Kevin Cullis: How to Start a Business Mac Version

You know have the capability to take your Pages documents and export them to the epub format. Check out my comments here and what Apple says about their update. You can also check out their comments about using Pages and the epub format restrictions. The epub format is primarily used for novels and heavy text, but if you are looking for keeping your graphics then the PDF  format is for you.

One down, may more features to go. September 1st anyone?

Update 1: Floating objects in Pages are not supported in the update, you have to have all objects “Inline” with the text.

One of the more interesting aspects of iWork Pages ’09 is figuring out all of the little hidden gems that it holds. When you open up a Pages document you have on the bottom of the window a “menu” bar button that has an up and down arrow. This allows you to select the type of information you want to “track” in your window.

This can be especially helpful when you are double checking any changes in your various styles so that you can see how each change affects throughout your document. Here’s how it works:

1. Change a style.
2. Select “Redefine style from selection” and wait as Pages changes all occurrences of that style.
3. In the menu bar button mouse of the “pin wheel” icon and it’ll say “Choose how to navigate” and select the type of style you have just changed.
4. Now click on the down arrow and watch as each place the changed style occurs will pop into the window.
5. If you’re done with checking your style changes  make sure you reselect “Page” so that you can go back to viewing each page of your document.
6. If you have a problem with a style, mouse over the style and select “Revert to defined style.”

Here’s an example of it selecting paragraph styles. Notice just to the right of the number of pages you have a wheeled sprocket with a drop down menu. Selecting the paragraph style allows you to move through each placement of style that you have in your document.

Nice little touch here when details and tracking style details, especially during your final edits, and you need to see how a change affects the look of your document.

There is a recent discussion about why iWork Pages were not getting through Windows servers for clients with their proposals and HR for job applicants. So why is this?

Well, seems like there are a number of reason:

• You’re sending the files as a Pages document to someone that has MS Word and they can’t read Pages documents.
• You’re sending the files through Apple’s Mail program and not selected the Edit > Attachments > Always send Windows friendly attachments.
• Their using Windows servers “virus” software is turned up WAY to high to allow any of them to get through.

Solutions?

1. File > Export or Print > Print to PDF any Pages document to send it to the intend client.
2. Check the Always send Windows friendly attachments.
3. Tell the client to to talk with their IT department or System Administrator  to ratchet down or lighten up the virus protection software to allow “false positives” to get through.
4. Export your file into a Word document and open and save that document in Word format.

Why this last step? Because of this comment from another person that has gone through the headache of this issue

I believe Alex might have solved the issue with the metadata comment. Firewalls that are screwed down too tight see the MAC PDF as a virus and stop the file at the wall with no bounce back. Chatted with an IT friend of mine at a large corporation and they have recently discovered the same issue and narrowed it down to the metadata issue. No simple resolution for them either other than adjust the firewall “rules” or advise staff to work with Word or know that recipient can receive a iWork ’09 PDF.

PS On Wednesday night I tried the Pages PDF conversion on my wife’s MACBook Pro running Snow Leopard with Pages 09 and same thing – no show at destination of municipal government office so I know problem wasn’t specific to my unit.

Hope this helps someone if you’re using iWork Pages

If you highlight a section of text and then using the OPT key click and drag and drop the selected section of text it “copies” the text to be placed where you want it.

Here’s the latest of Apple Technical Notes for iWork ’09 for those that are interested to some of the updates.

I just found a rather unique tip in iWork ’09 Pages when you have defined a Table of Contents: you can jump to the page of the chapter you want by clicking on the page number. If your chapter  has a page number mouse over it and your arrow will turn to a the familiar “hand” used in Safari to jump to a link. Click on the link and go to the page.

Nice touch, clickable pages numbers in the Table of Contents in Pages.

Since I’m almost done with my  book I found a nice little tip that makes things work well when I’m editing my book and seeing what it looks like. I write at 150% view and the thumbnail view is large enough that I can view about two pages of text. Now, when I’m editing I can see in real time what is happening with the way the pages look when it is printed out in real time. If you need to, you can do a thumbnail view with a whole page or a page and a half. Those are about the right size to see how the page actually looks.

What are you Pages tips?