I bought iWork for one reason and one reason alone: so that I could read my vast number of appleworks 6 documents. Too bad Pages crashes trying to import about 50% of them. And no, there's nothing special about these documents, they're just text files. Apple has also not put out a bug fix update for this software in months, suggesting they're giving up on it. If you're looking for a word processor, there are a number of better options without having to resort to Microsoft products. I strongly recommend against purchasing this product.

Mac users have been abandoned by Adobe Framemaker. There are some unix-based page layout programs, some with Mac interfaces, but they are difficult to use compared to Framemaker. MS Word is hopelessly unstable on long documents. Framemaker still runs in Classic, but it's orphaned and Classic ends when we move to MacTel. If you are writing very long documents, your choices are few.

Pages is a good start and a decent partial substitute. It does a fair subset of Framemaker, and it is considerably easier to learn. I missing running headers - I REALLY miss running headers - and Pages does crash on occasion. But it handles long documents, has a nice implementation of styles, and comes with a terrific set of templates. For a version 1.0 product, it is very nice. (I strongly suspect that the Pages manual was written in Framemaker, not Pages.)

Keynote, which has been around a little longer, is a fine product. Properly used, the transitions can knock your audience's socks off. They leave Powerpoint in the dust. And Keynote is far more stable than it's MS cousin. The connectivity to iPhoto is also a plus. I use Keynote professionally and it has never let me down. I can't say the same about Powerpoint.

iWork admittedly needs a spreadsheet. A simple drawing program like OmniGraffle would be useful. But it is a terrific start. Recommended.

I bought iWork largely for Pages, which promised to be a good layout tool, and, I hoped, a Microsoft Publisher-like program. (Now, I am a Mac switcher, and not having a consumer-level layout program available for OSX is really a bummer.) It's fine if you like preset layouts and have a deep digital photo collection, but it is difficult to create your own layouts and work with them. I'll wait for Pages 2.0.

bought the program in good faith,cannot use the program because it will not accept the serial number that came with it. contacted apple and was given wrong info to correct the problem. still not able able to do the work i got it for ...please help :(

Give me a break. I can "work" with this application about as well as I can fly on a bicycle. When they have a spreadsheet this may be the real deal. Until then, positive reviews are really the cheerleading of biased MAC evangelicals. That said, the potential with OS X is huge if Apple can deliver the software with hard-core productivity apps.

Great word processor, really amazing, can do 1000 more things than Microsoft's word.

Keynote is great program and the simplicity to use it alone or with other programs like iPhoto is great.

That is if you are not going to invest in InDesign or Quark. I purchased this copy for a co-worker's eMac. The newer OS didn't like his old PageMaker program so iWork was an inexpensive solution for creating forms and other print projects. We haven't created anything in Pages yet, but it opened an existing PowerPoint show on his computer and there were no great conversion issues. The only thing that was really missed was PageMaker's tools palette. But this person has time to get to know the program. The package comes with a hard copy of the program shortcuts, just like an Adobe product. Bottom line, it is so much more than a word processor!

Apple has been releasing great applications for consumers in the past few years with the iLife suite. With iWork, Apple has refocused their efforts on mainstream businesspeople.

iWork's word processing program, called Pages, has an interface reminicient of MacWrite Pro, a program that was easy to use yet powerful. However, this program offers much more than MacWrite Pro. It has many great built in templates and is great for desktop publishing as well as simple letter writing. Easier to use than Word, it has nearly as much power in the document department. For publishing, though, this one beats Word in every respect, and is a great alternative for those who don't want to deal with a high end publishing program such as Quark XPress. Like iMovie, professional results can be produced with consumer software.

Keynote is far superior to PowerPoint. The PowerPoint templates have been around since 1997 or so, and are starting to get old and boring. Since nobody wants to use hackneyed slides, Keynote offers completely new templates. Like the iLife templates they are very well thought out. QuickTime integration is a real plus. The program itself is easy to use and can be used as a basic drawing program in some respects.

This suite is gradually replacing AppleWorks 6, which has not been updated since 2001 and can trace its roots back to ClarisWorks, which debuted in 1991. AppleWorks isn't much more powerful than the original ClarisWorks and is definitely showing its age.

The only module that this does not have is a spreadsheet. If you're looking for an Excel replacement here, you're out of luck. Fortunately the Mac version of Excel is quite good. AppleWorks has a spreadsheet but the interface is somewhat old-fashioned.

