CNET Editors' review
Bottom line: Intuitive interface design and easy access to useful features make iWork the best office suite choice on the Mac. Though it lacks some of Microsoft Office's advanced options, iWork '09 is an emerging powerhouse in its own right.
Apple's iWork '09 ($79) is an excellent investment for Mac users who need a well-designed and easy-to-use productivity suite. Though iWork doesn't offer an integrated business e-mail solution such as Microsoft Outlook, it does include a core group of apps-- Keynote, Numbers, and Pages --with plenty of intuitive features like interoperability across apps to make that absence easy to overlook. Apple has significantly updated all three products to enhance and streamline workflow with numerous interface tweaks and feature enhancements. Like previous versions--to calm Windows-to-Mac switcher anxiety--iWork files are fully compatible with its Microsoft Office counterparts.
iWork '09 also introduces iWork.com public beta, a new Web service. This fledgling sharing site lets you share documents online, invite viewers who can make comments, and allows for downloads in iWork, Microsoft Office, and PDF formats. Sadly, it does not let you edit online, so true online collaboration is unavailable. The beta is free, but Apple gives no word yet on the pricing structure once iWork.com reaches release status.
Setup and Interface
As in the previous iWork installment, you won't need the latest and greatest Mac to run iWork '09. At minimum, you'll need an Intel, PowerPC G5, or G4 machine with a 500MHz or better processor, plus a minimum of 512MB of RAM (1GB recommended) running OS X 10.4.11. Installation was seamless in our tests, taking just under 10 minutes.
iWork's appearance hasn't changed much since iWork '08. The minimalist layout and easy to navigate toolbars remain; home and small business users will find the suite accommodating. The iWork '09 toolset still outmatches online solutions (minus collaboration abilities) such as Google Docs and Spreadsheets, ZOHO, and ThinkFree, so Mac users will have more functionality firepower than the common online offerings. Smart tools in iWork like the Contextual Format Bar in Pages and Keynote's new Magic Move features are the type of the things you won't find in online favorites.
Keynote
Past versions of Keynote have always won us over, and new features in Keynote '09 only make iWork better. Easy-to-use graphics tools and a variety of animation effects help you make eye-catching presentations, and a slew of new transitions and intuitive animation effects add to this presentation program's appeal.
The new Magic Move tool lets you automatically animate images, graphics, and text by choosing from several preset slide transitions. Keynote will automatically resize, rotate, and change the position of objects between slides with one of several 3D effects. We especially like the options for text animation, which let you make creative transitions by switching letters from one slide into a new message on the next using unique new visual effects such as Sparkle, Anagram, and Swing.
New styles and animations are available for 3D charts in Keynote '09, letting you make graphs with beveled edges, cylinder shapes, and 3D textures. We like that the new build effects use 3D motion to animate your charts, making them more eye-catching, too.
To reduce file size for your presentations, Keynote '09 has implemented a way to optimize video files. Now you can clip your videos to just the segment you want, and Keynote trims any unused video frames. You also can easily convert images to slide resolution to trim even more.
Pages
Pages '09 offers feature-rich word processing and layout tools alongside intuitive graphics features to make your projects both easy to make and easy on the eyes. Though not as deep as Microsoft Word for formatting and layout options, Pages now offers even more variety with 40 new templates, including stationary sets and a variety of newsletter designs. Added support for EndNote X2 (sold separately) makes adding bibliographic references to your project extremely easy, and new support for MathType 6 (sold separately) makes adding mathematical equations a snap.
New features to Pages '09 include a full-screen view to eliminate distractions while you write. While you work in full-screen, just mouse to the top and left side of your screen to quickly reveal Pages' Contextual Format Bar and a navigation pane. There are several third-party apps available that offer similar distraction-free writing and we were happy to see this feature added to Apple's word processor. While Microsoft Word offers a full-screen reading layout, Apple's use of the black background with mouseable menus only when you want them makes it even more distraction free.
Pages '09 also adds dynamic outlines, letting you collapse and expand your bullet points with the click of your mouse, drag-and-drop topics to anywhere you like, and add elements such as images and video. Helpful options, including the ability to collapse outlines to the first line of lengthy topics, make it easy to get to the information you want to modify quickly, keeping your outlines about ideas.
