In case you want to convert to PDF instead of MS Word, you can easily change the scripts above to do just that. If you are on Mac OS X 10.4, replace ".doc" with ".pdf". If you are on Mac OS X 10.5, replace "SLDocumentTypeMSWord" with "SLDocumentTypePDF". You can also use this script by Yvan Koenig.
If you want to export all files in a folder back to the same folder can also use the script by Yvan Koenig.
How do I get spell checking in my favourite language, which does not appear in the Inspector?
Check out Cocoaspell, which has dictionaries for more than 70 different languages.
How do I get spell checking in British English?
1. Go to System Preferences > International > Languages.
2. Click on the Edit List... button and add British English. Make sure it appears on the top of the list of languages.
3. In Pages, go to the Inspector > Text > More, and make sure that British English is chosen.
2. Click on the Edit List... button and add British English. Make sure it appears on the top of the list of languages.
3. In Pages, go to the Inspector > Text > More, and make sure that British English is chosen.
How do you make sure that Word documents open automatically in Pages by default?
1. Go to the Finder.
2. Click on any existing Word document.
3. Go to the menu File > Get Info (or type ⌘-i).
4. Open the triangle section "Open with:" and select Pages.
5. Click on the button "Change All..."
2. Click on any existing Word document.
3. Go to the menu File > Get Info (or type ⌘-i).
4. Open the triangle section "Open with:" and select Pages.
5. Click on the button "Change All..."
How do I create drop caps?
To have a capital paragraph initial that hangs down over the coming lines, you have to do some manual work, and the result may not be as pretty as you want.
1. Click outside the text area and create a new text box (which will not follow the text).
2. Add your single initial to the text box in the size (colour, shadow,...) you want.
3. Position the text box over the beginning of the paragraph, and make sure that the text wraps around it.
With this method, you can get something that looks really nice, when printed on paper or to PDF. However, it has the obvious drawbacks for editing:
* It takes time to do and you can go wrong in the formatting, unless you are careful.
* The text box will not follow the text, so if you add or remove text before this paragraph, the letter will come at the wrong place in the text.
1. Click outside the text area and create a new text box (which will not follow the text).
2. Add your single initial to the text box in the size (colour, shadow,...) you want.
3. Position the text box over the beginning of the paragraph, and make sure that the text wraps around it.
With this method, you can get something that looks really nice, when printed on paper or to PDF. However, it has the obvious drawbacks for editing:
* It takes time to do and you can go wrong in the formatting, unless you are careful.
* The text box will not follow the text, so if you add or remove text before this paragraph, the letter will come at the wrong place in the text.
Where are the spreadsheets in iWork? How do I import Excel documents?
You cannot import Excel files to Pages 3.0 or earlier. With iWork '08 came the separate application Numbers, which imports .xls and .xlsx files.
Other Mac programs that do have spreadsheets and import Excel files include MS Office, OpenOffice and AppleWorks.
Other Mac programs that do have spreadsheets and import Excel files include MS Office, OpenOffice and AppleWorks.
My templates are in Spanish, French, German, Swahili. How do I switch them to English?
You don't. The text in the templates is no language at all - not even Latin. It is just fill out text so you can see what the page looks like. The text Lorem ipsum is common fill text within the publishing industry. It is also called "greeking". More info.
Which languages do Pages and Mac OS X support?
Pages has full support for most major languages in the world, including Chinese and Japanese.
Pages does not support right to left writing, like in Arabic and Hebrew. Neither do MS Word 2004 or MS Word 2008 for Macintosh.
Pages also sometimes has problems with contextual forms in non-Latin languages - especially with OpenType fonts.
For certain languages, like Burmese, Pages does not have full support. Some characters, like ႏ, cannot be displayed for some reason.
Pages does not support vertical writing, so Chinese and Japanese have to be written horizontally. OpenOffice and the English and Japanese versions of MS Word 2004 and MS Word 2008 support vertical text. There was a discussion about this limitation in Pages on Japanese Slashdot in August 2007.
Pages does not support ruby/phonetic guides/furigana/振り仮名 [ふりがな]. OpenOffice and the English and Japanese versions of MS Word 2004 and MS Word 2008 support it, but their implementation is not very elegant. The Japanese version of Adobe InDesign also handles Japanese features. A Western version of InDesign is able to display them but not to modify them.
The following applications have Japanese language features, but they save them in a non-standard format, which makes it difficult to exchange documents with other users: LightWayText, iText, iText Pro. The web pages are in Japanese, but some of those applications also have an English user interface.
There are some scripts that Mac OS X supports, even thought fonts and keyboards are not available by default. For example:
For more information about typing in foreign languages check this page.