Given the power of Keynote and Pages, this is something every Mac user should own.

iWork contains both Pages (a word processing/page layout application) and Keynote (a presentation application). These apps are designed to work as intuitively as iTunes, iPhoto and the other applications from the iLife suite. In fact both Pages and Keynote are fully integrated with iLife so adding files from any of the iLife applications to a Pages or Keynote document is as easy as drag and drop.

I mainly use Pages and have created newsletters, envelopes, flyers and personal letters. I'd estimate I worked an average of 20 to 30 minutes on the flyers I have created, and most of that time was spent on the actual text of the document. Similar projects with all the formatting, colors, images and boxes, have easily taken me double that time using Word and AppleWorks.

Pages let you export your document in Word, PDF and HTML formats, however I have found that the exported files sometimes don't perfectly mirror the original. Drop shadows didn't appear and positioning was slightly off. Keynote has similar exporting problems. If you need to share actual files with others, the exporting problems in iWork will give you quite a few headaches. Thankfully, I'm printing out all my documents or sharing them with other iWork users.

The iWork interface is seamless and beautiful and offers many useful templates. These templates are so good that I'd like to se even more of them included. But if the templates don't offer what you're looking for then iWork lets you customize them to your tastes/needs or else create your very own templates from scratch. A few of the included templates give me a bit of lag when using them but it's nothing egregious. Aside from that minor quibble the only complaint I have is the trouble I have exporting my files to other formats.

If you routinely create letters, flyers or presentations, then you owe it to yourself to pick up iWork. Why? Well, iWork works hard for you by expanding your options and helping you create beautiful projects in a fraction of the time it would take with other software. And it does it all with a pleasing visual flair.

What iWorks does great is what Apple does great, it goes to the hard to do things and attacks them with avengance. Everyone can type a work processing document, but what about create a great looking resume, a great promotional flyer for a club, or even stellar presentations? iWorks adds a visual flare to the world of presentations, but it lacks in one major area: a decent word processor. While Pages does an awsome job at creating art, when it comes down to putting a paper together it's odd and cumbersome to operate.

In the end I recomend this application if you want help creating advertisements, flyers, and presentations like how iMovie helped you with making movies.

I bought a Mac G4 laptop computer in November of 2004, primarily for word processing as well as on the go internet access. I write for an APA four times a year, and I am also the secretary for the local knitting guild. I had been using Microsoft Word on my Gateway desktop for months. I was getting tired of the dull looking submissions and wanted to find something that would give my documents a little more zip and polish. Adobe would have been my first choice but it was a bit out of my price range.

Enter Iwork. Reasonably priced and for the most part easy to use. So far I've only dabbled with Pages and I must say I am very impressed with how slick this part of iWork is. I can drag text from presaved word documents and lay it out on any of the preset templates or make up a template of my own. I can bring in pictures and graphics and add them where I want, when I want. What's even better? I can export the pages document into different formats (including .pdf) which allows me to save a document to disk, take it over to my Windows desktop and either print or upload the file without the computer having a fit.

In short: I'm extremely pleased with what I've been able to do with this program so far and I look forward to seeing what other surprises Iworks has in store for me. :D

Here *was* my dillema. I wanted to create awesome looking documents. My choices were Microsoft Word and Adobe InDesign. Word is too unforgiving and InDesign, while great, has a high learning curve and is too cumbersome for casual users. Pages is the perfect combination of both. You can even export it into Word for PC users (or if you work regularly on both formats). With Pages, you can create very professional-looking documents that will rival what your co-workers created in InDesign.

In my opinion, Pages is much better than Word. While I like Keynote (which you can also export into PowerPoint) better than Power Point, I still think PowerPoint is a very good application. At $79, this product is well worth the buy.

I bought this product about a month ago and iWork made my life more efficient with all the easy functionality and integration that Apple has created. It is fully integrated with .Mac and your on-going web\work sites. The main application I use is Keynote which is an easy to use presentation sofware that places all the needed functionality for a quick presentation. Keynote has a very easy to use interface and similar functions to Pages which makes the transition from app to app very easy. The only downside I thought was the ramp up time to understand and get use to the apps.
Recommend it for all Mac users new and veteran.

A number of reviewers have commented upon how easy this program is and, I suppose, in one sense it is, especially if you stick to using the templates. However, as one who has had occasion to work with "Adobe Pagemaker," this program can do sophisticated page layout and, as such, there will be a learning curve for the inexperienced.

