Apple Updates iWork Apps for iOS and Mac

[sgtaylor5]

Are there any benefits to using this software suite over Office? (Serious question)

I look at it like this: if you need to collaborate with people or if you need to use esoteric features that are only in MS Office, then you need MS Office. If you aren’t in the first two groups, then you are free to use what you want.

One advantage to iWork is that it is first-party Apple; hence it’s faster and more efficient. I’d always pick native Cocoa applications over cross-platform if I could. I love Nisus Writer Pro, for instance.

 

[Dominicanyor]

I really don’t use those apps. Maybe one day I will..

 

[jwm]

Not seeing any updates on Mojave.

I thought that too, until I saw they had automatically updated.

 

[IJ Reilly]

I just want Page Layout mode back, pretty please!

I want Capture Page and Section Insert back, please. I created a set of forms in Pages nearly ten years ago using this feature that I can't use in Pages after v4.3. The new Master Pages feature seems to want to do something similar but for the life of me I can't figure out how, and the new version wipes out the captured pages from the old template. Such a mess. It's as if nobody at Apple knew this feature even existed or expected anyone to use it.

 

[Janichsan]

LaTeX support? Sweet!

…for formulas. That actually has been in Pages for quite a while.

 

[ignatius345]

Are there any benefits to using this software suite over Office? (Serious question)

Keynote is hands down 100% better than PowerPoint. I've developed corporate decks on both platforms and the Keynote presentations are much, much smoother and better looking across the board -- and far easier to work with when you're building them. Like the other iWork apps, Keynote took a big hit after the golden era of iWork '09, when they iOS-ified and dumbed down everything. But it's come back pretty well. Recent versions of PowerPoint for Mac have gotten better, but they still don't touch Keynote.

Pages is a whole lot more streamlined and smooth to use on a Mac than Word. The basic stuff you need is there: style sheets, ability to work with graphics, commenting and revisions. Page layout features are quite decent as well, for basic stuff. It's no InDesign, but it'll definitely do. I'm sure there are esoteric things Word does that Pages doesn't. Again, while Pages will import and export .docx files, cross-platform collaboration is probably gonna be tough if you have to do it.

Numbers does basic stuff quite nicely from what I can tell. I'm not really an expert, but I've built some nicely functional spreadsheets to track money and other things, and if you're used to the other iWork apps, it will seem familiar. I know there are some huge power-user features that Excel has that Numbers doesn't. But if you're a spreadsheet pro, you're probably not budging from Excel anyway.

 

[IGI2]

Keynote is hands down 100% better than PowerPoint. I've developed corporate decks on both platforms and the Keynote presentations are much, much smoother and better looking across the board -- and far easier to work with when you're building them. Like the other iWork apps, Keynote took a big hit after the golden era of iWork '09, when they iOS-ified and dumbed down everything. But it's come back pretty well. Recent versions of PowerPoint for Mac have gotten better, but they still don't touch Keynote.

Pages is a whole lot more streamlined and smooth to use on a Mac than Word. The basic stuff you need is there: style sheets, ability to work with graphics, commenting and revisions. Page layout features are quite decent as well, for basic stuff. It's no InDesign, but it'll definitely do. I'm sure there are esoteric things Word does that Pages doesn't. Again, while Pages will import and export .docx files, cross-platform collaboration is probably gonna be tough if you have to do it.

Numbers does basic stuff quite nicely from what I can tell. I'm not really an expert, but I've built some nicely functional spreadsheets to track money and other things, and if you're used to the other iWork apps, it will seem familiar. I know there are some huge power-user features that Excel has that Numbers doesn't. But if you're a spreadsheet pro, you're probably not budging from Excel anyway.

I also prefer Pages, Numbers, Keynote to MS Office Suite.

 

[cgsnipinva]

I also prefer Pages, Numbers, Keynote to MS Office Suite.

On the mobile side - the iWork suite is better than what is offered by Google and is comparable feature wise to what MS Office provides in iOS or Android.

For my personal/family needs -- it is a great office suite that I use first. Keynote and Pages compare favorably to Word and PowerPoint. Numbers - if it got three things would be a solid Excel replacement - picot tables, spark lines, and enhanced grouping -- then it would be perfect.

Given that iWork is fast and integrates with the Apple environment - its a solid choice.

