Pages Review is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

Contrary to popular belief, the iPad is not just an output device. Yes, it provides games and entertainment and music and browsing. Yes, it is a book reader. But with the right applications, the iPad is transformed into an input device: one that allows for creation. Pages for iPad is one of these applications. My expectations were high, especially seeing as I am long time user of the iWork suite for Mac. My expectations were exceeded.

When opening Pages, you are greeted with a personal directory of documents. To get started, tap the plus icon at the bottom centre of the screen, where a list of built-for-iPad templates are provided. There are sixteen all-in-all, less than the Mac equivalent but more than enough for even the most customizable of users. If you use Pages for Mac, you’ll be able to add all your documents onto the iPad through iTunes’ File Sharing feature.

Once you’re in a document, the power of Pages is revealed. Up top you’ll find a woodgrain-themed menu bar offering a significant number of features to advance your work. The first icon – information – is denoted by the familiar “i” symbol featured across the iWork suite. And, like its Mac counterpart, the “i” changes depending on what you have selected. If it is text, the “i” provides the ability to style it in a number of pre-defined ways: you can transform text into a list and adjust the layout in the form of alignment, number of columns and size of line-spacing. If selected on a table, the “i” the provides options to choose the style of the table in a number of intricate ways including which lines to show and whether colour should be applied to alternate rows, as well as more basic features like what the text font and size should be. Equally, the list goes on for charting, shapes and images.

The picture icon to the right of information offers the ability to insert all of these features: pictures in the iPad’s Photo Albums, tables and charts (of which there are six different styled versions to choose from, all of which are customizable), and a number of shapes. Thankfully, the much-used option to insert a text-box can be found in the ‘Shapes’ section also.

Finally, a ‘Tools’ icon is also to be found, providing the ability to edit the document’s setup (header, footer etc), search the document, and turn on/off edge guides and spelling check. Noting edge guides in particular, this feature automatically aligns text and images against other parts of the document, to create a seamless and professional-looking piece of work. It works well. Saving the most important feature to last comes in the form of undo and redo facilities, which are again essential tools that Apple have integrated well. One tap to undo, tap and hold to redo.

Now to talk about actually using Pages for creating documents. The impressive array of features is only as good as Apple’s integration and ease of use is! As a personal test, I began using Pages without reading the Getting Started tutorial, and yet I knew where everything was within just a few taps. Apple has an uncanny way of thinking, a method that isn’t outside of the box but rather what the box should be in the first place. Not once was I left thinking “why is that there?” or “this would be better over there.” Instead, my thoughts were “well this feature must be here” and almost always it was. The pre-written templates are a big advantage, even for basic document creation, as only a little bit of rework and customizing is needed to suit a wide variety of document styles and personal tastes.

Even when it came to less common features like integrating pictures and charts and tables to my documents, it was always just a few taps away from what I wanted it to look like. Finger gestures, like two-fingers to rotate, tap and hold to move and one finger to bring up a list of options, became second nature instantly, and the provided edge guides coupled with x and y-axis positioning ensure that everything is accurately placed.

Of course, sharing is a critical feature that deserves attention also. Apple have provided a generous variety of ways in which documents can be imported, exported and published. You can send a document via Mail, share it via Apple’s premier iWork.com service, and also export the document ready for iTunes File Sharing whenever you plug your iPad in to your computer. This final method provides the ability to save the document in Pages format (.pages), PDF (.pdf) and Microsoft Word (.doc). Documents also be imported through iTunes File Sharing and through the iPad’s Mail application.

Pages does fall short in some areas. Paper size can only be A4 or US Letter size, meaning larger documents like A3 cannot be created natively. In addition, the lack of an ability to add new words to the Dictionary directly through Pages becomes frustrating when inserting names of people or places: a squiggly red line constantly reminds you that the word you’ve entered does not actually exist. Furthermore, despite the iPad’s powerful A4 processor, Pages remained concerningly slow on image-heavy documents. Whenever I began to enter text on a document with eight images on a single page (see screenshots) the text input was surprisingly sluggish. Text styles can’t be edited either.

Unfortunately, importing documents brought about the most concerning problem of Pages. Even in Apple .pages format imports, frequent errors came up with regards to margin sizes and formatting, sometimes skewing documents up to the point of unreadability. Hopefully future fixes will address these issues in general and this issue in specific. Finally, documents can’t be saved as a template for future documents.

Despite these flaws, Pages has transformed the iPad to the point of redefining it. No longer is it only an output device for pleasure, but an input device for creation as well. Even with its problems, Pages is impressive, succinct and very easy to use – even though it houses a number of intricate features and options. For document creators, to say it is worth $9.99 is an understatement.

[ Pages Review is a post from 148Apps ]

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