But, the User Manual is good and there are good books coming out, like one from Visual Start in July, that will help people learn.

It is wrong to think of this program as a word processor "in competition with" Word. "MS Word" is a robust word processor; "Pages," as its name implies, is a page layout program. Having also worked with "MS Publisher," the real point of comparison and not "MS Word," "Pages" far exceeds "Publisher" in capabilities and yet for relatively simple layouts is as easy as "Publisher" to use.

I have not as yet put any real strain on the program, but at first blush, on my Powerbook G4 1.5, speed of operations is just fine. Yes, as a few reviewers have pointed out, some of the palettes could be more elegantly combined. One tends to get a clutter of open palettes. But, these are refinements that will be made in future editions, I am sure.

Bottom line: If you want to layout pages with a lot of the sophistication possible in the more expensive "Quark" and "PageMaker" programs; if you want to be able to export your documents to universal portable PDF file format and print out beautiful documents; if you want to pay, basically, only about $40 for these benefits ["Keynotes," the other half of iwork represents another $40], then buy "Pages."

And, if you are a novice with respect to not only page layout programs but also to very robust word programs like "Word," don't expect that everything will be simple. You will have to learn, but you will be rewarded relatively quickly.

I thought, "I have MS Office for the Mac, why do I need iWork?" Was I wrong!

Okay fine I suppose I don't really NEED it. But it is a great program, and worth the price. The ability to export my work as a .pdf file is worth the price by itself. The Pages interface is much better, cleaner than Word. And the templates are suprisingly useful. I created a web page by costomizing a template and exporting it as HTML. I twas easy and quick and the result looked great. Most of the people I work with are PC users and because they were unfamiliar with pages the web Page looked fresh, not like a modified copy of someone elses work.

I use my Mac for research mostly and the ability to save documents as .pdf files is very valuable as they are searchable. With Tigers ability to search the text within a .pdf I can now save my work as a .pdf and later find everytime a particular work appears in the fines I've created. This has made cross-refrecing very easy and fast. I now use a program called Pyramid to create a "mind map" of my work and create links from the "map" to refrences in the .pdfs.

I don't use Keynote as much. I t more visially appealing than Powerpoint and pretty easy to use. The ability to use Quicktime movies in the presentation is helpful and the ability to export as a Powerpoint file is nice.

Keynote and Pages, the two applications included in iWork, were flawless under the Panther operating system. The Keynote app has always suffered from its inability to share with PC users. Oh yeah, I know I can convert a Keynote file to Powerpoint, .swf, QuickTime, or PDF, but the problem is that, especially when converting to PowerPoint, Keynote loses all its buttery-rich goodness. It's a PowerPoint problem, I realize, but without a Keynote viewer, there's no way around it. Thus, Mac folks must rely on Microsoft for slide presentations if they don't want to lug around their Mac laptop.

Also, installing Tiger will mess up the purchased Keynote templates you have saved. Even reinstalling them won't help.

My humble advice is to wait a couple of years until Apple fixes the bugs in Tiger, then MAYBE think about using a Mac. Until then, I'm switching back from a Mac to a PC.

iWork comes with two programs, Pages (a word processor) and Keynote (Apple's version of PowerPoint). Both of these programs are very simple to use and very effective. Without a doubt, there are better programs available, but their cost several hundred dollars more and for the average user don't provided more bank for the buck.

When I first turned on Pages I thought "How cheesey!" But as I got to using it I found my first impression was totally wrong. It's simple appearance is very deceptive. This is a word processing program that can do everything that is needed for ordinary personal documents and beyond. You have to be willing to explore the program to discover its gems, but once you learn were things are you will find it a very fast and easy to use. The real value of the program is its desk top publishing. The 40 some templates let you create profession grade newsletters, journals, resumes, invitations, marketing brochures, and many other kinds of documents. This is worth the price of the software alone. It seamlessly works with your iPhoto, iTunes and iMovies. This is one powerful piece of software. With it you can produce commercial grade color brochures or newsletters at an entry level price.

Keynote makes wonderful multimedia presentations, and like Pages is seamlessly integrated with iPhoto, iTunes and iMovies. If you are using graphics or want to import photos into your presentation, Keynote is significantly easier, quicker, and simpler to use that PowerPoint. You can't miss with this program. You can even save you presentation as a PowerPoint, Quicktime, or PDF file or post it on the internet for all to see with the easy of a single click.

