Macs In Life

In the past we have dealt with the “Free” iLife applications,I thought I would do a quick how to with iLifes big brother, iWork. iWork is a suite of applications, Pages (a word processor), Numbers, (A spreadsheet application), and Keynote (a presentation application). Apples sells these applications for a surprisingly low $79.00 as compares to the Microsoft offering of $189.00 or more. (I have to qualify the “or more” as Microsoft uses multiple tiers of pricing, even though I am not sure why.)

Get the free trial

As well as the boxed version that you can buy at the Apple store or Best Buy, Apple offers a free 30 day trial. One thing to remember though is if you don’t intend to upgrade after 30 days, remember to save any new or changed files back in the iWork ’08 format just in case they don’t work any more once your trial expires. You can do this by choosing iWork ’08 from the "Save copy as" menu in the Save As dialog. Another tip on formats, is that if you need to share any documents, you can use the export function to share them with your Microsoft using counterparts.

Export has moved

Speaking of Export, The export command that used to be in the File menu has now moved to the Share menu. Also, remember that if you want to export to Microsoft Word, you can now do this directly from the Save As… option.

Temporarily disable guide lines

When moving objects, all the iWork applications give alignment guides that will show when the objects are perfectly in line with each other. Sometimes, when you don’t want objects aligned or you want to align them in a different way, this can be quite annoying. The way to temporarily disable the guide lines is to hold down the command key while you are dragging the object. Now your shape, image or text box can be freely dragged to whatever position you want.

Password protect documents

This is something that has been difficult to do on the Mac for quite some time. The early solution would force you to create an encrypted disk images, but now all the iWork applications have a "Require password to open" option in the Document section of the Inspector. Which will save you some time, as creating the encrypted disk images was time consuming.

iWork does take some getting used to, especially if you are a switcher. However, the more you use it the “simpler” it will become. Not only is Pages a GREAT word processor, but works great for laying out publications, such as newsletters.

What do you use, and why? Let us know in the comments.