You also can now use data from any Numbers (Apple's spreadsheet app noted below) table directly in Pages. But what makes this feature truly useful is that your table or graph will automatically update in Pages with the click of a button when you update data in the Numbers file.
Numbers
Numbers '09 has now been in the wild for a year and--with several new enhancements adding even more time-saving features--it's obvious Apple has been paying attention to its audience. While it keeps the familiar feel of Microsoft's Excel, Numbers '09 offers much smarter ways of dealing with data, tables, and charts. While engineers, accountants, and science-related professionals may require some of Excel's more robust tools, those with small businesses or other spreadsheet-related needs will find Numbers '09 easy to work with. New, Apple-designed templates for common spreadsheet needs (such as a check register and savings calculator) are also included giving beginners easy starting points.
Formula writing is even easier with Numbers '09 with added features like color-coded placeholders and plain-language help tags and pop-up menus for commonly used values. Figuring out how to calculate how much to put away for your child's education over the course of time, for example, is made much easier with clearly labeled functions that require only a couple of clicks to include in your spreadsheet.
The function browser in Numbers '09 has also received a much-needed upgrade, now with more than 250 functions, complete with built-in help that explains each function along with examples so you can quickly figure out which ones you need for the project at hand.
New chart options let you combine line, column, and area series into a mixed chart letting you create advanced charts with trend lines and error bars. Even more impressive, if the presentation style is different--with animated 3D charts for a Keynote presentation or simple 2D diagrams for printed materials in Pages--all of the data is pulled from the same Numbers file using only a couple of clicks from within each app.
Service and Support
We found the help database within iWork '09 very easy to navigate with information covering topics in all three programs. Several video tutorials make some of the more complex processes much easier to understand. When neither of those fulfilled our needs, a quick search of Apple's iWork support site and online forums became the best resource. iWork buyers receive 90 days of unlimited free telephone support for installation, launch, or reinstallation. Three years of telephone support is offered for a hefty $49 per incident through AppleCare. Users can also seek help at the Genius Bars at Apple stores or attend free workshops offered by stores.
Conclusion
iWork '09 makes many of the already user-friendly features from last year's version even easier. While there is some learning curve to get up and running for former Microsoft Office users, iWork '09 offers an extremely intuitive interface and has plenty of advanced time-saving features to make it a worthy replacement for the much more pricey Microsoft solution. The lack of an integrated business-level e-mail client is still a disappointment, but Apple's included Mail program preinstalled on Macs will suffice in most cases. Though iWork.com is a welcome addition for sharing iWork files online, we would have liked a more collaborative online solution, but we expect this is probably slated for future versions.
Publisher's Description
From Apple:
iWork, Apple's productivity suite, is the easiest way to create great-looking documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. Writing and page layout are easy using Pages. Numbers gives you simple ways to make sense of your data. New cinematic animations, transitions, and effects in Keynote will keep your audience captivated. And iWork is compatible with Microsoft Office, so sharing your work is even easier.
What's new in this version: This update adds support for Mac OS X Lion and takes advantage of the following features:
- Full Screen
- Resume
- Auto Save
- Versions
More Popular Office Suites downloads
- Microsoft Office 2011
10,803 downloads
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3,304 downloads
- Microsoft Office 2008
2,420 downloads
- Apple iWork
790 downloads
- NeoOffice
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All versions:
3.9 starsout of 20 votes
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Current version:
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My rating:
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"Downloaded but never installed."
Version: Apple iWork 9.0.5
Pros
No comment.
Cons
No comment.
Summary
No comment.
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"It is certainly a plus."
Version: Apple iWork 9.0.4
Pros
Works well.
Cons
I do not like having to click on the blank document all of the time.
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"Pages Beats Word Hands Down"
Version: Apple iWork 9.0.4
Summary
This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.
We use Pages as the only word processor in our law office. We have effectively done away with Word. Pages is far superior in nearly every way. If you give Pages a chance, if you learn Pages and don't demand it have the same interface as Word, you will quickly discover that Pages kicks Word's butt.
The first thing it is is stable. That alone makes it superior to Word. However, it is fast, has tons of features, and clean. MS Office is bloated. Word is slow. Word is buggy. And of course, Word and MS Office is expensive and poorly supported on Macintosh. Pages is a gazelle, Word is an elephant.
