MASTERCLASS
Create top–quality documents with Apple’s brilliant iWork apps: Pages, Numbers, and Keynote
Apple’s productivity suite has come a long way.
Originally sold as a collection called iWork, the three apps — aword processor called Pages, the Numbers spreadsheet application, and Keynote for presentations — are now available separately, and they’re all free.
The iWork apps are built with user– friendliness in mind, but not at the cost of features. Pages, Numbers and Keynote are likely to offer everything you need, and right at your fingertips. You can learn the basics of each app in about half an hour, and expert features are within easy reach too. As well as using the iWork apps on your Mac, iPad and iPhone, you can also log on to the iCloud website iCloud.com) with your Apple account and access web–based versions of the apps, even picking up where you left off with a document you saved earlier.
In this guide, we show you how to get to grips with Pages, Numbers and Keynote. Assuming no prior knowledge, we teach you how to create your first document. Taking things further, we also bring you a selection of pro tips to help you get even more from your Apple productivity apps. So what are you waiting for? Let’s see what the suite can do.
Pages: Apple’s word processor
Make awesome documents, flyers and more
Pages offers a comprehensive set of features. You can use it to create stunning documents containing charts, pictures, shapes, tables, and even videos as well as text. You can flow text around objects for that professional look, and there’s a huge range of templates to choose from.
When you open a new document from the File menu or by pressing Cmd+N, you’re offered a choice of templates. If you want to proceed without using a template, choose one of the "blank" options. It’s a good idea to familiarize yourself with the templates. Starting with one and changing its text and graphics is much easier than starting from scratch, and playing around with the templates helps introduce you to what the app can do.
In the Pages right–hand sidebar, click the Format button in the top–right section of the toolbar for the text tools, then click the Style tab. Use this to style your text. The Font section uses pull–down menus to change the font, choose from variations on the font (usually Regular by default), and the arrows let you change the point size. Or double–click on the window showing the point size and type it in.
In the Style tab, to change the text color, highlight the text you want to change, click the box marked Text Color and choose a new one. Alternatively, you can pick a new color first, without highlighting text, and type in t
