Pages 7.2, Numbers 5.2, and Keynote 8.2
Apple has released Pages 7.2, Numbers 5.2, and Keynote 8.2, adding support for Dark mode in macOS 10.14 Mojave to the iWork trio of productivity apps. All three apps also gain the capability to record and save audio to documents and add support for Mojave’s Continuity Camera feature, which enables you to take a photo or scan a document with your iPhone or iPad and have it appear instantaneously in a document on your Mac. Plus, Numbers now enables you to organize data and summarize tables with new smart categories. Pages, Numbers, and Keynote now require a minimum of macOS 10.13 High Sierra. (Free; Pages, 296 MB, release notes; Numbers, 204 MB, release notes; Keynote, 519 MB, release notes; macOS 10.13+)
I installed the new edition earlier today and I must say it is still the pits! Importing a docx with footnotes or hyperlinks is very undependable! Most of the time a total failure! I do not understand why Apple’s flagship document processor adds features like Dark mode etc. but will not restore or add basic functionality that many or most other free document processors can do. One more time I am deleting Pages because it still nowhere meets the needs I or many others have.
Although footnotes and hyperlinks are important for specific situations, I suspect most people never use either, much less care about importing them from pre-existing Word documents. So while it’s fine to criticize Pages for a mediocre .docx importer, let’s not go overboard and suggest that Pages is “the pits” without specifics about other bugs or limitations.
No offense Adam, but you’re speculating. I routinely use both footnotes and hyperlinks for my work documents. While I agree that it’s a bit exaggerated to claim that because those are broken, Pages is “the pits”, I think John raises a valid concern. If I cannot rely on Pages to properly import Word documents, I will have to use Word. And faced with that situation I too would wonder why Apple spends time/resources on graphics options, while basic functionality like import/export remains broken.
It is a valid concern, but it’s more of this constant extrapolation and exaggeration from one specific issue to “it’s the pits.” We’re talking about one feature, and it’s a feature that many people won’t ever use (and yes, I’m speculating, but that’s been my job for 28+ years and usage of nearly every word processor on the market).
Pages is a powerful, capable word processor with some truly impressive features. It may not be perfect, and it may not be right for any particular person’s needs, but let’s try not to turn one weak spot in an importer into general condemnation. Again, let’s keep it constructive.
My apologies if you feel I was too harsh! But you have to admit that Pages is supposed to Apple’s anger to and possible substitute to Word. There are many writers who would love to not use Word and use a Mac dedicated app that is capable of competing with Microsoft in the Mac world. I am not the only one who feels like this. There are reviews all over the place written with the same complaints.
That was my understanding. More people want to be able to use Pages. But each of us has key features that we just need to work reliably for that to become possible.
Dark Mode, photo handoff… These are the concerns of those with the more feature-filled version of Pages.
Did anyone notice Pages on iOS got paragraph spacing?! “Finally” indeed.
On my iPad (IOS 12) the app store app shows updates pending for GarageBand, Numbers, Apple Store, Keynote, Pages, and Clips. If I touch update for any of them or update all the circle begins to rotate and then it reverts to UPDATE. Other apps update fine, these six refuse to update. Has anyone else seen this behavior?
Not with those in particular, but I’ve often seen it randomly in the past. Just seems to go away eventually and updates will download.
I’m very happy to see the categories feature (equivalent to pivot tables, I believe) return to Numbers. This was a feature of the old Numbers app prior to the big iWork rewrite years ago. Good to see these more powerful features reappear over time.
One of the only issues I still have with Pages is something I hit when importing Word files. In Word, table cells that extend past a page boundary cause text to flow to the following page. In Pages, text in a table that overflows a page boundary simply disappears. Since I don’t have Word, I’ve been bitten by this issue when opening legal agreements (contracts and the like) in Pages.