How can I check grammar in a Pages document?

Pages 3.0 contains no "grammar check" but it contains a "Proofreader", which tests things like these for English texts:

• Improper capitalization (like a sentence starting with a lower case letter)
  
• Duplicate words
• Using "an" instead of "a"
• Full stop inside quotation marks ("He screamed". <> "He screamed.")
  
• Formatting errors (for example, abbreviations that should be spelled out in formal writing)
• Jargon
  
• Gender-specific expressions - like "mankind" instead of "humankind" or "humanity".
• Date format ("12/24/07" is considered too informal).
  

With Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) the OS got its own grammar checker, which is not used by Pages 3.0.1. It contains some checks for pure grammatical errors like:

• Verb conjugation ("I is". "I have did".)
• The difference between "their" and "there" (as in "there house").
  
• Sentence fragments (sentences without a verb - like this one).
  

To use the OS grammar check, paste the text into TextEdit and verify it there.

However, the OS grammar check does not check for the following issues, which Pages' Proofreader checks for:

• Inconsistent spacing or punctuation marks, like "la Arabie" for "l'Arabie" in French.
  
• Complex words like "eventuate" or jargon like "pretty".
• Gender words like "mankind".
• Date formats.
  

In some ways the lack of vocabulary check may actually be good, as you sometimes want to write for example "pretty", and Pages cannot switch off that check.

For grammar checks for other problems, try for example MS Word or Grammarian.