Apple Updates iWork Mac and iOS Apps With Support for OS X El Capitan and iOS 9

[HenryDJP]

Just one table from Wikipedia is enough for me to nearly permanently abandon iWorks, even they are free.

And Apple own PDF engine can generate decent PDF documents for viewing purpose. But not for printing. I bet in enterprise environment, Document printing is still a need, for archive purpose, for example.

Don't want to comment about keynotes but I don't think keynotes would overcome PowerPoint that much.

Thank you for your post. Looks like you don't know what you're talking about, especially when it comes to Keynote against PPT. I'm confident enough to know most people would disagree with you.

 

[Shirasaki]

Thank you for your post. Looks like you don't know what you're talking about, especially when it comes to Keynote against PPT. I'm confident enough to know most people would disagree with you.

That's fine. I possibly know who I am, and which stance I am currently in.

I just don't want to use iWorks, no matter how powerful they may be. Microsoft office is still "just works" for me. All for me, not for you.

 

[sracer]

Just one table from Wikipedia is enough for me to nearly permanently abandon iWorks, even they are free.

And Apple own PDF engine can generate decent PDF documents for viewing purpose. But not for printing. I bet in enterprise environment, Document printing is still a need, for archive purpose, for example.

Don't want to comment about keynotes but I don't think keynotes would overcome PowerPoint that much.

I have quite a few Pages documents that have advanced/extended formatting. Not only do they print perfectly directly from Pages, but the PDFs created by Pages print perfectly in-house as well as went sent out for printing. Do you have any links to discussions addressing the difficulties of printing PDFs created by Pages?

I'm puzzled by your comments regarding keynote vs powerpoint. Except for some out-of-the-box examples like using PowerPoint for game shows, keynote is generally regarded as a better presentation tool... even by many powerpoint-diehards.

You've mentioned copy-n-pasting tables from Wikipedia more than once. What browser did you use and what version of Pages? I have no difficulty with that task using Safari and Pages '09.

 

[Shirasaki]

I have quite a few Pages documents that have advanced/extended formatting. Not only do they print perfectly directly from Pages, but the PDFs created by Pages print perfectly in-house as well as went sent out for printing. Do you have any links to discussions addressing the difficulties of printing PDFs created by Pages?

I'm puzzled by your comments regarding keynote vs powerpoint. Except for some out-of-the-box examples like using PowerPoint for game shows, keynote is generally regarded as a better presentation tool... even by many powerpoint-diehards.

You've mentioned copy-n-pasting tables from Wikipedia more than once. What browser did you use and what version of Pages? I have no difficulty with that task using Safari and Pages '09.

Seems that I would rather shut up once and for all.

And I don't think there would be any issue on printing PDF on Mac. I just discuss about its quality.

For Wikipedia thing, search "Whyalla Wikipedia" in Google, open it, and copy that climate data table in the middle of that page, paste it to pages, and you will see. Unfortunately I only test it on latest pages, not '09 version.

Again, I will shut up regarding to this matter once and for all. Congratulations you can use free iWorks to complete your workflow.

Regards.

PS: oh, ignore about PowerPoint comments. That is simply pointless.

 

[dwaltwhit]

Surprised that San Francisco isn't available in this round of iWork updates

 

[IJ Reilly]

For Wikipedia thing, search "Whyalla Wikipedia" in Google, open it, and copy that climate data table in the middle of that page, paste it to pages, and you will see. Unfortunately I only test it on latest pages, not '09 version.

I see that it works fine in Pages '09. This only confirms what many of us are saying about the newest version of Pages being junk.

 

[windywalks]

Time to deal with it, go elsewhere for pro software and watch the OS X versions of once great or at least good apps go the iOS way and become Ive's wet dreams made of... white canvas.

 

[mdelvecchio]

I feel like this should have been supported from day one.

yes, and the code should write itself. and we programmers can all sip sparkling unicorn juice....

 

[ipedro]

Shared iCloud documents now open on iPad and iPhone.

It was astonishing that it didn't before. I've been transitioning a colleague away from PCs and to using her iPhone and iPad which is more than enough for her type of computer usage. I was embarrassed to find out that she had to return to her PC to see the iPad generated Numbers documents that we worked on together. Ugh...

 

[Chase R]

Google ? Lol, I wouldn't rely on Google for any of my documents, no matter how good or bad their apps are...

I would rely on them far more than Apple. They are the standard when it comes to online services. Everything just flat-out works (gmail, calendar, docs, drive). Google docs has been supported and improved upon since its release in 2007.

 

[Max(IT)]

I would rely on them far more than Apple. They are the standard when it comes to online services. Everything just flat-out works (gmail, calendar, docs, drive). Google docs has been supported and improved upon since its release in 2007.

