Skip to main content

New iWork for iCloud Works With Your Apple Devices

How the New iWork for iCloud Works With Your Apple Devices
Back in June, during its WWDC conference, Apple released the beta version of its iWork for iCloud applications to registered developers, but now the online programs are slowly being released to general iCloud members.
iWork for iCloud is a suite of online office applications (consisting of Pages, Keynote, and Numbers) that sync with the Mac and iOS versions of the programs. The online versions of iWork mirror most of the main features of the desktop versions, and users will be able to import and edit Word files online as well. The final version of iWork for iCloud will likely be available with the public release of OS X Mavericks, sometime this Fall.
But in the meantime, here’s what you can expect when you finally get your hands on iWork for iCloud.

How It Works

To use iWork for iCloud, you basically enable iCloud on your all your Apple devices. If the beta version of iWork for iCloud has been released to you, you should see all three application icons on the dashboard of your iCloud account, at iCloud.com.
IWork for iCloud
Next, when you create a Pages, Keynote, or Numbers document on your Mac, you will see the option to save it to iCloud, which in turn gets synced across all your devices that have corresponding iWork applications installed.
IWork for iCloud 4
The first time you save a Mac version of an iWork document to iCloud, a backup copy will automatically be saved online as well. When you update and make changes to the document, and then go online to view the iCloud copy, you will be asked if you want to preserve the original copy or click open a new copy.
Edits you make on an iWork document will automatically get synced to your other devices, without you even having to click the save button. The updates can take several seconds to show up on other devices. Edits are automatically applied to the Mac and iOS versions of documents, but in the online version of documents, you will get a notice of updates.
IWork for iCloud 2
The biggest plus to using iWork across platforms is that you never have to worry about losing all the work you put into a document. You can also view prior drafts of your iWork documents on your Mac (File > Revert To > Browse All Versions…), or select it from the title bar as shown below.
IWork browse all versions

iWork for iCloud Features

Most of the main features of iWork for OS X and iOS are available in the iCloud versions, but not all. In the current beta version you will be reminded that features not supported in iWork for iCloud will be removed. This is why you should select “Open Copy” when you are asked whether you want to open the original version of the online file or create a copy.
IWork for iCloud 5
Some of the features not yet supported in the online applications include user comments on documents, voiceover narration in Keynote ’09, linked text boxes, and table categories. Additionally, forms in the iOS version of Numbers are hidden when you open the spreadsheet in Numbers for iCloud beta. See this document for a full list of features not yet supported in iWork for iCloud.
You can create new documents in iWork for iCloud, which also contains templates for each of the programs.
IWork for iCloud templates
The online applications include many of the essential features and tools for creating documents and projects. Each program includes Text, Formatting, Shape, and Image importing and manipulations tools.
IWork for iCloud Pages
Numbers for iCloud also includes multiple table presets, data formatting, and cell manipulation.
IWork for iCloud Numbers
iWork for iCloud also allows you to import Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents, as you can on the Mac. If there are any conflicts between versions of documents, iCloud will allow you to choose which document to resolve that conflict.
IWork for iCloud conflicts

Popular posts from this blog

How To Hide Text In Microsoft Word 2007, Reveal It & Protect It

Sometimes what we hide is more important than what we reveal. Especially, documents with sensitive information, some things are supposed to be ‘for some eyes only’. Such scenarios are quite common, even for the more un-secretive among us. You want to show someone a letter composed in MS Word, but want to keep some of the content private; or it’s an official letter with some part of it having critical data. As important as these two are, the most common use could involve a normal printing job. Many a time we have to print different versions of a document, one copy for one set of eyes and others for other sets. Rather than creating multiple copies and therefore multiple printing jobs, what if we could just do it from the same document?  That too, without the hassle of repeated cut and paste. We can, with a simple feature in MS Word – it’s just called Hidden and let me show you how to use it to hide text in Microsoft Word 2007. It’s a simple single click process. Open the docum...
1 comment
Read more

Build Your Own Awesome Personal 3D Avatar with Avatara

Do you use social networks and want to build your own awesome 3D avatar? Maybe you want to send someone a cute cuddly image of yourself (kind of)? Or maybe you have your own ideas of what you would do with an Avatar… Well look no further than Avatara which I discovered from the MakeUseOf directory . You can create 3d avatars out of pre-set up templates or create your own from scratch. To start, visit Avatara’s homepage . You will see this screen: Click Get Started to umm, get started! That will take you to this screen: You see that you can build your own Avatar using an uploaded head shot like the Obama one above (just an example, guys). Or roll with one of their awesome avatars. I chose to start with a blank avatar by clicking Start with a blank avatar at the bottom of the screen. That takes you to here: I clicked on the filter at the top and told it to filter out everything but male characters and then I saw this: I rolled with Buck and continued. You need to click Select...
1 comment
Read more

Ex-Skypers Launch Virtual Whiteboard Deekit

Although seriously long in the tooth and being disrupted by a plethora of startups, for many years Skype has existed as an almost ubiquitous app in any remote team’s toolkit. So it seems apt that a new startup founded by a team of ex-Skype employees is set to tackle another aspect of online collaboration. Deekit, which exits private beta today, is a virtual and collaborative whiteboard to help remote teams work smarter. The Tallinn, Estonia-based startup is headed up by founder and CEO, Kaili Kleemeier, who was previously a Head of Operations at Skype. She and three colleagues quit the Internet calling giant in 2012 and spent a year researching ideas in the remote team space. They ended up focusing on creating a new virtual whiteboard, born out of Kleemeier’s experience collaborating with technical teams remotely, specifically helping Skype deal with incident management. “Working with remote teams has been a challenge in many ways – cultural differences, language differences, a...
Post a Comment
Read more