The first beta version of the next release is now available for download. Over the coming weeks, a series of betas will be released as changes are made. This is to allow enough time for feedback, and for any corrections that need to be made prior to the official release.
We’re not planning any major new features for the next version. Instead, the plan is to strengthen the current version by making some of the more complicated elements of PageFour easier to understand, and to work on areas of the software that are weak and need improving.
PageFour 1.67 can be downloaded here.
This first beta concentrates on improving the Import dialog which allows you to import MS Word documents into PageFour. It includes the following:
- Full handling of the new Word 2007 docx format.
- Ability to import directly into a particular folder within a notebook.
- Option to paste or type a folder location into the Import dialog, rather than browsing for the location in the file tree.
As with previous versions, the Word document importer relies on Word itself to handle the conversion process. This means you will still need to have Word installed on your PC if you wish to import Word documents, and to import Word 2007 documents you will need either that version of Word, or an updated version capable of recognizing the docx format.
As well as the Word changes, a small number of minor changes have been made to version 1.67:
- A shortcut key combination of Shift+Ctrl+R has been added to switch subscript text on or off. This should work with all keyboard variations.
- A Justify text button has been added to the format toolbar and menu, along with an appropriate shortcut.
Changes have also been made to the PageFour user license. Previously, a license was necessary for each computer the software was installed upon. This has now been changed to allow a license to apply to either a single PC with multiple users, or a single user working on multiple PCs, but not both. This means that single users can now install PageFour on their home PC, lap-top, and work PC without needing to buy extra licenses.
As this is a beta release, there may be undiscovered bugs. If you find any, or if you have any suggestions or comments to make about the changes, please let me know.
One final point: the PageFour help file has not yet been updated with these changes. This will be true until all changes have been made and the release version is made available.
February 10th, 2008 at 8:31 pm
I’ve been using PageFour and getting used to the interface and such. Really liking the program so far.
A suggestion would be a timer in the status bar that tells you how long you’ve been working on a page or a notebook (similar to the timer available in Liquid Story Binder XE). I’m not sure that’s specific enough but something along that line would be a great addition in the future releases.
February 10th, 2008 at 11:11 pm
Another thought regarding the tabbed feature.
This is very minor but the ability to drag page tabs around and change their order would also be nice, similar to how you can drag page tabs around in Firefox web browser or Safari.
February 11th, 2008 at 11:22 am
Interesting suggestions there. The movable tabs is something I’d considered myself, after using the feature many times in FireFox.
February 11th, 2008 at 6:54 pm
Darren - Great to see the change to a more flexible licensing system. I’ve purchased a licence.
The only “missing feature” that bugs me (which I’ve mentioned before) is a real-time word count, ideally visible in the status bar. Any chance that that might make it into a future version?
February 11th, 2008 at 10:09 pm
There will be a few changes with the word count in this release, but it might not extend to real time. I’ll see what I can do, but, no promises.
February 13th, 2008 at 6:57 am
I’ve been searching high and low for an alternative word processor and I really like the interface of PageFour, however the only thing that’s important to me is to have multiple windows open and visible at once (I want the ability to resize the main window to accommodate space for another window, i.e. notes; Scrivener offers this) and I don’t see where PageFour supports that. Am I overlooking something?
February 13th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
In PageFour, your notes would exist in a normal PageFour page, which could then be opened in a tab along side your work. PageFour doesn’t use multiple windows in the way Scrivener does, and this is unlikely to be changed.
The decision was made to use a tabbed structure rather than a multi window structure early on.
February 22nd, 2008 at 4:02 pm
I’ve another suggestion for a tiny, but helpful feature: What about a real time character count in the status bar? I think it’s easier to realize than a word count (which is great) and it gives you an additional statistic overview.
I saw this in the german software blogdesk (for offline blogging) and found it really helpful.
February 22nd, 2008 at 4:28 pm
That’s a good suggestion Rudy. I’ll certainly look into it for the next release.
February 23rd, 2008 at 5:26 am
What about a zooming feature? I personally would find this helpful, though not a critical item. Some times I find it easier to work with larger documents when I can zoom out a little bit to scan pages more rapidly.
February 23rd, 2008 at 8:21 pm
I’ll look into it Daniel.
February 28th, 2008 at 8:30 pm
Darren,
There is one behavior that seems somewhat inconsistent with other document tools. Highlighting a section of text and issuing a spell check in PageFour starts the spell check at the top of the document. Most tools spell check what is highlighted. It’s an inconvenience mainly. Not sure if it is a bug or limitation…
-dan
February 28th, 2008 at 11:22 pm
That sounds like a limitation to me Daniel. I’ll take a look at it and see if it can be easily changed.
March 6th, 2008 at 8:08 am
What I find I really miss in PageFour is the ability to do a print preview. When I want to print a document I usually open it up in Word so I can check the formatting. I like to look for lone words on a line and other visual things that I find hard to do in PageFour.
March 6th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
A print preview has come up before Stephanie. It’s certainly on the list…
March 8th, 2008 at 9:59 pm
I know this isn’t really the place for wish-list, but I’m going to go ahead and make a wish anyway:
Please can we get control of the leading? I find the default font size too small, so I’ve put it up to 12 point so the words are more comfortable to read and the line-length doesn’t get excessive; but now the lines are _far_ too close together for comfort, and I can find no way of controlling this. The web developer in me keeps wanting to “line-height : 1.6em;” the writing pane!
