I use Nisus Writer Pro for everyday writing, but Pages is definitely easier for complex page layouts.

And...it saved the day for my dad....He had a 500K vital document in the new .docx format in Word on Windows XP, and Word stopped opening it, giving only a meaningless error message. But Pages opened it and let me convert it back to the earlier Word format which his computer would open. Good thing Apple's around to save MS users from MS software!

Pages 1 and 2 were both too focused on being word processing/page layout hybrid programs, and ultimately failed at both. I tried very hard to like Pages because it "fit in" with the system, but ultimately had to stick with Word and InDesign. Version 3 has pushed me over the edge, and (for now - we'll see what happens when Office '08 rolls around) has replaced Word for me.

The major things that people I know seemed to complain about (re: Pages as word processor) that have been addressed in Pages 3 are grammar checking (still not as elegant as Word - very few 'solutions' show up in the contextual menu, rather you have to go to the separate grammar checker dialog box... but the 'green underlining' is still there as you type); change tracking (compatible with Word docs, thankfully, and works well until you have more changes/comments than will fit on a page, and you try to print them... the ones that don't fit on the page ultimately get kicked off the island); live word count based on selection (no complaints here); and a normal formatting bar (which works well, except that if you have an 8.5×11" at 100% zoom, you lose some things on the right, which get replaced by an ellipsis. I wish this ellipsis were clickable to get at those missing things - namely line spacing, but everything here is accessible in the formatting palette anyway).

So I do have some quibbles with Pages, but the reality is that it's prettier than Word, and it runs a lot smoother than Word, and it's finally creeping up to the power of Word. Also, I've not yet experienced any slowdowns on a single 1.8 G5 or on my bottom-line MacBook.

As far as page-layout goes, I don't think I'll ever be able to trash InDesign for anything real, but for doing simple invoices, &c., Pages can hold its own. In my opinion, it's primarily a word processor now (as I had hoped it would be) with some nice page layout options thrown in. One thing I'd fix? Make it so I can customize hotkeys for styles... Not just function keys!

Who ever maintains this app on iusethis, could you please add the tag "iwork"? Finding the word "pages" in iusethis is like searching for smith in the phonebook. Hundreds of entries, none are the one you are looking for. :) Thanks!

I finally switched to Pages version 2 after seventen years of swearing by Word... Feels strange, but Microsoft just weren't going anywhere except making their app more and more top heavy and gadgety with every new version.

The new Pages actually does the job of writing letters and memoranda (which is all I need a word-processing application for) much mor smoothly and intuitively than Word. ANd converting all my templates and styles to Pages from Word was done in almost no time at all.

Is it just me, or is it a bit strange that this app's ID in the iusethis system is 666?

Love it to death but stopped using it -- why would an apple-branded app run so horribly slow and crash so much on a macbook pro?

Pages has become my favorite word processor and for desktop publishing. My company stationary designed using Pages.

How it work is amazing, it can make layout easier, no bloated toolbar like MS words.

On G4 iBook, Pages is work slower, also if you zoomed above 200% it will be get slower. Apple need to enhance its speed.

For private writing, TextEdit will do just fine. For writing that needs to be seen by others, on paper or as PDF, Pages does the job, and does it well, too. Lacks x-refs and bibliography tools, but is far prettier than the competition.

I'm starting to like it more and more now. It took a while to get used to.

It's good but really needs improving if it's to compare to Microsoft Word, I was very disappointed to see that Pages 2.0 still didn't have any form of Grammar checking when iWork '06 was announced and CPU usage can quickly get out of hand when working on A3 sized documents with tables - I had to do a product life span poster for work and when I used Pages the application became very slow and sluggish whist munching up my CPU power. Still, for £50 iWork is a bargain but there is quite a bit of work that still needs to be done.