Things I don't like about Pages '08

So, I'm finally starting to try putting Pages '08 through the paces as a possible replacement (at least partially) for FrameMaker. Those who know about the power of Frame would say this is setting Apple's software up to fail, and that's probably true, but Frame no longer works on Macs, so some replacement is required.

At any rate, I've used it for a few hours with intent, and I've already discovered some things I do not like about the software:

• It doesn't support Paragraph or Line numbering. It provides auto-numbering for lists, but that's it. Done. All you burgeoning lawyers or writers-of-military-technical-material look elsewhere. Apple's official suggestion on how to provide for line numbers is to (get this) create a text frame to the left of your main text column and put numbers of the same font and point size in that frame as in your main text flow. Sheesh. It astounds me that an application purporting to be a word processor would not provide some method of auto-numbering paragraphs. (For the record, even the Pro version of Nisus doesn't seem to this either; Mellel does, but in a rather complex and flexible way.)

• You can't create a default table row shading and then an alternate shade from that. You can define a cell shading that applies to all the rows in your table, or an alternate from no shading. Oh, and you can't specify whether you want your alternate shade to start on the first body row, or the second body row, nor can you (for example) shade every n^th row. Only every other row. Bah.

• You can't specify the space above or below a table in an of itself (as far as I can tell). This means you either have to fiddle with special formatting of header and footer rows for the table (which it at least lets you provide), or you have to insert special "placeholder" paragraphs to hold table objects. (It appears you can treat them as free-floating objects, in which case they get control over the way text wraps around them, like pictures; if they're "inline", you appear to have much less control.) Phooey.

• It doesn't appear to support custom-defined document variables (like "Document Title" or "Author").

• You can auto-create tables of contents, but it appears that the TOC aggregator can only find headings that appear after the inserted table of contents block. So good luck sticking a TOC at the back of your document.

• It doesn't appear that you can create cross-references to automatically track headers or paragraphs easily. You can create things called "bookmarks", apparently, and insert "hyperlinks" to those bookmarks, but as for tools to assist the writer with things like "See 'Using Pages properly' on page 43", well, not so much.

I imagine that this list will grow in leaps and bounds over time. I haven't, for example, attempt to use anything complex like cross-references, indices, and the like yet (and what little investigation I've done leaves me with very little hope that it will do the job); while Pages might be good for simple tasks, I'm rather afraid that it won't be up to the task for serious projects.

Have you used Pages with intent? If so, what do you hate about it? Have you found work-arounds and clever hacks to relieve your frustrations?

Things I don't like about Pages '08

So, I'm finally starting to try putting Pages '08 through the paces as a possible replacement (at least partially) for FrameMaker. Those who know about the power of Frame would say this is setting Apple's software up to fail, and that's probably true, but Frame no longer works on Macs, so some replacement is required.

At any rate, I've used it for a few hours with intent, and I've already discovered some things I do not like about the software:

• It doesn't support Paragraph or Line numbering. It provides auto-numbering for lists, but that's it. Done. All you burgeoning lawyers or writers-of-military-technical-material look elsewhere. Apple's official suggestion on how to provide for line numbers is to (get this) create a text frame to the left of your main text column and put numbers of the same font and point size in that frame as in your main text flow. Sheesh. It astounds me that an application purporting to be a word processor would not provide some method of auto-numbering paragraphs. (For the record, even the Pro version of Nisus doesn't seem to this either; Mellel does, but in a rather complex and flexible way.)

• You can't create a default table row shading and then an alternate shade from that. You can define a cell shading that applies to all the rows in your table, or an alternate from no shading. Oh, and you can't specify whether you want your alternate shade to start on the first body row, or the second body row, nor can you (for example) shade every n^th row. Only every other row. Bah.

• You can't specify the space above or below a table in an of itself (as far as I can tell). This means you either have to fiddle with special formatting of header and footer rows for the table (which it at least lets you provide), or you have to insert special "placeholder" paragraphs to hold table objects. (It appears you can treat them as free-floating objects, in which case they get control over the way text wraps around them, like pictures; if they're "inline", you appear to have much less control.) Phooey.

• It doesn't appear to support custom-defined document variables (like "Document Title" or "Author").

• You can auto-create tables of contents, but it appears that the TOC aggregator can only find headings that appear after the inserted table of contents block. So good luck sticking a TOC at the back of your document.

• It doesn't appear that you can create cross-references to automatically track headers or paragraphs easily. You can create things called "bookmarks", apparently, and insert "hyperlinks" to those bookmarks, but as for tools to assist the writer with things like "See 'Using Pages properly' on page 43", well, not so much.

I imagine that this list will grow in leaps and bounds over time. I haven't, for example, attempt to use anything complex like cross-references, indices, and the like yet (and what little investigation I've done leaves me with very little hope that it will do the job); while Pages might be good for simple tasks, I'm rather afraid that it won't be up to the task for serious projects.

Have you used Pages with intent? If so, what do you hate about it? Have you found work-arounds and clever hacks to relieve your frustrations?