All this shine free services have one single reason: data mining.

Feel free to offer your personal data to your beloved Google..... since 2007

 

[Razeus]

I never understood the hoopla about Keynote. Even Apple just does the bare basics for presentations with it for the last 15 years.

 

[Razeus]

All this shine free services have one single reason: data mining.

Feel free to offer your personal data to your beloved Google..... since 2007

Yep. And I don't have a problem with that. Have fun with Apple's half ass software execution. With Google Docs, I don't have to "wait" for compatibility with an OS. While everyone is complaining about not have the iWork update on Day 1 and Microsoft Office regularly crashing, I'm on Google Docs getting stuff done.

 

[smoking monkey]

For Wikipedia thing, search "Whyalla Wikipedia" in Google, open it, and copy that climate data table in the middle of that page, paste it to pages, and you will see. Unfortunately I only test it on latest pages, not '09 version.

Serious Question: How do you copy a table from Wikipedia? The table doesn't appear to be a single picture. All I could do is highlight the text and then copy into a new ipages document and the info just spewed down the page...

I have no idea how to copy tables to be honest as it's not really needed for what I do, but I'd like to know if there is a way to do it.

Thanks.

 

[IJ Reilly]

Serious Question: How do you copy a table from Wikipedia? The table doesn't appear to be a single picture. All I could do is highlight the text and then copy into a new ipages document and the info just spewed down the page...

I have no idea how to copy tables to be honest as it's not really needed for what I do, but I'd like to know if there is a way to do it.

Thanks.

Serious answer: I just showed it above. Like a lot of things that don't work in iWork anymore, selecting and pasting works in Pages 4.x.

 

[Shirasaki]

Serious Question: How do you copy a table from Wikipedia? The table doesn't appear to be a single picture. All I could do is highlight the text and then copy into a new ipages document and the info just spewed down the page...

I have no idea how to copy tables to be honest as it's not really needed for what I do, but I'd like to know if there is a way to do it.

Thanks.

Yes. You can only select the data.

However when I do so and paste it in Microsoft word, I can get a table exactly from Wikipedia, except size. Why iWorks cannot do that? Design philosophy difference?

And I think sometimes a user will need to copy a table from somewhere to pages document.

 

[Shirasaki]

I see that it works fine in Pages '09. This only confirms what many of us are saying about the newest version of Pages being junk.View attachment 593134

Yeah. Just like that.

If Apple could keep their iWorks like '09 version was, I would try to use iWorks. Unfortunately, the answer is no. Using the latest Pages, all I can get is something totally unusable.

TBH, this time pages is even better than Microsoft word, since the latter resizes the source table in a wrong size, not fitting the page size, which is often a problem when talking care of tables and pictures.

 

[oldmacs]

I was only referring to sharing industry standard documents and it's not common that docs are passed around companies for everyone to modify

I never said .doc documents were being passed around to everyone in a company, however it is common for them to be past between relatively significant numbers of people, for editing, proofing etc which makes pages impractical to use. Your workplace doesn't represent all work places!

The other problem with pages (and iWork in general) is the constant file format changes.. Its now changed twice since 2013, and it had changed before that. You can't easily just open an old file in some sort of compatibility mode (like you can in office with a .doc) and know that if you send as a .doc anyone will be able to open it with pretty much any version of office from the last 15 or more years.

Where as with Pages, you've got all these different versions (and different people don't update, especially in corporate environments where people won't update to the latest version of OSX for a period of time) and since usually iWork requires the latest OSX, it makes updating impossible unless everyone is on the latest version of OSX. So then you've got people who can only open iWork 09 files, some who can only open iWork 2013-2015 files, some who can open all files etc, and while you can export an older file, you can't just set it to standardly work in some sort of compatibility mode, you've got to export it which is annoying.

Again I dislike Office and I use iWork but there are a lot of pitfalls with it.

 

[sracer]

Yeah. Just like that.

If Apple could keep their iWorks like '09 version was, I would try to use iWorks. Unfortunately, the answer is no. Using the latest Pages, all I can get is something totally unusable.

TBH, this time pages is even better than Microsoft word, since the latter resizes the source table in a wrong size, not fitting the page size, which is often a problem when talking care of tables and pictures.

Perhaps now you see why some of us keep beating the iWork 09 drum.

 

[Shirasaki]

Perhaps now you see why some of us keep beating the iWork 09 drum.

Yeah yeah! I can understand.
So many software is ruined in new version.
Where can I download iWorks 09? I want to give this a try, rather than that latest garbage.

 

[HenryDJP]

I never said .doc documents were being passed around to everyone in a company, however it is common for them to be past between relatively significant numbers of people, for editing, proofing etc which makes pages impractical to use. Your workplace doesn't represent all work places!