Other than the discomfort with the text the program itself seems brilliant. Thanks
March 9th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
Matt - you can alter the line spacing to whatever setting you wish by opening the Paragraph dialog, selecting ‘Exact’ from the line spacing drop down, and entering a value in the edit box - 15 pt or 20 pt for example.
As with the font size, this can be set as the default for all new pages.
March 11th, 2008 at 9:45 pm
Thanks Darren! I have no idea how I managed to miss that, I suppose I simply wasn’t looking for ‘paragraph’, it never occured to me that line-spacing would be found in there.
Cheers, that’s SO much nicer to use now.
March 29th, 2008 at 10:53 am
Darren, it would be nice that once the ‘Live Spelling’ option has been selected it remained on, until switched off. Currently every time I use PageFour I have to keep switching it back on again.
March 29th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
I’ll see what I can do Chris.
April 5th, 2008 at 8:12 am
Darren, is it possible to make applying styles a bit easier in PageFour? Sort of MS Word’s “Format Painter”?
(yeah, I hate MS Word too — *holding a silver cross while mumbling “Away, Daemon!”* — but applying styles with that cute li’l brush is a sure make-your-life-easier feature.)
For instance: I have a page open in PageFour formatted Calibri 12, double space. I’ve just pasted into it a paragraph formatted Times New Roman 12, singles space. It’d be nice if I could copy and apply style instead of highlighting said paragraph, changing fonts and reformatting…
That’s it
Nitpicking over.
BTW if this feature already exists in PageFour and I missed it somehow, I heartily apologize.
April 5th, 2008 at 5:17 pm
Michal - it sounds like what you want is an option to remove formatting when you paste. If the text being copied is copied as pure text only, without font or line spacing information, then it assumes the formatting of the text into which it is being pasted.
I know other word processors do allow this, so I’ll see if there is an easy way of implementing it in PageFour.
April 8th, 2008 at 8:55 pm
I just thought of another thing. It would be great if when you lock a page, the current content would stop being displayed.
April 8th, 2008 at 10:50 pm
If you mean the lock/unlock feature, the current page is deliberately left open so that it can be worked on without needing to unlock the rest of the software. It allows you to lock all other pages and folders, yet still carry on working on the current page.
April 21st, 2008 at 6:37 pm
Curious on how things are going with the new version. Sounds like a number of interesting ideas have been posed…
dan
April 22nd, 2008 at 10:34 am
It will be out soon - I got side tracked for a little while there.
April 22nd, 2008 at 5:52 pm
Heh… No worries, no pressure… Just curious…
April 25th, 2008 at 8:44 pm
Darren,
There is a behavior that appears to be unusual when changing font or pitch.
Scenario
* I copy some text from somewhere and paste it into PageFour.
* I select the text within the PageFour page and click to change the Font of the text.
* My default font is Verdana and shows as such in the dialog box.
* I press OK without making any selections (effectively I am opting to change the text to my default font).
* Nothing happens. The text does not change to reflect the default selections.
Alternate Scenario
Scenario
* I copy some text from somewhere and paste it into PageFour.
* I select the text within the PageFour page and click to change the Font of the text.
* My default font is Verdana and shows as such in the dialog box.
* I change the font to Arial.
* I press OK (effectively I am opting to change the font to Arial instead of the default Verdana).
* The highlighted text changes to Arial.
Pitch Scenario
Attempting to change the size of the text under the same scenario also exhibits the same behavior.
It’s an annoyance, but not a critical issue. It may be a behavior/limitation of the Font/Size control.
Have you seen anything like this before?
Dan
April 26th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
Dan, this is a known issue that’s come up before. It’s linked to the fact that more than one font is in use in a selected block of text. It’s definitely on the list of things to be looked at, as it annoys me probably as much as you.
April 28th, 2008 at 2:43 am
Ha! Ok, so I wasn’t exactly nuts when I experienced it. Again, not a critical issue, but annoying for sure.
Thanks for the update Darren…
dan
May 4th, 2008 at 7:55 am
A thought on the password protect feature. Might the ability to password protect an entire notebook be available sometimes in the future? And also in such a way that the contents (page names, folder names) are not displayed until after authentication?
May 5th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
Interesting suggestion. You can password protect each page automatically (Options dialog), but not the Notebook itself. It’s a bit of a tricky area because the Notebooks and files (pages), are stored as ordinary folders and files within Windows. Which means that even if the Notebook itself were password protected, the actual file structure within Windows would still show the names of pages within the Notebook (though they would take a little work to locate).
Not impossible though.
May 11th, 2008 at 8:48 am
Hello Darren,
Apparently the software does not support the naming of notebooks, chapters and characters using other character sets, e.g. Greek. Is this something that can easily be implemented?
May 11th, 2008 at 4:50 pm
There are some display issues with certain character types outside the word processor. You’ll probably find that the same characters that are disallowed in page or notebook names do not appear correctly in other parts of PageFour either (Find and Replace edit boxes for example).
These display issues are the reason for disallowing their use in page names. Addressing this is a bigger issue than it might sound, which means it’s unlikely to be done in the short term.