 

[sracer]

On the mobile side - the iWork suite is better than what is offered by Google and is comparable feature wise to what MS Office provides in iOS or Android.

For my personal/family needs -- it is a great office suite that I use first. Keynote and Pages compare favorably to Word and PowerPoint. Numbers - if it got three things would be a solid Excel replacement - picot tables, spark lines, and enhanced grouping -- then it would be perfect.

Given that iWork is fast and integrates with the Apple environment - its a solid choice.

Similar situation for me. At work, I have to use MS Office. But for home and church, My go-to productivity suite is iWork... unless I know that what I need to do won't be easy or possible. (That's when I'll use iWork '09, LibreOffice, and MS Office, in that order)

The consistency in look and feel and file compatibility between the iOS, web, and macOS versions of iWork is outstanding. This allows me to pick up any device from my ever-growing pile of devices, and be able to easily work on documents (stored on iCloud). For example, the web version of iWork is a surprisingly good experience on a chromebook.

As others have mentioned, there's still a functionality gap between the current version of iWork and peak-iWork, '09. They're closing that gap... but at a glacier's pace. Thankfully, iWork '09 runs on High Sierra so I'll be good for a bit longer.

Even though they initially gutted iWork to achieve functional/file compatibility across systems, there are still some niggling little omissions on the iOS side that can be irritating. For example: there's no way in iOS Pages to force numbering of a numbered list. (start with "3." instead of "1.")

But an update is an update, which means it's still being worked on... and that's good news for us iWork fans.

 

[cgsnipinva]

Similar situation for me. At work, I have to use MS Office. But for home and church, My go-to productivity suite is iWork... unless I know that what I need to do won't be easy or possible. (That's when I'll use iWork '09, LibreOffice, and MS Office, in that order)

The consistency in look and feel and file compatibility between the iOS, web, and macOS versions of iWork is outstanding. This allows me to pick up any device from my ever-growing pile of devices, and be able to easily work on documents (stored on iCloud). For example, the web version of iWork is a surprisingly good experience on a chromebook.

As others have mentioned, there's still a functionality gap between the current version of iWork and peak-iWork, '09. They're closing that gap... but at a glacier's pace. Thankfully, iWork '09 runs on High Sierra so I'll be good for a bit longer.

Even though they initially gutted iWork to achieve functional/file compatibility across systems, there are still some niggling little omissions on the iOS side that can be irritating. For example: there's no way in iOS Pages to force numbering of a numbered list. (start with "3." instead of "1.")

But an update is an update, which means it's still being worked on... and that's good news for us iWork fans.

I agree -- the features are being added but it has been slow but steady. But iWork is really useable. My wife uses iWork to support her CPA practice (using Excel in real power scenarios and tax packages) but for invoicing, contracts, and internal documentation - the sharing and integration with mail and other applications -- particularly on the iPad -- make it a convenient choice

The slow and steady approach to updates does results in new features that work well between MacOS and iOS. So I appreciate that aspect.

 

[RightMACatU]

I really don’t use those apps. Maybe one day I will..

+1 since I opened an Excel ss with VBA codes and where Numbers decided to get rid of it. Thank goodness for backups.

 

[pete2106]

I started a Mathematics Degree at the start of the year so I'm stoked for LaTeX support. Now all Apple need to is refresh the iPad Pro line and I'll be all set.

 

[aristobrat]

ugh. This update still re-orders linked text boxes depending upon where they are moved.

AHHHHH! I just ran into this for the first time today and couldn't figure it out... THANK YOU!!!!

 

[ignatius345]

As others have mentioned, there's still a functionality gap between the current version of iWork and peak-iWork, '09. They're closing that gap... but at a glacier's pace. Thankfully, iWork '09 runs on High Sierra so I'll be good for a bit longer.

Sounds basic, but the one thing I wish most they'd bring back is the inspector palattes. This is one UI area where they clearly merged everything into one window so it would be easy to use on an iPad or a browser, but it's a seriously flawed way to work on a desktop. Switching among all those sidebar sections gets old very quickly. They did see fit to give "build order" in Keynote a pop-out palatte, so maybe there's hope...

 

[TTTedP]

I stick with Office but also prefer MacOS mail vs Outlook. One annoying artifact is when pasting a table from Excel into Mail. Its' formatting is all off. The Numbers tables retain all formatting and intended look. I wish that could get sorted.

