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Apple Releases iWork '06

Well, my new version of iWork is installed, and I am quite impressed.

I can't comment on Keynote much as I don't really use it, but my partner who does, says there are quite a few improvements.

With regards to Pages, it does seem a much 'rounder' App now. I'm very happy to have the Mail Merge feature at last.

It does seem snappier, and the new basic spreadsheet stuff is very easy to use. I did notice that the Tab for the spreadsheet is actually called 'Numbers', is this what Apple wanted all along?

All in all, I think if you already have iWork, and use it, the upgrade is worth it. If you don't, it's now worth a look at.
 
First Thoughts

I got my package from Apple yesterday!

The good news:

a) iWork will install on my Pismo, as before, with certain features disabled.
b) The "reflection" option is cool.

The bad news:

a) iLife will now refuse to install on any G3 computers. Even if you break into the package and try to install the apps individually. 🙁
[Back to iWork]
b) The "reflection" option is not connected to a "perspective" option of any kind. And isn't that when reflections look their coolest?
c) No Equation Editor yet. 🙁

I'm working on an important Keynote for this Thursday, so I'll report back as I discover anything good. 🙂
 
For anyone looking for extra Keynote or Pages templates, I've eyed these guys for a while - their Pages templates seem really attractive and different from any of Apple's offerings, and they have a lot of kiosk/web templates for Keynote, which are hard to come by. I keep hoping iWork Community will take off but it really only gets like a post a month.
 
jsalzer said:
I got my package from Apple yesterday!

The good news:

a) iWork will install on my Pismo, as before, with certain features disabled.
b) The "reflection" option is cool.

The bad news:

a) iLife will now refuse to install on any G3 computers. Even if you break into the package and try to install the apps individually. 🙁
[Back to iWork]
b) The "reflection" option is not connected to a "perspective" option of any kind. And isn't that when reflections look their coolest?
c) No Equation Editor yet. 🙁

I'm working on an important Keynote for this Thursday, so I'll report back as I discover anything good. 🙂
Click to expand...

Good news on iWork, but I was really hoping to be able to use iPhoto 6 and iWeb on my G3. Have you tried extracting the files with Pacifist and running the program directly? Oh well... my copy is coming today so I can play with it then. ;-)
 
Okay... based on what I just read on the Apple discussion forums, if you have a G4 you can install iLife '06 on a G4 and then copy the iPhoto and iWeb apps themselves to a G3 via ethernet or Airport and those two programs will run. Or they might work from Pacifist too. Either way, it's not supported by Apple but it looks like at least some of the iLife apps can be made to run on a G3. I'll try it out tonight and post the results.
 
How Goes It said:
Re. additional templates for iWork ---

There is a site, limited as it may be, where individuals can upload and download templates --

http://www.iworkcommunity.com/
Click to expand...


Hey! Now this is the kind of site I have been looking for. I hope everybody that has used Pages to build templates would contribute to this site.
Help get the word out.
 
iWeb and iPhoto work well on my 800 MHz iBook G3 -- even iPhoto editing is pretty snappy. None of the other iLife apps (iDVD, iMovie, or GarageBand) work on a G3.
 
joelwnelson said:
iWeb and iPhoto work well on my 800 MHz iBook G3 -- even iPhoto editing is pretty snappy. None of the other iLife apps (iDVD, iMovie, or GarageBand) work on a G3.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't have thought any of it would work (or at least work well) on a G3, so that's good to know. 🙂

Planning on getting a new system anytime soon? 😉
 
Installer?

joelwnelson said:
iWeb and iPhoto work well on my 800 MHz iBook G3 -- even iPhoto editing is pretty snappy. None of the other iLife apps (iDVD, iMovie, or GarageBand) work on a G3.
Click to expand...

Hold it. How did you get them to install? Didn't your installer point fingers, laugh, at you, and call you names before quitting on you? Mine did. It was something like, "you jerk, when are you going to realize that Apple's never going to release another Pismo and upgrade already?"

I even broke into the installer package and go straight to the iPhoto installer. It also poked fun at me.

Could it be that the G3 is only a part of the deal and it's also taking into consideration speed and video ram? Hmmmmm.
 
Glad there are so many thumbs up here, because I'm giving iWork a big thumbs down. My biggest complaint with Pages 1 was that I couldn't insert endnotes. So I was quite excited to read on the apple site that Pages 2 now has endnote capability. That it does, but you can't mix endnotes and footnotes in the document😕 . How utterly useless! Pages is really useful for someone like me who needs to write/edit academic papers that include images. Word is terrible with images on a mac and a pc. Pages is sufficiently robust to deal with just about any size image you throw at it (in a rush, I once inserted a 10MB image that crashed word every time that pages could handle easily), but without decent end/footnote capability it's $50 down the toilet (well, keynote might be worth 1/2 of it). Thankfully, I waited to find out for sure about this before buying...
 
A big thumbs down because it can't mix endnotes and footnotes in one document? This is the sole criterion for determining whether Pages is worthwhile? And if Keynote is only worth $25, then how much is PowerPoint worth?
 
IJ Reilly said:
A big thumbs down because it can't mix endnotes and footnotes in one document? This is the sole criterion for determining whether Pages is worthwhile? And if Keynote is only worth $25, then how much is PowerPoint worth?
Click to expand...

For me, absolutely yes. It means that I cannot use it for most of the wordprocessing I do. I think most of the academic crowd would have the same complaint. It was this issue alone that determined whether I would buy iWork.

I didn't really intend to put a pricetag on Keynote, though it is a fantastic program heads and shoulders above PP. Still, powerpoint has a use: making presentations compatible with MS run machines. Not sure about the latest incarnation, but the export in 2 wasn't always great.