I have used both Microsoft Word and PowerPoint and keep them on my hard drive but rarely use them. As my skill with Pages and Keynote has grown I have found them to be more than sufficient in producing quality documents from personal letters, teaching handouts, to professional grade overhead presentations.
For the cost, iWorks cannot be beat! And you will not be disappointed.

iWork `05 System Requirements
- Macintosh computer with a 500 mhz or faster Power PC G3, G4 or G5 (G4 for PowerBook); G4 or G5 recommended
- 128 MB of physical RAM (512MB recommended)
- 8 MB of video memory (32MB recommended)
- Mac OS X v10.3.6 or later
- QuickTime 6.5 or later

I had high hopes for Pages, Apple's new Word Processing Application, but these hopes were shattered once I tried to design a newsletter with it.

I find the interface unintuitive, unlike most Apple software, and the templates are not easily customizable. What's more, the application continues to mysteriously "erase" work that I have done, even after I have saved it.

Apple, I know you can do better than this...

This latest offering from Apple is titled iWork for a reason, as it contains two amazingly powerful programs developed to get some serious work done.

These programs are Keynote V2, and Pages. Most of you are by now aware that Keynote is Apple's answer to Microsoft's Powerpoint program. This new "Pages" program is their initial challenge to the other Microsoft program "Word".

Since this is the inaugural version of Pages, I am heading into totally new country.

So what is it?? Well in a nutshell, Pages is a program designed to produce publications like resumes, brochures, flyers, announcements, etc. When you first open Pages, you are presented with a separate menu that prompts the user to open a choice of templates for the specific project that they are looking for.

So, for starters, I chose on three panel folding brochure. The brochure template pops up, and contained areas of type, and numerous photos, plus the back page that was laid out for return, clients address labels, and postage area.

Now, I will admit that at first glance, this layout program is not an advanced, over the top, layout program that will make you immediately toss out your Quark, and InDesign programs. It does not aspire to fill that niche as such, and so please do not confuse Pages with a full featured design program.

But having said that, I do not mean to denigrate this fine program either. Simplistic programs are meant to be simple.. that is their bailiwick.

Trust me when I tell you that Bill and Jill's B & B are not going to go out, and buy InDesign to attempt to design their own tri fold brochure. It is not going to happen. First of all, price is always a limiting factor. Pages(along with Keynote) is only around $79.00, while Indesign or Quark can run upwards of $700.00, and believe me, mom and pop outfits are never going to pay $700.00 for a program that they will never be able to understand.

So, enter "Pages". Gee, I open up the program, click on a template, and I am already off and running. Sure, I have to make decisions as to type style, fonts, photos, and overall appearance, but the templates provide an easy place to start.

Now having said all of this, I realize that there is a huge chasm between the professional designer, and the amateur. This will always be the case, and even if you can afford the very best software available, that does not automatically guarantee results.

So, in summary I will say that I am certain that Pages is a program that was not designed for the advance user. But that is also it's blessing, and possibly its best feature.
Have you ever heard the saying "Keep it simple, stupid"? Well simple can be a very good thing, and in the case of this new piece of software from Apple, it is a real treat.

All of the controls were straight forward, and fairly intuitive. The preset templates provide some great starting points, and the ability to export your files into most of the important formats like HTML, Acrobat, Word, and RTF is also a great feature.

I'm frankly disappointed in Pages. (I have no reason to use Keynote.) As a pure word processor it is actually inferior to AppleWorks, and it is less "intuitive." Assuming that Pages is intended to replace AppleWorks, it is foolish that Apple chose not to give Pages the ability to open AppleWorks files prior to the current version. Even Microsoft Word will open AppleWorks version 5 files, but not Pages. Pages will also not open Word files that are not recent. Apple's policy of orphaning all but the most recent word processing docs seems unwise to me. At the very least AppleWorks should be included with all new Macs (which it isn't), and with iWorks. A smart company doesn't just shove new product into user's hands, it supports continuity of work product, to the extent possible. If you are happy with Word or AppleWorks, there is no compelling reason to convert to Pages. The app is part word processor, part page layout, part web designer, and it excels at none of those.

Could this be the end to AppleWorks? For those of you who are not already vested in Adobe's InDesign, Quark's XPress, or the aging PageMaker or Ready-Set Go, Apple's new Pages could be a breath of fresh air! Before you plunk down three-digit amounts for any word processing or DTP software -- or their upgrades -- get Pages. You might discover you no longer need them.