Serious writers should look hard at Pages. If it works in a law firm, with line numbered documents, and the very strict formatting requirements court's require, it will work for most people.
We switched out of frustration over the slowness and instability of MS Office. However, even if Microsoft were to suddenly fix their software, an unlikely possibility, we'd stay with Pages. This program is clean, stable, and well done. Nice work, Apple.
And Keynote is exceptional. Numbers, I can't vouch for. But it seems easier to use than Excel. -
"a great document,spread sheet,and power point maker!"
Version: Apple iWork 9.0.2
Pros
has many different templets! more than microsoft word 2008 for mac!
Cons
--no cons this time--
Summary
worth getting than microsoft office 2008 (mac)
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"'09 is the Office replacement"
Version: Apple iWork 9.0.2
Summary
This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.
OK, that's not quite true, but iWorks '09 is the first release for which that's not a ridiculous statement. Very briefly, I find Pages much nicer than Word, Numbers about equal to Excel (I use both, depending on my needs), and Keynote not quite as useful as PowerPoint. (This is true for both Office '08 and '04.)
I use Pages to write scientific papers and documents. I need moderately fancy layout capabilities (to incorporate graphics into my documents) and aside from that I need it to stay out of my way. Pages loads much faster and is much more responsive than Word, and it's more stable. Incorporating graphics into my documents is so much easier than Word I can't begin to tell you how much time I've saved. Importing and exporting from and to Word is seamless (occasionally there are notes that something didn't import perfectly, but I can rarely spot the difference even when it's flagged). Exporting to Word on the fly -- directly to email, for example -- is effortless and completely solves the problem of collaboration. In earlier versions of iWorks I had problems with references and bibliographies, but Bookends (from Sonny Software) works fine with '09. (I understand Endnote does as well, but haven't tried it.) I only fire up Word these days when I forget and double-click on a doc instead of the faster right-clicking and opening in Pages.
Numbers has finally grown up. I couldn't use the previous version because it couldn't do a number of things (error bars and trend lines were the two worst, as I recall) but they're now working fine. There are still a couple problems -- Excel imports CSV and tab-delimited files much better -- but Numbers' workflow and model seems much more sensible now that I'm used to it. Again, Numbers launches faster and is more responsive and stable than Excel. I use Numbers for about 80% of my charting/spreadsheet needs.
Keynote, I rarely use, though it's certainly not bad. PowerPoint seems a little more versatile, and though Keynote probably has better templates and transitions, I don't use templates or transitions much. Powerpoint is nicer for exporting in different formats (e.g. as notes) which is important since it lets me output my lectures as notes very easily.
All in all, the package as a whole is as useful as Office. Depending on your specific needs you might have some requirement for an Office feature that's not present in iWorks, but for the vast majority I think iWorks would be at least as function, and I think for almost everyone it's going to be faster, more responsive, and just easier to use. -
"Keynote & Numbers -good Pages - bleh."
Version: Apple iWork 9.0.1update1
Summary
This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.
I have tried so hard to like Pages. There is probably no program I have worked harder at trying get it do what it is supposed to do.
Unfortunately it is Apple's muddled shot at a DTP program, sort of, oh and a Word Processor, sort of. As in the movie "The Fly" the two seem to have had the worst of each others DNA fused. Full of bone headed ideas about user interaction which go to show why no-one else is reinventing the wheel to put several corners on it. All poorly support by useless Help and a really poorly written User Guide.
At face value it looks OK. Nice looking interface with <i>very</i> good templates. Scratch the surface and try to do real work and you find the mess beneath.
It has a crazy split between "Word Processing mode" and "Layout mode" because the Apple programmers didn't have a clue how to just get it to do both. Odd unannounced functions fail in one or the other. Strangest of all the Word Processor has the somewhat primitive Master Pages and Layout has none. The Layout mode is the more shambolic of the 2 with so many things that don't work it would be hard to list them all.
The Spelling checker in both has to be one of the worst implemented of any program I have ever seen. It is constantly confounding users and seems mostly to just not work. Period.
WARNING TIM ROBINSON: Do not take anything produced from this to a commercial printer. This is strictly for your desktop printer.
WARNING: Do not believe Apple's assurances of compatibility with Ms Office. To give this its technical definition, that is largely a lie. So much does not work either opening or saving to Word that it is just better avoided and only used as a last resort.
