Bournemouth — May 21st 2019

Following Euan’s talk on Affinity Publisher, Tony decided to take an in-depth look at Pages which, while not nearly as fully featured as Affinity, is a very capable word processing and page layout program. Pages first appeared as part of iWorks in 2005 and steadily increased in capability until a major revamp, version 5, in 2013. Apparently allowing for IOS development, in terms of features this was several steps backwards. But by version 7 in 2018 the app had fully recovered and we are now on V8. Pages runs on Mac OS, IOS and there is web version. Pages is free and reads and writes MS Word file formats.

Tony then gave a demonstration using a built-in letter template, showing text positioning, changes in font sizes, with bold and italic included as transformations. Demonstrating Styles, Tony stressed their importance particularly in long documents. You edit a style locally and then have the option of updating the style so the edit is incorporated wherever that named style has been used.

Tony inserted an image around which, by default, the text wrapped. The image was an Apple logo on a rectangular black background. Using Instant Alpha, he removed the background and the text then wrapped round the Apple. You can edit how close the text sits to the image and how the text wraps. Pages Help is excellent but you may need to be on-line to access fully.

When Tony started a new document from a template including a blank as in this demo, he showed the various options for paper size, orientation, margins, etc. all on the document menu icon (top right of toolbar). Comparing the two modes, Word Processing and Page Layout, Tony explained that in WP the text flows from page to page whereas in Page Layout each page is created manually; basically, Word Processing is for texty books and Page Layout for magazines with lots of graphics. The Word processing mode is now so flexible that Tony advised, if in doubt, stick with that.

Reverting to the WP demo he showed how to link objects, in this instance the Apple logo and a title, created in a text box separate from the main text. Tony showed how to switch from Word Processing to Page Layout, emphasising that the text will be lost so select all and copy first. Once in Page Layout create one or more text boxes and paste the text. You can link any number of text boxes and the text will flow from one to the other as you change their sizes, add new text etc. You can have elements overlapping and can change the relative depth moving items back or forward (and to front or back) as if each item is on a separate layer.

In conclusion Tony reminded us of some common errors to avoid comparing word-processing with typewriting. He recommended reading ‘Design Tips’ by Robin Williams.

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