For more information about using foreign languages on a mac check following resources:
Pages does not support right to left writing, like in Arabic and Hebrew. Neither do MS Word 2004 or MS Word 2008 for Macintosh.
Pages also sometimes has problems with contextual forms in non-Latin languages - especially with OpenType fonts.
For certain languages, like Burmese, Pages does not have full support. Some characters, like ႏ, cannot be displayed for some reason.
Pages does not support vertical writing, so Chinese and Japanese have to be written horizontally. OpenOffice and the English and Japanese versions of MS Word 2004 and MS Word 2008 support vertical text. There was a discussion about this limitation in Pages on Japanese Slashdot in August 2007.
Pages does not support ruby/phonetic guides/furigana/振り仮名 [ふりがな]. OpenOffice and the English and Japanese versions of MS Word 2004 and MS Word 2008 support it, but their implementation is not very elegant. The Japanese version of Adobe InDesign also handles Japanese features. A Western version of InDesign is able to display them but not to modify them.
The following applications have Japanese language features, but they save them in a non-standard format, which makes it difficult to exchange documents with other users: LightWayText, iText, iText Pro. The web pages are in Japanese, but some of those applications also have an English user interface.
There are some scripts that Mac OS X supports, even thought fonts and keyboards are not available by default. For example:
- Bengali/Bangla - free fonts and keyboard available from ekushey.org.
- Kannada - free fonts and keyboard available from nickshanks.com.
- Telugu - free font available from nickshanks.com. Keyboard is available from doe.carleton.ca
- Malayalam - free font available from malayalamlinux. It seems the rendering is not good, however. When you combine the characters ക and െ, the characters should basically switch place, but they do not.
- Sinhala - free font available from nickshanks.com.
- Amharic (and Tigrinya) - several links to free fonts at Ethiopian News Headlines, for example senamirmir
For more information about typing in foreign languages check this page.
For more information about using foreign languages on a mac check following resources:
- Unleash Your Multilingual Mac (maintained by Tom Gewecke)
- Multilingual Mac blog (also maintained by Tom Gewecke)
- Chinese Mac (maintained by Eric Rasmussen)
- Chinese Mac newsgroup
- Japanese Pages/iWork discussion forum
- Wikipedia help for Indic scripts
Pages is incredibly slow. How can I fix that?
Pages is slow on some people's machines, but for most of us, there is no problem. No one has a fool proof method of solving the problem, when it appears. These are some things people have found solved the problem. For some people, nothing has helped at all.
1. Do you have any PostScript Fonts installed? Some people have reported problems with some PostScript Fonts.
2. Do you have any missing fonts? When you open the document, does Pages complain that it cannot find one or several fonts?
3. Do you have corrupt fonts? Open FontBook, select all fonts and then File > Validate Fonts.
4. Corrupt pictures, songs and movies in your home folder's Movies, Music and Pictures folders can slow down the product through the Media Browser. AVI films in the Movie folder can slow things down, as QT usually cannot play them.
5. Go to View > Hide > Layout. For some reason the layout slows things down.
6. Don't view Thumbnails.
7. Use the Text Fit option "follow contour" instead of "follow a square" in the bottom section of the wrap inspector.
8. If an object is set to wrap, and a wrapped side squeezes out any possibility of text wrapping along that side - such as extending a text box to the margin, the extreme slowdown will occur. So don't.
9. Use as few objects as possible Fixed on Page. Instead use Moves with Text.
10. Reduce the resolution of your screen.
11. Reduce the number of colours of your screen.
12. Change your video card. (Yes, even the screen hardware may be the source of the problem.)
1. Do you have any PostScript Fonts installed? Some people have reported problems with some PostScript Fonts.
2. Do you have any missing fonts? When you open the document, does Pages complain that it cannot find one or several fonts?
3. Do you have corrupt fonts? Open FontBook, select all fonts and then File > Validate Fonts.
4. Corrupt pictures, songs and movies in your home folder's Movies, Music and Pictures folders can slow down the product through the Media Browser. AVI films in the Movie folder can slow things down, as QT usually cannot play them.
5. Go to View > Hide > Layout. For some reason the layout slows things down.
6. Don't view Thumbnails.
7. Use the Text Fit option "follow contour" instead of "follow a square" in the bottom section of the wrap inspector.
8. If an object is set to wrap, and a wrapped side squeezes out any possibility of text wrapping along that side - such as extending a text box to the margin, the extreme slowdown will occur. So don't.
9. Use as few objects as possible Fixed on Page. Instead use Moves with Text.
10. Reduce the resolution of your screen.
11. Reduce the number of colours of your screen.
12. Change your video card. (Yes, even the screen hardware may be the source of the problem.)
How come I cannot use Italics and Bold in some fonts?
