Doing the Office Thing With iWork iPad Applications

There are some things that you do with the computer, that just about everybody will do with a computer. It’s kind of in the DNA of using a computer, and so there are a number of apps which have been created of a sort, to allow you to do these tasks. Of course, one all these tasks is a word processing, and for that within the iWork universe we have, Pages. Another task that you are likely to do with a computer is to deal with numbers and calculations, or that we have the spreadsheet, called Numbers. One more thing, of the applications that so many people are likely to do, there has to be included, within the group of apps called office applications, we have Keynote for making presentations.

Choose the applications you want for iWork iPad

With the advent of the App Store application and the App Store for iPad applications as found in iTunes, Apple have pulled off a masterstroke by allowing us to buy just the apps from this group of applications, as we want them. No longer do you have to spend a whole pile of money, to get a suite of office applications, you can just buy the applications that you want. So from the iWork for Mac or the iWork iPad sets of applications, if all you do is word processing then all you need is Pages. When Apple set up iWork in this way they also reduced the prices, per application, so that if you did by all of them you would still be getting bargains, compared to buying something like MS office for iPad. By the way there is not a Microsoft Office for iPad, and for the moment, nor is there likely to be.

Why would you want to buy Pages when you can get Bean for free.

The word processor, Bean, is actually a quite capable word processor that you can get for the Mac, and it costs nothing at all. You would be able to do just about all that you needed to do, regards word processing, for free. The downside is that there is not a sister application for Bean to allow you to work on a document, in the same way on the iPad. So one of the benefits of using pages for word processing is the fact that you can learn one way of working, that will suit all the iWork iPad applications, that run on both the iOS devices and also on a Mac desktop or laptop computer.

Pages for iWorks iPad or The Free Bean

Another benefit of using Pages, over Bean, is the functionality and capabilities of the Pages application both on the OS X and also in iWork iPad. The Pages application, in my opinion is almost a full desktop publishing application, in the way that it handles text and images together.

Using this pair of word processing applications, Pages for the iPad along with pages on Mac OS X, will be further enhanced by iCloud. Apple are given us a service called iCloud in the autumn of 2011, which will make it really easy to work on a document in one place, say the iPad, stop, and then continue working on the same document using Pages on your desktop computer.

iCloud for Having Your Documents Everywhere

The way that iCloud will work, is that your documents will be continually saves to iCloud, as you are working on them, the document will also be then pushed out to your other iCloud enabled devices. You could have iWork on an iPhone, start a document in there, do a bit more to it in iWork iPad, finishing it off on your MacBook Pro. The best part of all this, is the fact that you don’t have to set anything up, it will do it all automatically. You will never have a problem in picking up where you left off with your work, when you are using any of the iCloud enabled applications.

Well Designed iWork iPad and OS X Applications

You will also be able to follow the same process of working, when you are using Numbers or Keynote. When you are using iWork iPad or OS X version, you will notice that the controls, dialogues and general way of working are all quite similar, so that it is easy for you to learn a new application within iWork iPad or iWork OS X.

Working With Numbers

Within iWork iPad, you have Numbers and with this you have a powerful spreadsheet application, that is also pretty. When you first open Numbers, you will 1st see a number of spreadsheets which you have, getting started information. You will learn that you can use Numbers in, either portrait or landscape mode and that it is easy to do the pinching the screen, to zoom in or out.

In Numbers there are tabs at the top of the page, touching these times will move you from one spreadsheet to another. The best thing to do with the Numbers application, is to read through the getting started information, and then play with it a little bit. Soon you’ll be able to add and remove columns, add cell content, and work with charts. When you first open the application, in landscape mode, it looks like there are only four tabs at the top of the screen, but if you touch and hold and move to the left, you will see that there are a lot more tabs, with more information about how to use Numbers for iWork iPad or iWorks iPad.

Moving documents to the iPad to work on them, is easy and you are able to do it through iTunes, iDisk or WebDAV. You can also create new spreadsheets from within the application on the iPad. No trouble to move spreadsheet files from the iPad to your computer using the same channels of distribution. This may also become easier when iCloud is available, although it is not particularly difficult moving files to iPad now.

Using Numbers app of iWork iPad To Create Spreadsheets

To get started, creating a new spreadsheet, tap on the button with a plus symbol, top left corner, then tap on create a spreadsheet. In the next screen you will see a number of templates, to choose from, to get you started. You have templates such as budget, checklist expense report and travel planner. Open up one of these templates and start to change the cells and columns to suit your own spreadsheet needs. Double tap with your finger on a cell to be able to edit the numbers or to enter new data.

Make a presentation in Keynote of iWork iPad

To make a presentation in Keynote on the iPad, it is pretty easy. When you open Keynote you are looking at a page that is the grey effect of linen and you will have a getting started presentation, plus any other presentations you have created. You can sort them by either date or name. To start a new presentation tap the plus button and then choose create a presentation. You can also copy from iTunes iDisk and WebDAV. First of all you will choose a theme and on my iPad now, I am looking one presentation with twelve possible themes, to choose from.

After you have chosen your theme, you are presented with the first slide, which will have some instructions. It is as simple as a double tap to edit text, and you can tap on the images, which will take you to a dialogue for choosing a photo from your photo roll.

It Is All There In The Buttons

In the top right-hand side of the menu bar, you will see five buttons that you can tap to get information about an object on the slide, there is a button for inserting media, tables, charts and shapes. The next button is for choosing transition effects, then there is a spanner icon, which is for share and print, find, presenters notes and one for settings. The last button to the right, you tap to play your presentation.

Over on the left side you can see all of your slides, when you start you will only have one, so tap the plus button at the bottom left-hand corner to add more. You will be presented with a group of eight slide types that you can choose from. There will be some with pictures, some that are text only, variations with text and images and a blank slide.

When you have a slide with images, the pictures that are shown in the default slide are just place holders and it is easy to change the photo to one that you have in your photo albums on the iPad. All in all, Keynote on the iPad, is very easy to use and to be able to create presentations, away from your main computer.

iWorks iPad or iWork iPad – What is in a name?

In the past there was the Works application from Apple and this is why some people mistakenly call iWork iPad, iWorks iPad. Same with the names used on the Mac OS X too. Whatever you want to call the applications, I think you will find them great for just about all office tasks. The only thing you might wish for a better application is if you want to do some heavy spreadsheet work and Numbers would not really be up to the job. Go to iWork download, otherwise known as The Apple App Store and grab yourself some Apple iWork Apps.