Namur next year? Nice! But yes, first we have to get these papers done

I should definitely update that manual. Not only to reflect the changes that occured since its last revision, but also to change the style.

When I think about it, I never found the perfect word processor for me.

I told you about Latex (x which is not a “x” but a greek “chi”, I learned recently) in the train. But the cost of opportunity is too high for the sole purpose of writing a memoir. And, more importantly, the correction is very hard because of the codes (markups) included in the text itself. There’s no corrector, you have to spot the mistakes on the final rendering, then go back to the code and so forth. Plus, it may be VERY hard to spot the code syntax/code grammar errors when your text doesn’t want to compile.

I used to write my docs with Word 2000 on Windows XP. Very good, launched in 2 seconds. Crashed when you needed it not to.

NeoOffice, known interface, but takes ages to launch. Not for short writing sessions.

Pages. I would have used it if its format wasn’t proprietary. I NEED to be able to read my texts if my Mac dies. I need to read the format on Windows computers.

Here’s an important point for Apple, I think.
Have you noticed how popular Apple became the day it started to embrace common standards such as VGA/DVI, Intel, USB (ok for the latter, Apple launched it but it is a standard anyway)…
I can see a different move nowadays. Apple seems to slowly go back to its bad tradition of closed products. See the new connectors for the last Apple Cinema Display, see how locked the iPhone is (no use of bluetooth to turn it into a modem, no copy/paste, no blacklist, no multitasking), see the unremovable batteries for the iPhone and the 17″ MBP, see the proprietary dock connector for iPods and the exclusive use of iTunes…
The closed file formats are part of it (why not use XML?).
And that keep people from using Apple tools, including myself.
That’s a pity, because the product are good.

Wrote way too much than I thought…

By the way, I’m heading for Namur next week, where I’ll study ITC law. Seems we have a common interest there.

Regarding Pages, there are a few handy guides out there.
The main source of information is the Pages User Guide, in which even advanced users can find new stuff with which to play. It’s a long read though…
I know a friend who started using Débuter Sur Mac, which has many videos and written tutorials in French, notably a few about Pages, though I don’t know if they show any advanced stuff.
I’m sure that there are many other tutorial websites

Edit: by the way, I see your guide on “Débuter Facilement sous Mac” should be updated to reflect OpenOffice 3 and the fact that NeoOffice will be continuing (though, as I said here, I still haven’t found a version of either that I enjoy using).

As the last Macworld event of its kind, it is sad that nothing short of minor upgrades was shown.

Apple will probably be present at future CES events.

I don’t use Pages, I’m good at NeoOffice and I have difficulties trying to figure out how to make lists in Pages as easily as in NeoOffice.
I looked for a manual to learn a bit more how to use Pages, but I didn’t find any.

I’d love to see a Tablet Mac. But it’s so far out of my budget that I’d only have one in a few years’ time, if ever.