The other problem with pages (and iWork in general) is the constant file format changes.. Its now changed twice since 2013, and it had changed before that. You can't easily just open an old file in some sort of compatibility mode (like you can in office with a .doc) and know that if you send as a .doc anyone will be able to open it with pretty much any version of office from the last 15 or more years.

Where as with Pages, you've got all these different versions (and different people don't update, especially in corporate environments where people won't update to the latest version of OSX for a period of time) and since usually iWork requires the latest OSX, it makes updating impossible unless everyone is on the latest version of OSX. So then you've got people who can only open iWork 09 files, some who can only open iWork 2013-2015 files, some who can open all files etc, and while you can export an older file, you can't just set it to standardly work in some sort of compatibility mode, you've got to export it which is annoying.

Again I dislike Office and I use iWork but there are a lot of pitfalls with it.

Once again for all who didn't hear me the first time. I never stated nor did I suggest that iWork was a replacement for MS Office in an enterprise environment. However it works very well and offers a lot of functionality that MS Word could certainly take lessons from. Comparing it to a product that people pay $$$ (MS Office) makes no sense. iWork is FREE. And please don't reply saying it's not free because it's part of the price of buying a Mac because that simply isn't true. Mac users used to have to pay for iWork. I believe it was $79.

 

[oldmacs]

Once again for all who didn't hear me the first time. I never stated nor did I suggest that iWork was a replacement for MS Office in an enterprise environment. However it works very well and offers a lot of functionality that MS Word could certainly take lessons from. Comparing it to a product that people pay $$$ (MS Office) makes no sense. iWork is FREE. And please don't reply saying it's not free because it's part of the price of buying a Mac because that simply isn't true. Mac users used to have to pay for iWork. I believe it was $79.

Hmmm yeah it does have some nice features, but Apple should take some cues from Word and add in many features which are missing. Not to mention features that they decided to take out in 2013 and still haven't been bothered to add back in, which is a complete and utter joke. Take for example the removal of re ordering pages in pages - there is a way to do it now but its complex and time consuming, when you should just be able to drag to reorder page order.

The cost of pages would come out of the cost of purchasing a Mac or iOS device - its true. Apple offers it free based on money they make selling the hardware. Its only free for those who have bought an Apple device in the past 2 years. iWork as you said did cost money for years and thats irrelevant anyway. Its meant to be a competitor to Office so it should be compared.

 

[brianvictor7]

The functionality of Pages needs to be stepped up massively. It's preferable to Word for long documents given how well-optimised it is for the Mac, but there's a lot missing. Just a few of these features would be nice: linkable text within a document (no, not web links), being able to highlight separate areas of text with Command-click & drag, etc. I wrote a 250-page research document within Pages, and these are some of the things I desperately missed! Otherwise, even compared to Word 2016, it's extremely smooth and great if you have to scroll through a huge document (linkable text would make this much less time-consuming, though).

Yes! Thank you so much for saying that about in document links! I have been waiting for this to be restored for 2 years! Sent Tim and Eddy an email last night asking for this (yes, I send them an email from time to time since I hear told they actually read them...even had a response a couple of times). Quite frankly, when they brought up MS to demo the productivity suite instead of iWork, I was worried they were ditching iWork. Glad that isn't the case. It could be so much more if they were only willing to invest a little more effort!

Oh and please please please give us Reflow on iOS Pages!

 

[smoking monkey]

I see that it works fine in Pages '09. This only confirms what many of us are saying about the newest version of Pages being junk.View attachment 593134

Yes. You can only select the data.

However when I do so and paste it in Microsoft word, I can get a table exactly from Wikipedia, except size. Why iWorks cannot do that? Design philosophy difference?

And I think sometimes a user will need to copy a table from somewhere to pages document.

STOP THE PRESSES!!!

it took me 10 seconds on my 2nd attempt to get it to work. I would suggest that before people start saying the new pages can't do something they should really exhaust all options. I'VE NEVER done this before and literally on my 2nd attempt after my first failed attempt at a straight copy and paste, I got it to work... well, it looks pretty good to me.

Come on guys and gals. This isn't my area of expertise, but if I can figure this out in 10 seconds then you both should be really embarrassed with yourself! Now go to the back of the room and stay there until I tell you otherwise! lol...

 

[smoking monkey]

Perhaps now you see why some of us keep beating the iWork 09 drum.

The other problem with pages (and iWork in general) is the constant file format changes.. Its now changed twice since 2013... Where as with Pages, you've got all these different versions

I read what was updated in this latest version and please correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't pages/keynote docs made in 06 and 08/09 now fully compatible?