Pages is a quick-to-learn, easy-to-use, "lite" page layout and desktop publishing program that ships with an array of starter templates making production of great pages a snap. Yes there are some problems -- but if you don't know what's missing you really won't care.

I'm the editor for the User Group Network and it's always a pleasure to encounter new software that really does something new for a change. What Pages does is make complicated DTP operations uncomplicated. You simply type or drag and drop your images.

The collection of templates is pretty good -- offering a full spectrum of finished publications from simple stationery to full-blown newsletters. If you want to customize, the Help files are excellent and you'll have no problem. If you want to originate all new templates with your own branding look, it's as easy as dragging some guide rules.

You can find my full review at www.user-groups.net, but seriously folks, for the price, if you're a Macintosh user, you owe it to yourself to try Pages. Even if you own and use those others mentioned above (like I do) with Pages, you'll be asking yourself if you really need to send them another fat upgrade check.

Good day!

I use Word and Powerpoint every day, and I still do use them both everyday for many things. However, I picked up iWork for two reasons: 1) both have great export capability, and 2) I was very tired of trying to do a basic newsletter in Word. The frustration of trying to basic desktop publishing in Word was actually what drove me to take a $79 gamble and buy iWork.

I have not been disappointed.

Styles and Templates:
Keynote and Pages are good (great actually) at creating very professional looking documents, from standard sales presentations to highly animated pseudo-movies to basic word processing files to complex brochures and newsletters. There's just something about the way each application handles styles that makes the end result beautiful. The included templates are brilliant also, for those that dont want to delve into styles of their own.

Image Handling:
Both applications handle images one zillion times better than any MS Office application. The only file format that I haven't been able to drag directly into a document is a raw .eps file. iWork displays images well, doesn't mess with the files (meaning you can copy/paste them back out of iWork and have them still be useable) and honors transparencies. In fact, both apps can wrap text around and through an image based on the alpha index. Very powerful. You can paste a picture of a donut into pages, and have text wrap around the curved edges AND in the donut hole. Cool.

Interface:
The inspector is very easy to figure out, and places many features at your command without taking up a lot of screen space. The only thing that seems odd to me is that "Font" and "Text" are two separate items - and only one (text) is available in the inspector. That is, the way text is handled in terms of spacing, wrapping, bullets, etc. is in the inspector, but the actual font, font size, etc. is in a separate Font palette. It works, but just seems disjointed somehow. However, the inspector is very intuitive.

Price:
$79 bucks. 'nuff said. It's cheap enough that you can use it as a supplement--not a replacement--for other suites. Which leads to...

Compatibility:
You can import or export from PowerPoint and Word, you can import just about any graphics file (including photoshop files!), you can export to jpeg, png, or tiff, quicktime and flash. Some work better than others. The two that are of most concern are the Office apps, so I'll start there.

I still use PowerPoint, but I also use Keynote now. I use it every day, in fact. Because it handles images and transitions so well, I create all complex technical diagrams and animations using Keynote. I then either a) export directly to Powerpoint, b) export to quicktime and embed the movie in powerpoint, or c) export to quicktime for direct online posting. I've had ZERO trouble exporting to quicktime. The flash export worked horrible the first time, but after playing with and learning some of its quirks, I've been able to produce fairly reliable .swf files as well. This feature is so important and powerful that I'm willing to go through some pain to try and get it right, but Apple could make some improvements here to save me the trouble.

I use Pages as a mini-PageMaker more than I use it for word processing. It opened my basic word files (whitepapers, resumes, letters) flawlessly, and saved those documents as word files with little to no errors. Complex desktop-publishing-type documents weren't flawless; my newsletter, for example, required some serious tweaking after the import from Word. I eventually gave up and created it anew in Pages, and was pleased because it looked much better after being pages-born. This new version, when saved as a .doc, had a few errors still.

HTML Export:
Didn't even try it. I'm an html purist. If you want web design, study html, xhtml, xml, css, etc. and then buy BBEdit.

However, Keynotes quicktime export will let you create cool .movs to embed or stream online. The Flash export, once wrinkles are ironed out, will kick some serious buttocks.

Performance:
Neither app is light. On my aging Powerbook G4 (867MHz model), both apps respond a tad slow. Not slow enough to annoy me however. I anticipate that on newer machines (or machines with decent graphics cards) the performance is probably much much better.

