PageFour: Word Processor Crafted For Writers
PageFour is more than a word processor. It is a total environment for creative writers who have no need for such business-oriented features like tables, footnoting or the ability to insert graphics and photographs. Writers can safely stockpile here in one place all of their projects, along with their research notes, character profiles and whatever else the writer wishes. All of it is easily accessible in an extremely clear, easy-to-use interface. Text formatting is as simple as it gets. Work is automatically saved, and writers can easily set up an archiving system for selected projects which will keep up to 30 copies of a project as it evolves over time.
The program is built around Notebooks, Folders and Pages. The easiest way to understand this structure is to look at it.
The panel at the top left lists all of the Notebooks within PageFour. The screen above shows the contents of the “Arms Around The World†Notebook, with an expanded view of folders, which can be nested in a collapsible hierarchy, and the pages within the folder. The term “pages†is a bit misleading at first, as they can contain a full, multi-page document. In the case above, the writer is writing his chapter about a British blockade in segments, each occupying a page.
PageFour allows up to nine pages to be open at a time, each instantly accessible via tabs, which can be positioned at either the top or bottom [see screenshot below] of the screen. These additional pages can contain additional sections of a chapter, reference notes regarding story characters, bibliographical notes, a chapter outline, a list of to-do tasks. Tabbed pages can come from multiple folders.
Among the more remarkable aspects of this program are several modes of saving one’s work. Open pages are saved at user-defined intervals. Many writers will especially appreciate the ability to “archive†the notebooks, keeping up to 30 copies of the file as it develops over time. One can easily go back to an earlier version if a novel, for instance, has gone off-track. One can even save individual pages as “snapshots,†which are saved to a clipboard, if one wishes to discard revisions to return to the original copy.
PageFour, as a default, saves its files in a rather obscure place. One must use Windows Explorer, or a similar program, to drill down through several layers of the “Documents and Settings†folder to find the files. Fortunately, the program allows for files to be placed in a user-defined location. As you will guess, if you’ve read earlier posts, I recommend that PageFour files be saved in a PageFour folder within a 1-BackUp folder [the numeral forces the folder to the top of Windows Explorer], along with other files essential to back up on a regular basis.
PageFour provides a set of very helpful tools for writers. The program contains a spell-checker and thesaurus. One can quickly get a word count of individual pages. Once active, the word counter automatically displays the word count as one tabs through the open pages. There is, however, no way to quickly get a word count for all pages within a folder at a single glance; it takes an effort to track chapter-by-chapter word counts for a larger work [NOTE: this has been addressed in version 1.60, released in May 2007]. Unusual and very helpful customizable tools allow scans of individual pages for repetition of words and of phrases. One can add common words like “the†and “of†to an “ignore†list.
Extremely helpful to prolific writers is the ability to keep lots of projects immediately available in a single place. Short, on-going articles can be easily kept in a single folder, each occupying a separate page. One can compile notes for research trips and ideas for one’s blogs or websites. PageFour, however, does not offer true outlining capabilities. Hierarchical folders do help to organize material, but one cannot create collapsible outlines. Avid outliners can work around this limitation by creating a non-collapsible outline as a page, which will be immediately available as a tab for reference when writing.
Other useful features include search-and-replace, support for selected foreign language character short-cuts and password protection.
PageFour maintains its files in Rich Text Format, or RTF, the format which I think should be preferred by writers [for explanation, see this post]. Each notebook, folder and page is saved as a separate entity, rather than pulling an entire major work into a single file. Beginning in version 1.60, pages can be easily merged for printing out an entire manuscript for hard-copy submission.
The program can be used for free, with limitations: three notebooks with up to 20 pages in each. Prolific writers can buy the program, with access to unlimited notebooks and pages, for only $29.95 — that’s a bargain in my book. The latest version — 1.60 — was released at the very end of May.
At the software homepage, one can find the PageFour Blog. I recommend that users subscribe to an RSS Feed, if one knows how to manage that.
PageFour can be downloaded at the Software For Writing homepage.
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Comments
Thanks for the review Tom. It’s always interesting to hear what people really think of PageFour - warts and all. There are a couple of new additions to version 1.60 that you may not have found yet, as it’s only recently rolled out: the first is a folder word count (right click menu) that makes it very easy to get a total for all chapters or pages in a folder, and the second is a Merge Pages feature, which combines pages together into a single document (also the right click menu).
The file format used by PageFour is RTF rather than a proprietary format, though the files themselves, as you noticed, are all tucked away in the PageFour data folder. The reason for using this format was to make it easier for users to move to and from other word processing packages, and not lock anyone into using PageFour forever.
I did find it interesting that you found the terminology (Pages) a little confusing, as this has come up before - might be worth rethinking the naming conventions used in the program.
Anyway, thanks for the review - feedback always helps.
Darren My comment about the terminology “pages” was aimed at new computer users who might not immediately understand that a page can run on endlessly.
I agree about RTF. If you look way back in my blog, you’ll find my post suggesting that RTF should, in fact, be the defacto standard for writers.
I really like your software, and I’ll eager follow its development as it inches toward version 2.0
Tom Colvin […] I’ve already posted my own review of the PageFour creative writing manager and word processor. Developer Darren has just posted at the program’s website a collection of reviews. Each reviewer sees in the software the qualities I have myself identified, but with their own twists. If this software interests you, I recommend that you take a look at these other reviews. Then take a look at the software’s homepage. Related PostsPageFour: Word Processor Crafted For WritersSoftwareReview Basics: Gather Feedback On Your Documents and ImagesShare This […]
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The Regard! The Excellent forum! Thank you!
Begeillusly I always like coming to a Word Press based blog because my cookies work! 
I’ve been looking for something somewhere between OO and Wordpad. The program, running on XP with 2g of ram has to be zippy … and also handle larger writing projects (am working on a Bible commentary using multiple translations) and a whole slew of smaller daily blog postings.
I’m not liking what’s out there at the moment. The nature of writing has, for me, changed.
To tell the truth, I sure do miss WordStar 2000.
It seems like software comes along that is pretty close to perfect … lacking little … only to drift away in a sea of conflicting goals, like a bottle that comes nearly within reach only to get carried away on an unseen current.
BillinDetroit Tom Colvin 
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