Apple is updating its iWork suite of productivity apps — Pages, Numbers and Keynote — with new features that make it easy to add more creativity to your documents, spreadsheets and presentations on iPad.
For the first time, users will be able to draw, sketch or write with Apple Pencil directly in the Pages, Numbers and Keynote apps. With Apple Pencil, advanced yet easy-to-use tools allow all users, from students to professionals, to bring their documents to life with drawings, illustrations, diagrams and more. Apple Pencil can also be used to easily and precisely add color, texture and more to any drawing.
Smart Annotation, launched today in beta, is an innovative new tool in Pages that allows users to easily give, receive and incorporate feedback in a document using Apple Pencil. With Smart Annotation, comments and proof marks will dynamically anchor to text. And as a user integrates feedback and the document changes, remaining annotations will stay with the text they were attached to.
“iWork is a powerful suite of apps designed for iPhone, iPad and Mac that is used in classrooms around the world,” said Susan Prescott, Apple’s vice president of Apps Product Marketing, in a statemnt. “With Apple Pencil support on iPad, the new Pages, Numbers and Keynote apps now let students bring a whole new level of creativity to their documents, spreadsheets and presentations, while the innovative new Smart Annotation feature gives students the ability to give, receive and incorporate feedback easier than ever before. Students can also use the built-in, real-time collaboration tools available in iWork to explore and learn together.”
Book creation is now possible in Pages for iOS and macOS, making it easy for anyone to create fun, interactive digital books, from short stories to travel books. Users can start a book using a variety of templates, and then customize it with drawings using iWork’s new drawing tools or with image galleries and videos from their Photos library. Users can collaborate in real time with their classmates or colleagues to create books together on iPad, iPhone, Mac and iCloud.com. Books can then be shared and will display beautifully in iBooks.
Additional new features include Presenter Mode in Pages, allowing users to transform their iPad or iPhone into a virtual teleprompter for distraction-free reading. The text can auto scroll at an adjustable speed, and text size, spacing, font and background color are all customizable during text playback. Integration with Box lets users collaborate in real-time in Pages, Numbers and Keynote documents stored in Box.
Apple also announced today the new 9.7-inch iPad, which supports Apple Pencil, delivers incredible performance for the most demanding tasks and provides access to the more than 1.3 million apps for iPad in the App Store, including the iWork suite of apps. Apple Pencil, available for purchase separately, brings breakthrough levels of precision and utility to iPad.
Pages, Numbers and Keynote on iOS and Mac are free and come preloaded onto most devices. Today’s updates are available to download on the App Store and Mac App Store.
Source: Apple Inc.
Numbers – Pivot Tables?
Should have had basic pencil support in iWork the day the first iPad Pro arrived. I’m happy it’s here now, but I can’t believe it took this long.
Ive was busy writing directions on how to hang a door to the spaceship campus.
Try activating two-page view when Pages is in full screen mode. It’s broken. 🙁
I’m elated they finally added two-page view! I’ve submitted feedback with every update of Pages since they introduced Pages 5, begging for the return of this feature from Pages ’09. Now I can finally retire the old version.
Wouldn’t it be great if you could link text boxes on both—or more—Pages!
I’m sure they won’t make Pages an actual page layout program…like Pages ‘09. Sad.
I am mystified why the excellent functionality of Pages was so drastically gutted. I cannot recommend it to my clients… as I used to pre-Pages5.
What are Mac micro-business owners supposed to do for page layout? Important functions are still missing.
I am delighted conditional highlighting has at last been added to Numbers. Something I used a lot on the Mac and was missing on iPad until now
I opened Pages about a year ago, I think.
But didn’t stay there, had work to do, so……….