The first thing you do is to log feedback, pointing out that you are one of thousands of thousands of users who have problems with this, because Apple does not provide proper feedback in the user interface.
The second thing you do is to read the following paragraphs with an explanation:
Only some fonts contain italic (or oblique) typefaces. A program like MS Word tries to italicize those fonts anyhow, and the result is often not that pretty:
In the picture from Microsoft Word 2004 above, the font Baskerville has an italic typeface. The font Baskerville Old Face does not. The normal versions look almost identical, but the italics look completely different. It is of course possible that you prefer the automatic italics of Baskerville Old Face, but a lot of people probably prefer the elaborate dedicated italics typeface of Baskerville.
To avoid automatically generated italics, Pages and TextEdit and a whole lot of other programs simply do not display italics, when none are available, even if the user asks for it:
In the example using Pages above, the solution is simply to use Baskerville instead of Baskerville Old Face. Here we happened to be lucky, as there was an almost identical font with an italic typeface. It may not be that easy for other fonts, but the Font palette shows which fonts contain Italics.
Comparing the samples from Microsoft Word and Pages higher up on the page, you can also see that Word 2004 is unable to render the ligature fi in any of the samples. Pages handles it well in Baskerville, but fails in Baskerville Old Face, as that font does not contain this feature.
The second thing you do is to read the following paragraphs with an explanation:
Only some fonts contain italic (or oblique) typefaces. A program like MS Word tries to italicize those fonts anyhow, and the result is often not that pretty:
In the picture from Microsoft Word 2004 above, the font Baskerville has an italic typeface. The font Baskerville Old Face does not. The normal versions look almost identical, but the italics look completely different. It is of course possible that you prefer the automatic italics of Baskerville Old Face, but a lot of people probably prefer the elaborate dedicated italics typeface of Baskerville.
To avoid automatically generated italics, Pages and TextEdit and a whole lot of other programs simply do not display italics, when none are available, even if the user asks for it:
In the example using Pages above, the solution is simply to use Baskerville instead of Baskerville Old Face. Here we happened to be lucky, as there was an almost identical font with an italic typeface. It may not be that easy for other fonts, but the Font palette shows which fonts contain Italics.
Comparing the samples from Microsoft Word and Pages higher up on the page, you can also see that Word 2004 is unable to render the ligature fi in any of the samples. Pages handles it well in Baskerville, but fails in Baskerville Old Face, as that font does not contain this feature.
Which is best, Pages or MS Word? Or something else?
It depends on your needs and your wallet. A list with differences between MS Word and Pages is at Wikipedia.
Redlex, who sells Mellel, have made a comparison chart between Mellel, Open Office, MS Word and Nisus Writer Express (but not Pages) at their own website. They hint that they may add Pages to that list in the future.
A comparison between AbiWord, Mellel, NeoOffice, Nisus Writer Pro and Pages (but not Word) can be found at German Apfelwiki.
Redlex, who sells Mellel, have made a comparison chart between Mellel, Open Office, MS Word and Nisus Writer Express (but not Pages) at their own website. They hint that they may add Pages to that list in the future.
A comparison between AbiWord, Mellel, NeoOffice, Nisus Writer Pro and Pages (but not Word) can be found at German Apfelwiki.
How do I add mathematical equations to Pages?
From Pages '09, you can integrate MathType's equation editor in Pages. MathType gives you a 30 days evaluation. That will then turn into a "Lite" version which currently is free.
Without MathType, you cannot type a complex formula or math equation or matrix in Pages itself. What you can do is to create equations in an external program like Grapher, which you can find in the Applications > Utilities folder.
If you happen to have AppleWorks 6 on your computer, you can launch its equation editor as a standalone application from /Applications/AppleWorks\ 6/AppleWorks\ Essentials/Equation\ Editor/Carbon/Equation\ Editor . You can then compose the equation and paste it to Pages.
Another alternative is LaTeX Equation Editor. It is more flexible, but you have to learn LaTeX to use it. You can also try LaTeXiT, which may be easier to use, even though it requires some other software to work.
Without MathType, you cannot type a complex formula or math equation or matrix in Pages itself. What you can do is to create equations in an external program like Grapher, which you can find in the Applications > Utilities folder.
If you happen to have AppleWorks 6 on your computer, you can launch its equation editor as a standalone application from /Applications/AppleWorks\ 6/AppleWorks\ Essentials/Equation\ Editor/Carbon/Equation\ Editor . You can then compose the equation and paste it to Pages.
Another alternative is LaTeX Equation Editor. It is more flexible, but you have to learn LaTeX to use it. You can also try LaTeXiT, which may be easier to use, even though it requires some other software to work.
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