Summary:
Very powerful applciations. Compatibility issues were minimal. I imported a 90,000 word manuscript from word and then exported it back to word again -- all with no flaws at all. Issues did occur with more complex .docs or with complex PowerPoint/Keynote layouts. The more complex the file, the more likely there would be an issue. However, the image handling (and in keynote's case, the transitions) are worth it. In short - I still use Office for day to day stuff, but I use iWork for anything that needs to be "cool"

I'm a teacher and I use these kind of applications all the time, so when Apple released iWorks I was bought it and was greatly disapointed with "Pages." This program is great if your just using it for the ready-made templates, but for straight up word processing power, it sorely lacks. The functions you use the most are missing from the main window (where you need them the most) It felt like a "Micky Mouse-ish" wannabe of "Word" If you want it just for the Templates then get it, but if your serious about word processing then avoid this program, it's got nothin on Microsoft Office 2004 (even AppleWorks is better for simple word processing)

The only good thing about iWorks is Keynotes, this program outdoes PowerPoint.

Fed up with all the bugs and crashes I experienced with Office for Mac I bought iWorks - at least it cannot be worse I figured. Well, was it a pleasant surprise! I have so far only used Pages, but Keynote seems to be very highly rated by all its users already.
As usual, Microsoft is able to make Office appear easy to use, but in reality it is quite complicated. Pages appear more difficult, but when you get up to speed it is actually more easy to work with. The menus are more logical for instance, and you have more freedom in designing your document. Now, we must make one thing clear: Pages is a layout program with wordprocessing added. The layout functions are just amazing, and they are really easy to work with. Microsoft Word is a word processing program, but with some layout functions added. So if you are just writing, Pages have more functions than you need, and less writing utilities. On the other hand, I am not so 100% sure that Word's writing utilities are that useful.

If you're looking at Pages as a replacement for Word, it isn't -- and wasn't designed to be. As they say at Apple, Think Different. Pages is somewhere between a word processor and a page-layout tool. It has some features from both, but not all of the features you'd want, or need, from products in either of those categories. That Apple has decided to go after this "in-between market" is interesting in its own right. They have a well-earned reputation for this type of thing. Pages will in all likelihood eventually succeed, in no small part due to the platform it's on (OS X) and the ability to integrate it with other software, especially iPhoto. Pages 1.0, though, has some significant weaknesses.

If you're hoping that Page's Export to Word, PDF or HTML features will allow you to use its beautiful designs as a starting point (i.e., you want to design in Pages then export and finish the job), don't buy this 1.0 version. Exports to Word don't work well or, for HTML, at all. It's not just that "things look a little different" in the exported files, the exports are often unusable (except when for the simplest layouts) and often so different as to be unrecognizable. Also, as is typical for any product that makes use of the built-in OS X "export to PDF" capability, be aware that the exported file size will be huge -- an order of magnitude larger than it would be if you created the document with Adobe software.

If you're hoping to make use of Page's "professionally designed" templates, also be aware that as exceptionally well designed as they are, this can be a double-edged sword. Why? Because they're designed as a whole unit, including the "placeholder" photographs. When you replace one of those photos with your own (a process that is very easy to do because of the integration with iPhoto), you will most likely lose a lot of that "professionally designed" advantage unless the colors in your photo are quite similar to those in the placeholder photo it replaced. Put another way, all the surrounding colors in the template were chosen very carefully to match those in the template photo. Change the photo and you're back to square one (okay..., maybe square two) and will have to figure out which new surrounding colors to use on your own. A similar problem occurs if your photo is significantly different in size or shape or if you get "too creative" in your choice of fonts. You can easily weaken or ruin a page's design with a seemingly minor change.

None of the above, except for the PDF export size issue, has anything to do with Keynote which, to the extent I've used it, seems to be a great product completely in line with what one comes to expect from Apple. My impression of what went wrong with Pages is that it got rushed to meet an unrealistic release date. Hopefully Apple will make good on what this product appears to promise in its next release.

First of all I can't talk about keynote. I have been only using Pages, but it has repaid widely the price that I paid for the whole suite. I must admit that I have become an addict. Pages offers an awesome flexibility to produce documents with an incredible layout. I have a small consultancy firm and we have been using it to make our brochures and reports. It has of course some topics to improve such as better orthography checks or include an equation editor like MS Word.
Besides that you could use it intuitively I would strongly suggest to check to manual to get a more professional finished document.