YOJ
 
jsalzer said:
The bad news:
...
c) No Equation Editor yet. 🙁
Click to expand...

Try the LaTeX Equation Editor. If you're doingany sort of complicated equations you should know LaTeX anyway, and if you're just looking for a simple solution, this works too.

PDF export is really nice for use within Keynote.😀
 
Equation Editing and Endnotes

physics_gopher said:
Try the LaTeX Equation Editor. If you're doingany sort of complicated equations you should know LaTeX anyway, and if you're just looking for a simple solution, this works too.
Click to expand...

Knowing of it and being able to figure it out (with noone to help me) are two very different things. I got as far as installing X11, but then there seemed to be a variety of other things I had to download and put into mysterious places. I gave up. MathType/Equation Editor are exactly what I want, but without integration, creating a worksheet full of equations means saving a dozen .eps files in addition to the worksheet (if you want to later be able to edit them without recreating them). It was so much easier with AppleWorks.

As fer End Notes and Foot Notes - I'm no writer, but didn't I pick up from somewhere that it's generally considered bad form to use both? Or was that just my lousy writing teachers spreading their own opinions as fact?
 
jsalzer said:
As fer End Notes and Foot Notes - I'm no writer, but didn't I pick up from somewhere that it's generally considered bad form to use both? Or was that just my lousy writing teachers spreading their own opinions as fact?
Click to expand...

Well, in some respects they were right - the mix can be unsightly. But, from Chicago Manual of Style:
"In a heavily documented work it is occassionally helpful to separate substantive notes from source citations. In such case, the citation notes should be numbered and appear as endnotes. The substantive notes...appear as footnotes."

YOJ
 
yojitani said:
For me, absolutely yes. It means that I cannot use it for most of the wordprocessing I do. I think most of the academic crowd would have the same complaint. It was this issue alone that determined whether I would buy iWork.

I didn't really intend to put a pricetag on Keynote, though it is a fantastic program heads and shoulders above PP. Still, powerpoint has a use: making presentations compatible with MS run machines. Not sure about the latest incarnation, but the export in 2 wasn't always great.

YOJ
Click to expand...

Well fine, then don't use it. But I still think it's an extreme judgement to call it a bad application because it doesn't have one, fairly obscure feature that probably the vast majority of people don't care about at all. Pages could use some added features, but I personally think it could easily be ruined if Apple tried to make it all things to all people. I also said this about version 1.0 -- I'd prefer Pages to do fewer things well than many things poorly. We don't need another Word. At least I don't. 😉
 
Another Equation Editor

I've used this program with success in Keynote as well:

http://www.esm.psu.edu/mac-tex/EquationService/

Again, knowledge of LaTeX is important for typesetting, but the ability to write a line in the Notes section of a slide and have Equation Service typeset it in the background is nice. Besides, what self-respecting Keynote user doesn't use LaTeX on a regular basis? 😛

The output is always of high quality, and all the usual keynote effects, shadows, rotation, etc., can be applied to the pdfs.

This program also adds a menu to the services bar to make it available whenever you like, just highlight text and hit "typeset". Pretty nice.
Anyways, hope you find it useful.
 
iWork '06 issues

I have not bought iWork '06 yet but I am going to buy it just so apple has a reason to keep improving the product. From what I have seen the spreadsheet capabilities need much improved. Other than that it will fit all of my needs except for database software which I cannot afford any current db software for the Mac. I hope they add a full spreadsheet program and database program to the mix by the time Microsoft stops making software altogether for the Mac.(I have no official info but I see it coming in 5-7 years)
 
yojitani said:
Glad there are so many thumbs up here, because I'm giving iWork a big thumbs down. My biggest complaint with Pages 1 was that I couldn't insert endnotes. So I was quite excited to read on the apple site that Pages 2 now has endnote capability. That it does, but you can't mix endnotes and footnotes in the document😕 . How utterly useless! Pages is really useful for someone like me who needs to write/edit academic papers that include images. Word is terrible with images on a mac and a pc. Pages is sufficiently robust to deal with just about any size image you throw at it (in a rush, I once inserted a 10MB image that crashed word every time that pages could handle easily), but without decent end/footnote capability it's $50 down the toilet (well, keynote might be worth 1/2 of it). Thankfully, I waited to find out for sure about this before buying...
Click to expand...

I am very surprised that Apple has not tried to incorporate the ability to use bibliographic software (Endnote, Bookends, etc.) within Pages. Kojitani is making an excellent point here -- one of the biggest failings of Word is it's near uselessness for generating academic documents (especially grants, for example) that require Images and text. It is nightmarish. Many of us stuck with Wordperfect forever because it did the job -- not simple, but didn't make you want to jump out a window.

I (and many of my colleagues) are now trying to use InDesign in a rather kludgy fashion to prepare grants, but Pages + Endnote or Bookends would be a great move.

I'm sure they *could* do it. Looks like it's time to request it (again) over at Apple.

JT
 
I believe the spreadsheet is coming. I asked a leading question about this to one of the Apple reps on the floor at MacWorld. He didn't come right out and tell me (Steve would toss him out on his hindquarters if he did), but I think I detected a wink and a nod when he responded by demonstrating the new table calculation features in Pages and Keynote. This suggests to me that the code is being developed for a freestanding spreadsheet application.
 
JCT said:
I'm sure they *could* do it. Looks like it's time to request it (again) over at Apple.
Click to expand...

Keep asking. I get the impression that Apple is interested in knowing what people want and need.
 
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