Need a recommendation (or several)

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Hi I need a programme to enable me to create documents with plenty of photos and instructions, possibly embed some video and then be able to print or publish to website/blogs/share. I suppose I mean a word processing programme. I was about to buy Pages but the very recent catastrophic reviews put me right off. I'm not very tech savvy so will need something easy to use with pleny of good looking templates to choose from. The documents I'm producing have a wide range of uses from online jewellery making tutorials, print magazine article, as guest articles on other blogs, etc. I need to be able to share across formats and operating systems easily. I will be working on a MacBook and iMac. Can anyone point me in the right direction or at least give me some options to investigate please? Thanks in advance, Lisa
 

pigoo3

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I suppose I mean a word processing programme. I was about to buy Pages but the very recent catastrophic reviews put me right off.

I'm not 100% sure a word processing program is the best choice…but just for discussions sake let's say it is.

You said you were turned off by some reviews of Pages. Generally speaking…most folks are happy with Pages. Also remember Pages only costs $19.99 (US Mac App Store price). Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac costs $219 (unless you are a student)…or "Office 365" for $6.99/month.

So if cost is a concern…Pages is a pretty good value.:)

Here are some free word processing apps for Mac:

Bean: A Word Processor for OS X
Download OpenOffice 4.1.0 for Mac Free
Home | LibreOffice - Free Office Suite - Fun Project - Fantastic People

- Nick
 
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chscag

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I think you're making a mistake by not choosing Pages. It's still probably your best choice to do what you want. There are some things about Pages that users of the previous version are not pleased with, however, Apple has made several updates to the program to bring it up to speed, and they will continue to improve it. It's a good buy for $19.99. Of course there are other WP programs that are more expensive which also include layout. Microsoft Office Word is one such program but it's expensive and is soon to be updated with a new version.
 

vansmith

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Hi I need a programme to enable me to create documents with plenty of photos and instructions, possibly embed some video and then be able to print or publish to website/blogs/share. I suppose I mean a word processing programme.
There's a bit of confusion here (perhaps on my part). It sounds like what you want is a web editor so that you can publish rich content to the web. A word processor is not going to help here. What exactly are you trying to do?
 
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Thanks for responding. I have reluctantly gone with Pages even though every single review posted for the last few months has been very negative.
I am mostly needing to create documents which can be used as class notes when teaching (print) but also sharing the document on the web sometimes.
 

pigoo3

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I have reluctantly gone with Pages even though every single review posted for the last few months has been very negative.

I'm curious. Why would you go with/purchase an application that you've described as having "catastrophic" and "very negative" reviews??

If this is the way things start…you may end up with a "self fulfilling prophesy" (not happy with Pages). Hopefully you are able to judge Pages objectively…and maybe Pages will work out better than you expected.:)

As I mentioned earlier…Pages is $19.99 application. It does some stuff well…but it's not going to be as "feature-rich" as an application costing $200 or more. I also mentioned that a word-processing app may not be what you are looking for. You may be better off with a dedicated page-layout or desktop publishing application.

If you purchase pickup truck…and expect it to be able to haul things like a freight train…you're going to be disappointed.;)

Good luck,:)

- Nick
 

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