I can’t remember how long I have been using Pages, but by this point, I can’t really recall using anything else. The choices in the template chooser have enabled me to create flyers, newsletters, birthday cards and business cards.
Easily enough, all these template choices are available in Pages in Page Layout. Customizing is a breeze. Dragging and dropping a photo on my Mac into a template is seamless.
Many customers ask for help with formatting a document in Pages. The easiest way to do this is with Inspector. Inspector is located on the top right of all pages templates and document. Just click the blue ‘i’ in the upper right hand section and the Inspector window appears.
To set margins, click on the Letter (Pages?) icon and you’ll choose Document Margins. There are several other page formatting options, including Footnotes and Endnotes, page number formatting, and access to additional Page Setup options.
One of the most interesting sections, Wrap, can make or break your experience with Pages. Often, designers tend to want to keep these options off, but for the rest of us, automatically being able to wrap text around images is key to a great-looking document.
In Layout, you’re able to add columns, set section page numbering and set page sections. In Text, you can set formatting, spacing, and color choices.
Adding images? Click on the Graphic icon for all graphics settings, including adding reflections, shadows, and other image options.
Appropriately, Metrics gives you options to add metrics to any table inserted in a document. Adding Tables allows you to select rows, column width and height, cell borders and more.
Experiment with Chart data to make your information stand out as a colorful graphic. There are several link options in the Link section; it’s not just for links to the web, as you can add content from your Address Book (or Contacts, as it’s currently known).
This is obviously a pretty basic primer, but Pages is more powerful than it may lead you to believe. It just might be worth switching from Word or Text Edit if you want a fast, clean application that produces polished documents (and now the iWork suite is free on iPhones, iPads and iPod touches). Give it a second look!