Apple’s iWork productivity apps for iOS and macOS—Pages, Numbers and Keynote—were updated Tuesday morning with a bunch of really cool, compelling new features, as promised.
In line with Apple’s education-focused press event earlier today, fans of Pages, Keynote and Numbers for iPhone and iPad can now use their Apple Pencil to draw, write and annotate directly in their documents, presentations and spreadsheets on a compatible device.
In addition to bringing your documents and projects to life with drawings, illustrations, diagrams and more, Apple Pencil can also be used to easily and precisely add color, texture and other items to any drawing. A set of newly implemented real-time collaboration tools available in these apps allow students to explore and learn together.
A Presenter mode in Pages transforms your iOS device into a virtual teleprompter for distraction-free reading. The text can auto scroll at an adjustable speed and its size, spacing, font and background color are all customizable during text playback. You can even collaborate in real-time in Pages, Numbers and Keynote documents stored in Box.
Book creation, available in Pages for iOS and macOS, let anyone create interactive digital books that display in iBooks. There are a variety of Apple-designed templates to get you started with book creation, 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,” said Apple. You can even collaborate in real time on book projects with other folks.
A new Smart Annotation feature is also very cool.
Smart Annotations in Pages dynamically anchors proof marks to text within a document
Available in Pages, this new feature lets you give, receive and incorporate feedback in a document using your Apple Pencil. What’s great about Smart Annotation is that your comments and proof marks are dynamically anchored to text and move as you move text around. As another user integrates feedback and the document changes, remaining annotations will stay with the text they were attached to.
Smart Annotation is currently in beta.
Pages 4.0 for iOS
- Draw, write, and annotate using Apple Pencil on supported devices or use your finger.
- Easily add drawings with pen, pencil, crayon, and fill tools.
- Use Smart Annotation Beta to add comments and marks that stay anchored to their associated text.
- Make beautiful digital books using new book templates.
- Collaborate in real time on documents stored in Box.
- Add an image gallery to view a collection of photos on the same page.
- Use presenter mode to easily read and auto scroll text while giving a speech.
- Create and edit paragraph styles and character styles.
- View pages side by side as you work.
- Turn on facing pages to format your document as two-page spreads.
- Create master pages to keep the design consistent across your page layout document.
- Change your document orientation to landscape or portrait.
- Enhance your documents with a variety of new editable shapes.
- Use donut charts to visualize data in an engaging new way.
- Use conditional highlighting in tables to change the appearance of a cell when the value meets specified conditions.
- New option to automatically format fractions as you type.
- Apple Pencil currently works on all iPad Pro models and the just-refreshed 9.7-inch iPad.
Pages 7.0 for macOS
- Make beautiful digital books using new book templates.
- Collaborate in real time on documents stored in Box. Requires macOS High Sierra.
- View pages side by side as you work.
- Turn on facing pages to format your document as two-page spreads.
- Add an image gallery to view a collection of photos on the same page.
- Create master pages to keep the design consistent across your page layout document.
- Use doughnut charts to visualise data in an engaging new way.
- Enhance your documents with a variety of new editable shapes.
- Additional options for reducing the file size of documents.
- New option to automatically format fractions as you type.
Numbers 4.0 for iOS
- Draw and write with Apple Pencil on supported devices, or use your finger
- Collaborate in real time on spreadsheets stored in Box.
- Use conditional highlighting in tables to change the appearance of a cell when the value meets specified conditions.
- Powerful new options for sorting and filtering tables.
- Improved, customizable import of CSV and text data, with support for custom delimiters and fixed-width files.
- Use donut charts to visualize data in an engaging new way.
- Add an interactive image gallery to view a collection of photos.
- Enhance spreadsheets with a variety of new editable shapes.
- Full bidirectional support for Arabic and Hebrew.
Numbers 5.0 for macOS
- Collaborate in real time on spreadsheets stored in Box. Requires macOS High Sierra.
- Use doughnut charts to visualise data in an engaging new way.
- Add an interactive image gallery to view a collection of photos.
- Enhance spreadsheets with a variety of new editable shapes.
- Improved, customisable import of CSV and text data, with support for custom delimiters and fixed-width files.
- Additional options for reducing the file size of spreadsheets.
- Full bidirectional support for Arabic and Hebrew.
Keynote 4.0 for iOS
- Draw and write with Apple Pencil on supported devices, or use your finger.
- Animate drawings during slideshows.
- Collaborate in real time on presentations stored in Box.
- Easily change the theme of a presentation.
- Adjust presentation slide size and aspect ratio.
- Use donut charts to visualize data in an engaging new way.
- Add an interactive image gallery to view a collection of photos.
- Enhance presentations with a variety of new editable shapes.
- Pages, Numbers and Keynote on iOS and Mac are available at no charge and even come preloaded onto most devices.
Keynote 8.0 for macOS
- Collaborate in real time on presentations stored in Box. Requires macOS High Sierra.
- Use donut charts to visualize data in an engaging new way.
- Add an interactive image gallery to view a collection of photos.
- Enhance presentations with a variety of new editable shapes.
- Additional options for reducing the file size of presentations.
Grab Pages, Keynote and Numbers for iOS on App Store or update your copy of Pages, Keynote and Numbers for macOS through Mac App Store.