WARNING: Be prepared to spend a lot of time finding out how to do things and what has gone wrong. Again! The documentation and Help plain suck.
As this is a review of iWork I have to say that Keynote and Numbers are both great products.
Pity Pages lets the suite down and leaves Apple users still without a decent Word Processor or Database since Apple terminated AppleWorks. -
"A few improvements, but a lot of disappointments"
Version: Apple iWork 09
Summary
This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.
Don't be fooled. This is not a truly new version of the iWork suite. Although it continues the strengths of iWork 2008, especially in Keynote, Apple has not addressed many of the weaknesses that prevent iWork from being a serious office suite suitable for business. For iWork 2008 users who can spare $79 to upgrade to iWork 2009, the investment is marginally worth it. If you want to save your money and skip this upgrade, you will not miss much.
All three applications deliver some improvements in terms of functionality, integration, and ease of use. Some of the improvements will be pleasant surprises, but I haven't found any breakthrough "must have" new features.
Pages and Numbers continue to be disappointing. Apple has not addressed some very basic weaknesses that prevent the two otherwise attractive applications from replacing Microsoft Office in most businesses that, like mine, produce a lot of documents and spreadsheets.
Global strengths:
Although Numbers and Pages do not have the functionality of Excel and Word, they are easier to learn and easier to use. As an experienced user of both suites, I find that I can create a document much faster in the iWork suite than using Microsoft Office.
On my basic MacBook, at least, the iWork applications run noticeably faster.
Global weaknesses:
The Help function remains vague for all three applications. The search function is inaccurate and the information, if you find it, is very basic.
iWork 09 file formats are not compatible with iWork 08. For organizations that use iWork 08, this is a significant disincentive to upgrade.
Files tend to be much larger than those produced by their counterparts in Microsoft Office.
iWork does not have an export or import capability for Open Document files. Currently more users worldwide use OpenOffice.org and NeoOffice, the two leading open source office suites for Mac, than iWork.
Pages:
Despite its shortcomings, Pages is easy to use. The user has a greater sense of "control" over what is happening on the screen than is sometimes the case with Word, especially with format changes. Formatting is much easier than with Word.
Pages continues to lack, however, several basic functions. I am sure that there are other shortcomings that annoy other users, but here is my list.
- You still cannot change paper size or orientation within a document. Instead, you must break the document into separate files.
- File sizes tend to be larger than in .doc format.
- Pages still lacks an auto-recover capability.
- The search and replace functions are still very primitive.
- Spell checking remains unreliable.
- You still cannot change text orientation in tables.
Numbers
I remain puzzled by Apple's apparent refusal to invest the relatively slight effort needed to make this application better than Excel. The tables-based structure of Numbers makes it much easier to use than Excel. It produces better looking spreadsheets. However, there are at least two weaknesses that keep it from being the first choice for individuals and businesses who need spreadsheets that not only look pretty but also do "industrial strength" data analysis.
- Numbers cannot link a cell in one spreadsheet file to a cell in another spreadsheet file.
- The charting function is very inflexible and primitive.
Keynote
Keynote remains vastly superior to Powerpoint. It is worth the $79 price just to have this application
Bottom line: I am disappointed that Apple would charge $79 for a version that introduces marginal improvements and leaves so many basic flaws unaddressed. I have to give iWork 09 a positive review, but there still are some curious weaknesses that prevent the suite from reaching its full potential.
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"Find & Replace Functionality Still Too Limited for..."
Version: Apple iWork 09
Summary
...Full-time Use
This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.
The following applies specifically to Pages â??09 rather than being attributable also to Numbers and Keynote.
Observations:
â?¢ Although still not as crisp and clear as text on a Word page, antialiased text in Pages â??09 is much less blurry than in previous versions of Pages, so Pages â??09 is now viable as a replacement of Microsoft Word, as long as Find & Replace functionality is significantly expanded in the near future.
â?¢ Unable to search for bold, italic, underlined, subscript, superscript, or highlighted text, or text with specific fonts, colors, etc., within documents in which the original writer did not define styles (did not use a style sheet).
â?¢ Unable to use clipboard content for Replace All, such as when replacing all instances of â??CO2â?? with the equivalent that contains the proper subscript number.