As a long time AppleWorks user, it's great to see that Apple finally got around to writing a *modern* word processor in Pages. AppleWorks had grown quite long in the tooth and the user experience was basically unchanged from Mac OS 9. Not a big fan of Word (too slow, UI inconsistent with the rest of OS X), I had grown used to using the bundled TextEdit program which comes with every Mac. TextEdit takes advantage of OS X system wide features like as you type spell checking, speech, floating font and color palettes, etc.. However, TextEdit can't do advanced things like multi columns, wrapping text around pictures, etc.. So the choices on the OS X platform were rather meager - slow an inconsistent Word, underpowered TextEdit, or old and clunky AppleWorks (aside from a few other third party tools which aren't very widely used).

Pages is basically TextEdit on steroids - all of the major features 95% of people expect a word processor to have are present and much easier (and faster) to use than in Word. The regular OS X features such as customizable toolbar, floating font and color palettes, as you type spell checking, etc. are all present. Moving graphics around is quick and seamless even on a slightly older Mac (667MHz G4). Also, the import and export options seem to work very well from my limited testing - most importantly, it imports and exports from Word without any problems that I can see.

Sure, there are some things which Word can do that Pages can't, but most of them are not things I'll ever use any way. I'd much rather have an easy to use and efficient word processor than have to deal with Word.

Keynote 2 (the other half of iWork) is also a great program. I can't really compare it to PowerPoint since I haven't used Powerpoint much, but I have to say that it was incredibly easy to learn how to use. The master styles are very handy for applying consistent features across your presentation, and the transitions and animation effects are nifty looking as well as easy to create. The import and export from Keynote to Powerpoint also seems to work seamlessly. It also allows you to export as QuickTime, Flash, PDF, etc..

All in all, highly recommended - especially for the very reasonable price.

iWork is a nice start to an alternative to Office on the Mac but for most people it won't replace it.

Pages is a fine v 1.0 product. It has its flaws and isn't for everyone. If you need .doc compatibility you may want to stick with Office. On the other hand if you want to creat great looking documents for printing or saving as a PDF which most people can view then Pages is perfect. The templates are of the highest quality and you can really create stunning documents very easily. Think of Pages as Publisher for the Mac, but better.

Keynote which is also included is probably the finest presentation software you can buy. It really puts anything created with PowerPoint to shame. File compatability with PowerPoint is a little less important especially if you are running your own presentations off of a PowerBook or iBook.

I'll give it a 4/5 because Pages doesn't play too nice with .doc or .html files but I hesitate to even do that since it has so many positives. At $79 it is worth it for Keynote alone at $49 educational price from Apple, I highly recommend it to any student that needs to do presentations, they really stand out.

Pages is a bunch of hype. Underpowered and not really a Word Processor. It's a very confused piece of design - a hybrid publisher and text editor package - but it is for the most part well designed.

I found it to perform badly and regardless of your opinion of Microsoft Office, there will be the inevitable need to share documents with the majority of people you know who are probably using it. Pages supports a very small subset of Word's features, exports badly, messes up layout and line breaks, and performs terribly in exporting and importing.

Apple have pulled off their usual usability feats with Pages, but still there are some annoying behaviors. Font formatting can start to give birth to palettes, the inspector is very discontiguous - example: changing table borders requires setting the options for change in one tab and then actually changing them in another; this is a loathsome idea.

All in all - the most impressive part of Pages are the templates. Don't try share em with Word users though - they'll look awful. They look great in Pages though and print well too. But that's all that's REALLY impressive about Pages and templates won't write your book, college report or white paper. Everything else is an approximation or a rethink of what already exists in Word. The only things that Pages has that word hasn't are minor stylistic feature such as the ability to apply dropshadows to table borders and in-line text. Styles are static and hard to create or modify, tables are preschool looking and are constrained to 1pt borders, all color choosing has to go through the color picker: this makes it difficult to keep any color use history.

I love how it shows margin and footer guides. This is a must have for those tired of printing woes and region exceeding alerts. Live wrapping and picture resize on insert are also fantastic features. Apart from that however, Pages leaves me very underwhelmed and, alas, booting up Word again. I don't think Apple ever really intended this as a realistic competitor with Word, however, at least not as a v.1.0 anyhow, but it does have the potential to be nifty little app once they get themselves straight on feature-set, compatibility and intended market. Let's wait and see, but for now, $79 doesn't really seem worth it unless you want to create predesigned newsletters or good short text files.