How to Master iOS Pages

It wasn’t that long ago that the only viable option for word processing was on desktop or laptop computer. But writing apps have made great strides on tablets in recent years — with the release of iOS 7, Pages even got a thorough makeover and is available to new-device owners for free (along with the other iWord apps). Pages for iOS is a powerful portable publishing tool, but it does have a bit of a learning curve. Fortunately, this guide is here to get you up to speed on everything you need to know.

Using Pages on an iPad is a much more pleasant experience than on an iPhone because of the screen size, and creating documents on your iPad is straightforward, largely thanks to the templates provided and the effective use of touch controls.

Start by choosing one of the 63 available templates, and then customize it until it fits the bill precisely. Don’t like the headline typeface? Change it. Size and color? You can change those, too. Images can be replaced with photos from your Photos app, and there are dozens of shapes available for you to add to documents. We particularly like the image masking feature, which lets you choose which parts of an image to display or hide.

The range of style options for objects is huge, and text formatting options are also diverse. When you’re done creating, your work can be sent wirelessly to an AirPrint-compatible printer, saved to iCloud, or shared using email.