MacMost: Pages

You can have Pages automatically create a table of contents based on the styles you have assigned to paragraphs in your text. With a little more work you can also have the table of contents automatically insert numbers and subchapters.

While you can't add text or shapes to a photo in iPhoto, you can do it using either Pages or Preview. Pages allows you to add a variety of shapes and even other photos. Preview allows text and simple shapes.

Learn how to do basic page layout in iWork Pages. By starting with a page layout template instead of a word processing template you can easily add text blocks, titles and images. You can flow text from one box to another.

Learn how to insert hyperlinks in Pages documents. Links can take readers to web pages, create new email messages or jump to other sections of the Pages document. The links will work in PDF and ePub files exported from Pages.

You can use the Track Changes feature of Pages in iWork 09 to edit documents. Suggestions are recorded and can be accepted or rejected later. Multiple writers and editors can work on a document and all changes will be recorded along with the editor and time. Comments can also be added.

You can share your Pages, Numbers and Keynote documents using Apple's iWork.com service. Others can view your documents right in their browser, and make comments and notes if they are using Safari. You can even upload Keynote presentations and present right from the Safari.

In iWork Pages you can import images and manipulate them in various ways. You can resize, rotate and crop images. You can also place them inside of shapes and adjust colors.

You can use the Mail Merge feature in iWork Pages to print envelopes, letters or any document that uses different names and addresses on each page. You can get the data from your Address Book or from a Numbers spreadsheet.

Learn how to wrap text around images using either a one or two column layout. Find out how to use images with an alpha channel, images with a solid background, or define a shape to wrap the text around. Also, find out how to crop images.

Pages 09 has some cool advanced features. You can easily switch to a full screen mode, hide and show areas in an outline, include charts with live calculations, export and mail documents as Word or PDF files, and create password-protected PDF files.