â?¢ Unable to specifically search for only one-byte or two-byte characters within a document, unlike the Japanese version of Word (or with Japanese enabled via Microsoft Language Register).
â?¢ Unable to automatically convert double-byte characters to their single-byte equivalents or vice versa.
â?¢ Unable to search upward.
â?¢ Unable to search for combinations of unspecified numbers and letters or use any other wildcard searches.
â?¢ Unable to search for unspecified uppercase letters or combinations of uppercase and lowercase letters.
â?¢ Unable to highlight text if the desired color is already selected in the Apple, Developer, Crayons, and Web Safe Colors subpalettes in the Show Colors formatting palette, so a different neighboring color has to be temporarily selected before reselecting the desired color to be applied to the current text selection.
â?¢ Difficult to identify the applied highlight color of selected text, as the System Preferenceâ??s default Highlight Color is still used even for highlighted text instead of Pages using a color that directly contrasts with the applied highlight color, as is standard in Word.
â?¢ Word files with first line indentation lose most of their indentation when opened in Pages.
Desires:
â?¢ An option in Preferences that enables certain Viewsâ??especially Show Invisiblesâ??by default for all documents, whether newly created or imported from Word format
â?¢ Access to the Inspector via the pointer while inputting search (and replace) criteria in the fields of the Find & Replace dialog box, as most documents do not have styles defined by the original author
â?¢ Ability to search across all open documents and search upward to find the previous instance of any criteria
â?¢ Fullest possible regular expression search via the Find & Replace dialog box but preferably selectable from a pulldown menu with natural user-friendly language.
â?¢ Ability to apply the currently selected color in the Show Colors palette as highlighting for any selected text via a single click (without having to deselect the desired color first) and then have immediate visual feedback that the highlighting has been successful by displaying the text selection highlight in a color that directly contrasts with the applied highlight color. -
"Pages '08: Good product, but strange shortcomings"
Version: Apple iWork 08
Summary
This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.
These comments relate solely to Pages. We are still evaluating Numbers and Keynote.
Our firm has been evaluating the Pages component of the iWork 08 suite for one month, with a view to using it as our primary word processor in a document-intensive business.
This is a good product: easy to use and capable of producing great results. The "layout mode" is fabulous for producing more sophisticated or complex documents. We also like the integration with other Apple applications.
There is a little bit of a learning curve for those used to Microsoft Word, OpenOffice.org, or NeoOffice, because some of the logic underlying Pages is different. Actually, this is more of an "unlearning" curve, because one must unlearn some of the more cumbersome processes, such as formatting, that these other apps use.
There have been several shortcomings, however, that dampen our enthusiasm for this product. Some of these are really strange to find in an application that is elegant and a very good value otherwise. For example:
1. The help function is vague in places. Simple document formatting tasks can take a long time for a first-time user to figure out.
Lesson learned: Be ready to spend some significant time learning how to use Pages to its full capability.
2. On-line support at www.apple.com is non-existent -- no "Knowledge Base" or FAQs, just a PDF users manual and a support forum with apparently little or no interaction with Apple staff. (Where is an Apple "genius" when you really need one.?)
Lesson learned: Disappointing products usually have disappointing support.
3. There is no auto-recovery. If the application crashes -- and Pages crashes more often than it should -- all unsaved work is lost.
Lesson learned: Save save save save.
4. When closing a document in Pages, be sure that you have also saved all other documents that you want to keep open. About half of the time, Pages crashes under these circumstances. When this happens all unsaved data in the documents that you want to keep open is lost.
Lesson learned: Save all open documents before closing any of them.
5. The "layout" mode is great! However, you cannot switch between "layout" and "word processing" modes on the fly. A document created in "layout" mode cannot be opened and edited using the more powerful and efficient functions of the "word processing" mode.
Lesson learned: Decide which mode to use before you start.
6. There is no support for Open Document format.
Lesson learned: Keep that copy of OpenOffice.org or NeoOffice up to date.
Summary: This is a good product, and a big improvement over the iWork '06 version. It still has some problems that keep it from being a solid business application.
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"Demon Boy"
Version: Apple iWork 08
Summary
This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.
AWESOME, The 08 is the best yet. Looks like Apple is starting to think about quality again. They lost their way for awhile there.
