[singingcrow]

I love Pages too -- especially the new '08 Version -- but I've had some issues with getting "stuck" in a numbered list and then the software not picking up later number if I can somehow "Get out" of the list.

IE: I type 1. XXX ERDFDFGSDTASDSDF And then press enter -- it autocorrects to a numbered list. Great. I get a 2. and I Type some stuff. Now... If I want to get out of the list after this -- it's pretty hard. Pressing multiple returns just generates more numbers. Shift return does what it should, and just soft returns me to the next line, but still locks me into the numbered list.

A Little frustrating.

To "get out" of the numbered list, finish typing your last list item, hit return, then go to the list thingy on the toolbar and choose "none". At this point you may continue as you wish.

Oh! And I much prefer Pages to Word. And now wit this new Word Processing format, the whole idea of thinking I need Word has gone right out the window. And bonus! The page layout format is sweet, simple and fast!

Keynote? People always ask me what I created my presentations with, because it looks so professional. And that was wiith iWork '05, way before this great update. As far as I'm concerned, PP does a great job, but it's not quite as easy to use, and there are things you can do with keynote PP users can only dream about.

 

[csonni]

Just got my iWork '08 in the mail today. I am switching over from MS Excel to Numbers, but Numbers seems to take longer to open files as well as more spinning beachballs. I could understand this with Excel (my older version that is), but isn't iWork all native?

 

[(( p g ))]

I bought iWork '08 and found that the new version of Keynote is worth the price of the licence alone. It's that solid and that much of an improvement over PowerPoint.

Pages is fine. It still has the occasional issue with formatting, but it makes up for that in being faster to load and to run on Intel Macs versus pokey old Word.

I don't use spreadsheets much, but from what I have seen so farm Numbers seems like a competent replacement for most. The templates they include are really helpful...eye-catching, too.

 

[Caillou]

I use presentation-format documents a lot. Creating them with Keynote is so much faster, for a much better looking results.

Today I discovered an option with Tables. You can create alternate color rows with one click! (See table inspection section, last option at the bottom.)

Fact is, everytime I use Keynote, I still discover new possibilities. And still save time producing my material.

Caveat: this current version still does not export all features to PowerPoint (for the rest of them!). E.g. 2-column slides transform into 1-column slides that scroll down and down. Slide transitions do not export to Flash I also found today.

Negative point : one has to get used to a tad more mouse movement however, going back and forth between slide content and inspector commands.

Nevertheless, overall : thumb's up for KN (I feel the same about Pages)

 

[csonni]

Any comments about speed in opening files and beachballs on your ends?

 

[CubaMark]

There is one critical issue with Keynote that - hopefully - will be addressed by Apple soon, and one that makes it problematic for any presentation.

The darn thing reboots my MacBook at the most inopportune moment.

See this thread at Apple Discussions, where we're trying to make heads & tails of this thing.

If anyone else has experienced this, please contribute to the thread.

M.

 

[Zapodidae]

I'll add my voice to those who say that Keynote is superior to PPT, in terms of features, ease of use and results. And perhaps best of all, your presentation don't look like they were made in Powerpoint. Everyone is totally bored with those lame templates and endless slides of Arial 24 pt.

Pages 08 is a huge upgrade, but if you need to collaborate with Word/windows users, stick with Word. Translation is not perfect, and you'll end up spending extra time reformatting. The same goes for OpenOffice/NeoOffice Writer.

Opening external formats in iWork can take a long time for complex documents. Just no way around that one.

 

[csonni]

Just downloaded and installed all the iWork App updates. Again, I confirm that Numbers takes dreadfully long to open up my 800 kb Excel file. I did a "Save As" and then tried opening the "native" Numbers file. Same terrible performance. Excel opens it up almost immediately. I'm really disappointed in Numbers. Not sure about Pages and Keynote yet.

 

[Moscool]

I must be the thick one because I think that PP is definitely easier to use than KN...

I have two beefs: (i) I don't really understand the image size conventions (i.e. what size I should define my presentation for when I have no clue in advance of what type of projector or computer screen I will be using) and (ii) I want to be able to customise my default masters easily. So far KN beats me whereas in PP it's a doddle. So is importing graphics and you are not interested in using iLife.

Also, it's a PP world out there and KN is particularly bad at PPS playback (they usually appear in small screen size + they never play sounds properly).

KN has a clear advantage on PP though: it's charting ability is amazingly intuitive and elegant. Having spent time with the new Office 08, I am somewhat disappointed by the new Ribbon: great concept but no facility to say: "hey, great basic graphic, now let me tweak it as an object".

Finally, KN doesn't read new Office/Windows 2007 files natively (or Office 2008 for that matter) and that's a big negative if you intend to go back and forth between platforms.

As far as Pages is concerned I can only report what my secretary tells me (I use Word daily but she has reformatted all our colour documents using Pages): things look much more beautiful in Pages but its is a royal pain to use, even with the improvements of '08

Finally Numbers: If you forgive the stupid name and crappy file extension (Hellooo Spotlight perhaps?) this is a very elegant product. We have standardised all our forms on Numbers and the killer feature is the multiple tables on the same page. Otherwise it is as counter-intuitive as the other two apps and I keep using Excel on a daily basis.

Conclusion: it's an imperfect world out there, so I find that I keep having to purchase both suites. If I didn't have to interface with Office all the time (clients etc.) I would probably take the time to learn these apps properly. I have probably given them 5-10 hours each and they have defeated me to some extent. Life's too short.

 

[csonni]

Moscool- do you have performance issues opening Numbers documents? It took nearly 1 minute to open mine.

 

[Moscool]

Not really

What's your configuration? In particular, how much HD space do you have?

 

[csonni]

On the drive I'm working off of- 55 gigs left on my OS partition of 75 gigs and 75 gigs left on my files partition of 158 gigs. I have 1.5 gigs of ram as well.

 

[Moscool]

That should be plenty. I suggest a good cleanup (Onyx etc.) + a trashing of iWork prefs afterwards

 

[csonni]

I've run DW and Cocktail on my relatively new install (OS). iWork is also a new install, so I don't see what trashing the prefs would do since I've only opened 2 documents so far. I''ll give it a try, though.

 

[Moscool]

Tricky. I had not had any perf problems although the first time it may have taken a while (I honestly don't remember). Perhaps it's the contrary (i.e. it takes a while to build prefs the first time?) My specs are in my signature; yours don't sound that different.

 

[csonni]

Just deleted my Numbers pref file. No difference. I tried a 48 kb file which opened somewhat faster, but still not to specs. I get the spinning beachball along with the wait.

 

[csonni]

Just started a new "native" Numbers file. Pasted just a bit of data into it. Saved it and closed it. Opened with still a 6 second delay with a quick beachball. Not acceptable. This behavior occurred on my MacBook as well when I first purchased iWork. By the way, I ran Onyx with no improvement in speed.

 

[Moscool]

Well, 6 seconds better than 1 minute no?
If that's a consolation, MS Office 2008 apps are quite slow to launch too. They call it progress...

 

[Moscool]

This should please you...

 

[csonni]

Just added several more sheets to this native document. Pasting alone brings about the beachball for several seconds with some strange window flash like it's trying to rethink in the process. Got the file up to 500 kb and opening it now takes nearly 20 seconds. If this is the experience of other users, than Numbers is [was] not ready for prime time. In closing my Numbers document, Numbers now froze up on me and is not responding. Something buggy is going on.