iWork is a suite of applications created by Apple Inc., containing Pages, a word processing and desktop publishing application, Keynote, a presentation package and Numbers, a spreadsheet application .

Although iWork is billed by Apple as "a successor to AppleWorks" , it does not replicate the functionality of AppleWorks's database and drawing tools. Likewise, it does not compete directly with the Mac version of Microsoft Office, but instead offers tools with a different focus (presentation, instead of analysis) at a lower price. It is designed to integrate with existing applications from Apple's iLife Suite. Although iLife comes free on every Mac, iWork is sold separately. A free 30-day trial of iWork is provided with every new Mac, and with copies of iLife.

Pages

Main article: Pages

Pages is a word processing application with an emphasis on presentation. It comes with a set of Apple-designed templates for presentations including:

Newsletters

Journals

Invitations

Stationery

Résumés

Education Projects

Marketing Projects

Pages incorporates a media browser for inserting pictures, music, and video from iPhoto, iTunes, and iMovie. Pages allows the user to save or export in formats including:

Pages documents (.pages)

Microsoft Word files (.doc)

Portable Document Format files (.pdf)

Web Pages (.html)

Rich text files (.rtf)

Plain text files (.txt)

Pages can't open, edit or save to OpenDocument files.

Keynote

Main article: Keynote (software)

Keynote is a slideshow application with an emphasis on presentation. It is similar in many ways to Microsoft's PowerPoint, but contains several features native to the iWork suite. Keynote makes use of iLife integration by including a media browser for inserting pictures, music, and video from iPhoto, iTunes, and iMovie. Keynote also features the ability to include animation in slideshow presentations. Keynote is quite versatile in its ability to recognize and save to many formats, including:

Keynote presentations (.key)

Microsoft PowerPoint presentations (.ppt)

QuickTime movies (.mov), which may be interactive depending on one's choice.

Adobe Flash animations (.swf)

PDF Acrobat PDF document (.pdf)

Import any image format recognized by QuickTime, export several image formats (.jpg, .png or .tiff)

and export to YouTube

Numbers

Main article: Numbers (software)

Numbers is a spreadsheet application that was added in iWork '08. It incorporates unique features such as intelligent tables, a flexible canvas and interactive printing.

It is the first time a spreadsheet application has been included in the iWork suite and the first spreadsheet application developed by Apple since AppleWorks.

History

iWork '05

iWork '05 was launched on January 11, 2005 and featured the new version 2 of Keynote and the first release of Pages. Before it was released, what would essentially become iWork was rumoured to be an add-on, upgrade, or new release of Appleworks.

iWork '06

On January 10, 2006, Apple introduced iWork '06 at the Macworld Expo in San Francisco, which upgraded Pages to version 2 and Keynote to version 3. New features common to both applications included 3D charts, tables with formula support, reviewer comments, and shaped image masking. The addition of tables with formula support may have been added to quiet rumors of an Apple spreadsheet application. Since iWork's focus is on presentation, Apple incorporated a way to put most common spreadsheet features into a table while providing only limited extra functionality.

iWork '08

iWork '08 was announced on August 7, 2007 at a special event at Apple's Cupertino campus. New versions of Pages and Keynote were introduced, as was a new spreadsheet application, Numbers. Despite this, hard disk space requirements were reduced from 1.85 GB in iWork '06 to 690 MB in iWork '08. iWork '08 marked the end of AppleWorks which was discontinued a week later.