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

[IJ Reilly]

I use iWork for everything I do, so I don't think its impossible to do so, but iWork is missing (especially iWork 2013/14/15) numerous features that office has.

The reason why iWork has gone so far backwards for full iOS compatibility - so that any feature seems to have to be added on iOS and OSX.

I'm one of those people who use older versions of Apple software. I used iMovie 6 HD for a while after iWork 08, and i'm currently using iPhoto because Apple couldn't be bothered to include numbers iPhoto features and organisation methods into Photos. I know a lot of people are using the Final Cut Pro before Final Cut Pro X came out.

In terms of iWork, I wish they'd made iWork 09 into the pro version and charged for it and updated it continually as a full Office Competitor, then the normal iWork would just be free and the same as now. Wish they'd done the same with iPhoto and made it Photos Pro.

The other approach they might have taken is including compatibility modes for the earlier and iOS/iCloud versions of the apps. Instantly stripping formatting out of documents created in the previous versions of Pages when they are opened in the latest version and without any warning was the worst possible solution. It's a thumb in the eye to the existing user base and just so unnecessary.

As for document sharing using the "compatible standard" Word format, this is mainly an illusion. The two platforms and many versions of Word all but insure that shared Word files aren't going to look the same to everyone who opens them. This is okay because in reality very few documents are going to be truly "collaborative" in their preparation because someone on the writing team should be responsible for the final report production. This should be someone who understands document formatting (a tiny percentage of the user population if the documents I see are any guide). The final version should be a stable, un-editable, and universally viewable PDF.

 

[sracer]

For some reason, the App store decided to install the latest Pages/Numbers/Keynote this morning. Yes, I have the "automatically install updates" unchecked. This is on an iMac running El Cap 10.11.1.

Since I have an Air 2 running on 9.1 with the latest version of iWork on that, I thought I'd keep the new version around a bit to see how well the cross-platform capabilities of this post-09 iWork works.

The first thing that I noticed is that Pages now gracefully converts linked text boxes of old documents to "regular" text boxes. Not as nice as having that functionality restored, but maintaining formatting and layout is a step in the right direction.

The other thing that I noticed is that I can now set Pages 09 to be the default app to open .pages files. That may have changed sometime before now, but it's nice to be able to have both versions co-exist without forcing the new version to be the default.

This "simpler" version of Pages makes a few things more complicated (like the removal of the "Paste and Match Style" from the right-click menu) and there's still quite a bit missing, but in another 7 years (the time that all missing functionality will be added) it'll be a really nice upgrade from Pages 09.

 

[alicejolly123]

very informative,, thanks

 

[Beliblis]

Does anyone know how to open presentations that were saved in Keynote 6.6 in Keynote 6.5? I mean: without having to export to the old 09 or 08 format...
In all the older Version-6-updates, this was possible. Not anymore by the looks of it.... Very disappointing!

 

[jblagden]

Do you actually need "pivot tables" or will Numbers' "table categories" serve the purpose? Here's a video from 2010 that describes that feature. There are times when I need true pivot table functionality (and use Excel for that) but for everything else, tablet categories work well. In general, using iWork ('09 in particular) requires one to "think differently" than one would when working with MS Office, and one really needs to think completely differently when using Numbers.



I just tested that with iWork '09 Pages. copied and pasted perfectly. Even with a minor glitch on OSX Eric Clapton (crayon tab of the color chooser is wonky) it still works fine... though it is probably the last version of OSX that will allow iWork '09 to run properly.

I’m not sure why, but the crayon tab of the color chooser works fine on my new Solid State Drive. I did a clean installation of El Capitan and then used Migration Assistant to copy everything over. I don’t know why, but the crayon tab works fine on my Solid State Drive. I’m not sure if it’s because it’s an Solid State Drive or because it’s a clean installation of El Capitan.

 

[IJ Reilly]

I’m not sure why, but the crayon tab of the color chooser works fine on my new Solid State Drive. I did a clean installation of El Capitan and then used Migration Assistant to copy everything over. I don’t know why, but the crayon tab works fine on my Solid State Drive. I’m not sure if it’s because it’s an Solid State Drive or because it’s a clean installation of El Capitan.

The crayon picker is now a colored pencil picker. Prior to the 10.11.2 update to El Cap the colored pencil graphics were messed up in iWork '09. Since the system update the pencil picker displays correctly. AFAIK the crayon picker is gone. Are you still seeing it?

I am interested in your successful transfer of iWork '09 using Migration Assistant. I recently set up two new iMacs, and in both cases MA failed to transfer iWork '09 to the new Macs from Time Machine backups. They were the only apps not migrated apparently. I had to drag-copy them from the old Macs.

 

[sracer]

The crayon picker is now a colored pencil picker. Prior to the 10.11.2 update to El Cap the colored pencil graphics were messed up in iWork '09. Since the system update the pencil picker displays correctly. AFAIK the crayon picker is gone. Are you still seeing it?

I am interested in your successful transfer of iWork '09 using Migration Assistant. I recently set up two new iMacs, and in both cases MA failed to transfer iWork '09 to the new Macs from Time Machine backups. They were the only apps not migrated apparently. I had to drag-copy them from the old Macs.

Great news! I just updated to 10.11.2, the pencil tab on the color picker for Pages '09 (4.3) is fixed!

 

[jblagden]

The crayon picker is now a colored pencil picker. Prior to the 10.11.2 update to El Cap the colored pencil graphics were messed up in iWork '09. Since the system update the pencil picker displays correctly. AFAIK the crayon picker is gone. Are you still seeing it?

I am interested in your successful transfer of iWork '09 using Migration Assistant. I recently set up two new iMacs, and in both cases MA failed to transfer iWork '09 to the new Macs from Time Machine backups. They were the only apps not migrated apparently. I had to drag-copy them from the old Macs.

Yeah, I meant to say pencil picker.