iWork '09: The Missing Manual

Chapter 6. Beyond Text: Laying Out Pages

Way back in Chapter 1, you heard lots of marveling about how Pages’ graphic-design kung fu sets the program apart from other word processors. Since then, though, you’ve learned only about Pages’ more traditional word-processing features—not a peep about graphic design. Patience, grasshopper. Now that you’ve got the basics in hand, you’re ready to stretch your legs and move beyond text and into the stylish, colorful world of page layout.

Like most word processors, Pages lets you add images and free-floating text boxes to your documents. But the program’s page-layout mode goes several steps beyond the typical offering, enabling you to do more than simply dress up your text. Pages gives you a full-blown set of layout tools in what amounts to a consumer-level version of heavyweight design software like Quark or InDesign. Whether you’re making brochures, catalogs, newsletters, magazines, posters, or an elegant annual report, Pages helps you create documents designed for visual impact.

In page-layout documents, your creative focus shifts from words to the overall design. Your text becomes just one among many elements as you compose your pages into a symphony of images, tables, charts, shapes, and even sound and video. These design elements are known collectively as objects in Pages, Keynote, and Numbers, and in the next few chapters you’ll dig into the details of working with these building blocks in your page layout.

If you’ve got all the design ...