 

[realtwang]

LaTeX support? Sweet!

What if you have a LaTex allergy?

 

[djames42]

Keynote is hands down 100% better than PowerPoint. I've developed corporate decks on both platforms and the Keynote presentations are much, much smoother and better looking across the board -- and far easier to work with when you're building them. Like the other iWork apps, Keynote took a big hit after the golden era of iWork '09, when they iOS-ified and dumbed down everything. But it's come back pretty well. Recent versions of PowerPoint for Mac have gotten better, but they still don't touch Keynote.

This. I switched to Keynote back when iWork was in its infancy. I was able to create beautiful presentations with some wonderful (and complementary) animations and transitions. At one point I had to collaborate on a presentation with other members of my team and went back to using PowerPoint. I quite literally (okay, figuratively) felt as though I'd had my hands tied behind my back forcing me to type with my nose. What I could accomplish quickly in the inspector frequently (read: almost always) took four different dialog boxes in PowerPoint. The transitions looked amateurish. And, as with most presentations, it looked like "just another PowerPoint" slideshow.

I definitely feel crippled by the new, iOSified interface, but Keynote is still light years ahead of PowerPoint. If you trust online reviews, blog posts, and other rants you'll see that's the nearly universal consensus amongst those who have used both. PowerPoint *is* getting better, but as a mature product it really should be better than it is.

Pages is a whole lot more streamlined and smooth to use on a Mac than Word. The basic stuff you need is there: style sheets, ability to work with graphics, commenting and revisions. Page layout features are quite decent as well, for basic stuff. It's no InDesign, but it'll definitely do. I'm sure there are esoteric things Word does that Pages doesn't. Again, while Pages will import and export .docx files, cross-platform collaboration is probably gonna be tough if you have to do it.

Its layout features aren't what they were, but I definitely prefer it to Word. Word is an adequate word processor, but if you need to insert any sort of objects (text boxes, graphics, or anything else in a frame) it's absolutely awful. We see soooooo many newsletters and pamphlets created in Word, and you can tell. Its layout features are absolutely barbaric. Publisher is the closest thing to Pages that Microsoft Office has, but it's Windows-only and its interface is comparable to Word. It's definitely a better option for laying out these sorts of documents the Word is, but Pages is still superior.

Numbers does basic stuff quite nicely from what I can tell. I'm not really an expert, but I've built some nicely functional spreadsheets to track money and other things, and if you're used to the other iWork apps, it will seem familiar. I know there are some huge power-user features that Excel has that Numbers doesn't. But if you're a spreadsheet pro, you're probably not budging from Excel anyway.

Numbers is far better at creating visually appealing reports. The ability to have multiple tables on a given page is brilliant, and its charts are gorgeous (Excel's charts still look like they did back in the version 6.0 days, other than the addition of a few 3D options). Numbers still lags behind Excel in terms of crunching numbers and manipulating incoming data, and it doesn't support the larger worksheets that Excel does. I also don't believe it supports live data the way Excel does.

There are times when I've had to pull data into Excel to create pivot tables, then exporting that data into Numbers so I can create useful reports.

 

[campyguy]

I stick with Office but also prefer MacOS mail vs Outlook. One annoying artifact is when pasting a table from Excel into Mail. Its' formatting is all off. The Numbers tables retain all formatting and intended look. I wish that could get sorted.

Consider the fonts used both in your document(s) and Normal Templates. I'm alluding to Office 2016 and related O365 version here - each Office app has fonts embedded in a Resource folder inside their app package, and Mail does not have access to those embedded fonts. Also keep in mind that each Office "file" is a package, and in that package includes an XML file and a PDF file, for resource and viewing reference. Unlike the Windows Office apps (going back to Office 1997 apps on that OS), the Mac Office apps have never been granted the ability to create a file with embedded fonts.

Office 2011 used a different font mapping schema, placing their Microsoft font folder within the System's Font folder. An install of O2016 generally removes this folder. Office 2011's documents use the same document font-schema below.

I suspect what you're seeing is the attempt to use font substitution in the fonts used in your document, similar in vein to what any PDF app tends to employ in regard to font substitution. Mail is accessing fonts in the Fonts folder, substituting to the best of its ability. It's also not just a matter of selecting everything and changing the font or changing the font(s) in your document's Styles, you'll need to address the fonts listed the Template(s) used to create the file itself...

