You can count on it. Every year around MacWorld San Francisco time (the first week of January) rumors swirl of a new Apple-branded “AppleWorks-on-steroids” Microsoft-Office-killer application that will finally free Mac users completely from any reliance whatsoever on Microsoft software. And, every year, MacWorld comes and goes, and the rumors prove to be unfounded once again.

Not that you can’t lead a fairly “Microsoft-Free” existence already. You only need Internet Explorer around for the occasional web site you come across that can only be viewed with it (which, by the way, is the misguided designer’s problem, not yours, and you should drop them a line and let them know that). For everyday browsing, both Apple’s Safari and Mozilla’s Firefox browsers are faster, more stable, and more secure.

You can produce, read, make common modifications to, and save documents in Microsoft Word format with both the Mac’s TextEdit and AppleWorks applications. AppleWorks will also produce. read, and modify spreadsheets in Excel format. Apple’s Keynote presentation application imports and exports in PowerPoint format. Basically, it’s safe to say that the consumer-level Mac user can easily exist and interact with the rest of the computer world without Microsoft Office.

Even though Apple didn’t introduce an “Office-killer” application this last January, they did introduce a significantly improved version 2.0 of Keynote (see accompanying column), and a killer new application, boxed together in a $79 suite called “iWork”. The new application is called “Pages”. Although it’s a very capable word processor, Pages is more of a “page processor”, or a free-form text and graphics “canvas”. You could describe it as the blending of the capabilities of MS Word and MS Publisher in a package that fully leverages the graphic power and interoperability of the Mac operating system.

Let’s cover some features. Pages’ word processing tools equal those commonly employed by most MS Word users, who in truth use only a fraction of Word’s considerable power. Columns, text styles, tables, charts, bookmarks, hyperlinks, Table of Contents, headers, footers, footnotes, and many more features are supported and easy to implement.

Pages excels in wrapping text around images or objects. Text wraps dynamically as you move, resize, or rotate an image within the text area, giving you real-time feedback as to how the section will look. Speaking of images - just as in iPhoto, iMovie, or iDVD, you can browse, access and import your photos, music, and movies from within Pages’ Media Browser, never having to open another application or search through your computer.

Pages offers more than 40 professionally designed templates to help get you started – simple one-page letters and stationery, student term papers, business brochures, and family newsletters, to name just a few. Many templates contain more than just one page – a simple pull-down menu adds additional pages, all carrying the same feel and style of the cover page.

Let’s talk compatibility. Pages can read (including assigned styles in) MS Word documents, and can export changes back into MS Word format. It will also open your old AppleWorks documents, and any documents in RTF (Rich Text Format). You can import all the industry-standard media formats, like GIF and JPEG, as well as more advanced media like Flash, Photoshop, and Illustrator files.

Once you’re ready to “go to press”, Pages offers nice export options. Create great-looking PDF files in Adobe Acrobat format. Choose the “HTML” option and Pages will export your project into web site format, complete with images and hyperlinks.
Overall, Pages is a very good “version 1.0” application that will only get better as it matures.

© 2005 Peter F. Zimowski