Add 100 Designer Templates To iWork’s Pages

I’m a collector. So much so that I should buy some stock in Public Storage. They like me down there. As a Mac user I collect fonts, utilities, bookmarks, and templates.

As part of my transition away from Microsoft Office for Mac I’m adding to my collection of useful templates. Spreadsheets for Numbers. Themes for Keynote. And, now, templates for Pages. Here’s where you can get Pages templates for less than 50-cents each.

Collecting

If you’re into collecting fonts on your Mac, or clip art, or spreadsheets, anything that’s like a template, you’ll like this list. It’s like finding a little store that has only things you want, nothing you don’t.

Step by step, I’m moving my life away from Microsoft Office for Mac and onto iWork and Mail and Address Book and iCal.

Along the way I found a few things missing. For Word, I have a few hundred templates. For Excel, tens of spreadsheets, for PowerPoint, many dozens of themes. What about iWork?

Sure, it comes with basics, but as a collector, I need more.

Template & Theme Heaven

I’ve been to the Jumsoft site before but it’s been awhile. This weekend I decided to check out the latest Pages templates.

Whoa! The latest version doubles the number of templates for Pages. The last version had 50. Now, Pages Templates 5.0 has 100. Templates? Open Pages and what do you get? A little Welcome to Pages ‘09 pop up page. Click the Close button and what do you get?

The Template Chooser. And a few dozen templates that range from a basic letter, to envelopes, to forms and resumes, down to cards, invitations, certificates, and brochures. And more.

Jumsoft’s Pages Templates 5.0 adds 100 new templates to those from Apple. There are multi-layout templates for newsletters and brochures, as well as speciality items for posters, memos, invoices, and more.

Flexible Templates

Each template can be resized, recolored, reshaped. Change the text to match your font preference. Add or move pictures to replace the included stock images. It’s a little like having a personal print shop on your Mac.

They actually expect you to try to customize the templates and you’ll find it’s quite easy. Drag and drop. Select text to change text. Change colors using Pages’ palettes.

There are hundreds of layouts among the 100 templates and in multiple print sizes. Create your own small business advertisements, press releases, or get kitchen jiggy with a recipe template.

It’s another reason not to miss Microsoft Word.

More Samples

Now, let me tell you something about this page. If you’re honestly thinking that maybe Microsoft Office is just too much and that Apple’s iWork ‘09 is a worthy replacement, but you worry about all the things that Office does that iWork may, stop worrying.

There are dozens of Keynote themes, objects, animations, backgrounds. There’s even more Mail stationery, more Pages templates, and a few other utilities that will make the click worthwhile. From money management, to project management, to customer relationship management. I’ll save those for another review.

Jumsoft includes a few free samples to get you hooked. That’ll give you an idea of the quality. It’s like the guy at the candy store who gives free samples to get you hooked so you’ll come back for the real stuff that carries a price tag.