I'd suggest creating a new set of templates that are created with fonts that are in the Fonts folder, and creating your new documents based on those new templates, and - following suit with a tactic I've used for 20+ years with the exchange of files - make sure those on the other end use the same font(s).

 

[69650]

I want an iWork Pro option so I can fully replace MS-Office.

 

[Brien]

Meh. I just wish Apple would let me disable the new feature popups/highlights. Currently yoy have to manually tap every highlighted button to get them to stop pulsing.

I could get away with just not updating if they didn't have it show an “update available” popup every time I opened the app. :/

 

[TTTedP]

Consider the fonts used both in your document(s) and Normal Templates. I'm alluding to Office 2016 and related O365 version here - each Office app has fonts embedded in a Resource folder inside their app package, and Mail does not have access to those embedded fonts. Also keep in mind that each Office "file" is a package, and in that package includes an XML file and a PDF file, for resource and viewing reference. Unlike the Windows Office apps (going back to Office 1997 apps on that OS), the Mac Office apps have never been granted the ability to create a file with embedded fonts.

Office 2011 used a different font mapping schema, placing their Microsoft font folder within the System's Font folder. An install of O2016 generally removes this folder. Office 2011's documents use the same document font-schema below.

I suspect what you're seeing is the attempt to use font substitution in the fonts used in your document, similar in vein to what any PDF app tends to employ in regard to font substitution. Mail is accessing fonts in the Fonts folder, substituting to the best of its ability. It's also not just a matter of selecting everything and changing the font or changing the font(s) in your document's Styles, you'll need to address the fonts listed the Template(s) used to create the file itself...

I'd suggest creating a new set of templates that are created with fonts that are in the Fonts folder, and creating your new documents based on those new templates, and - following suit with a tactic I've used for 20+ years with the exchange of files - make sure those on the other end use the same font(s).

I was resorting to pasting my Excel tables to Numbers and then into Mail.
awesome explanation and I'll give it a go. thanks!

 

[TinaBelcher]

And yet they still haven’t managed to add insert date or horizontal line (not styling a heading). The app is a joke, the only thing that’s good is drawing and smart marking. What they should put their focus into is evolving the notes app into something like OneNote so I can ditch it and not look to Microsoft for better options.

 

[sracer]

And yet they still haven’t managed to add insert date or horizontal line (not styling a heading). The app is a joke, the only thing that’s good is drawing and smart marking. What they should put their focus into is evolving the notes app into something like OneNote so I can ditch it and not look to Microsoft for better options.

I'm assuming that you're referring to Pages and you want the date to change depending upon when the document is printing. (to insert a static date, simply go to the menu -> Insert -> Date & Time)

It's possible to enter a dynamic date... but it isn't intuitive.

Insert a table of 1 cell. In the cell enter the formula: =Today

From there you can change the font, size, and position of that 1 cell table.

 

[TinaBelcher]

I'm assuming that you're referring to Pages and you want the date to change depending upon when the document is printing. (to insert a static date, simply go to the menu -> Insert -> Date & Time)

It's possible to enter a dynamic date... but it isn't intuitive.

Insert a table of 1 cell. In the cell enter the formula: =Today

From there you can change the font, size, and position of that 1 cell table.

Yes, pages. And no, a normal date - not “dynamic”. You can’t insert a date in iOS. I know it’s possible on a Mac. I don’t want to add tables for the sake of creating a date. There shouldn’t be a “cheat” or “workaround” it should be a feature. All these drawing features and audio recording is more appropriate for the Notes app, not Pages. Pages should be a professional writing app in form of Microsoft Word. Table of content isn’t even supported in iOS! It’s as if they’re turning iOS Pages into what Notes should have become. Pages is at this point the new Notes app. Absolutely useless. I’m sorry i’m hard to understand, lol.

 

[MLinneer]

Numbers still has the same bug I've reported numerous times. In a column of numbers that is summed, if one cell is inadvertently set to something other than a value, Text for example, there is no error or warning. Numbers will just sum the numeric values producing a sum that is not correct. Also, Apple still hasn't added any print controls other than fit to page... no justification such as center or align to right margin.