Apple Updates iWork Apps for iOS and Mac

[mschmalenbach]

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.

The last but one major office update brought embedded fonts (finally!) to the MacOS version of PowerPoint. (Note - there are restrictions & short comings, so not quite all we'd hoped for - further explained in this useful blog - http://blog.parallels.com/2018/04/18/mac-fonts-in-powerpoint-presentations/)

I have to use MS Office at work - it's actually gotten pretty good since Steve Balmer left and somebody sensible came along and set appropriate priorities and resource levels for the Mac MS Office business unit.

We have a special font we use, that cost us a small fortune to license... whenever I did some edits or creation in PPT on my Mac, a team member would later have to come & sort the fonts etc out... Not any more it seems.

I use MS office on my Mac & iPad Pro, and iPhone 6S Plus - they sync well together - I have even in an emergency built a presentation in PowerPoint on my iPhone, and presented it from my iPhone, and then later picked it up on my Mac, tidied it up and later presented it from my iPad - no issues - except the iOS versions of MS office are a pig with embedded fonts or anything not already built in to the iOS device
[doublepost=1529188674][/doublepost]Apple has a lot of money. And I presume, engineers & designers and so on.

So why, oh why, is it taking forever to get new hardware out? Other than the iMac Pro launch, everything is pretty 'meh'. I got a new top of the line MacBook Pro 15 inch back in December, for work. Had that been my money, I'd have been miffed. Since then MacOS has, for the first time ever for me, been really quite unstable - MS levels of unstable. It finally stabilized about 2 months ago.

And similarly, why oh why is it taking so long to get the various software apps of a more serious nature updated and evolved further?

I'll tell you why - they just don't prioritize it any more - not over new emojis and other guff.

The Mac ecosystem is still the one for me. For now.

I wonder, if Steve J came back - would he have a total melt down at what he would find?

 

[campyguy]

The last but one major office update brought embedded fonts (finally!) to the MacOS version of PowerPoint. (Note - there are restrictions & short comings, so not quite all we'd hoped for - further explained in this useful blog - http://blog.parallels.com/2018/04/18/mac-fonts-in-powerpoint-presentations/)

Thanks for the tip, at least there may be options for the other two Mac Office apps. I wasn't aware of the new option for the Mac PP app - it's one of the two Office apps not installed on any of my PCs or Macs (Publisher is the other) as I have no use for either app in my company so I don't read the blog updates about them. I haven't used PP since the late-90s, or Keynote for that matter but it's nice to see that MS is working on it.

Since MS announced a unified code base for the Office apps across all 4 OS platforms a few months ago I hope to see font embedding either included in the Mac suite apps or, more likely, go the way of the dodo with the next major release milestone.

 

[InfrequentCommentor]

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

MagicMove in Keynote. Yes, I like the way that items snap to sensible location in Keynote and find it much easier to produce clean slides, but MagicMove is essential for me.
[doublepost=1529272350][/doublepost]When will they ever fix MagicMove + Connectors?

 

[Riviera122]

I love Pages so it's good to see Apple still giving it attention. Despite missing some power features the layout is much nicer than Word and allows me to make more creative documents. Keynote is also stellar. The suite doesn't top iWork 09 (which I still use to design brochures and leaflets), but it's getting there. Rather that than MS Office bloatware.

 

[laurim]

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

I like the design GUI better. And it’s free for Mac owners.
[doublepost=1529631696][/doublepost]

Anyone know why there’s no ‘B’ to blank the screen in a keynote presentation?

Or if it is there, how do you do it? Seems like a glaring omission.

Anyone know why there’s no ‘B’ to blank the screen in a keynote presentation?

Or if it is there, how do you do it? Seems like a glaring omission.

On a Mac, press B. I don’t use keynote on iOS

 

[Tajhad]

I would have to agree with most here. I still use Keynote as my first presentation tool. I have come back to Pages over the past year and doing all word processing in it. What it lacks I don’t miss. I even have a 80,000 doc that I jump from laptop to iPad. Smooth and trouble free.

 

[loby]

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

Yes, simple and straight to the point.