14 DAY TRIAL // In making iWork free of charge and compatible with Mavericks, Apple decided to strip the productivity suite of some features. Customers didn’t like that, so now the company is forced to backtrack on that decision and reinstate some functionality.
In a Support document posted online, Apple explains why some of the changes in Pages, Keynote, and Numbers were necessary as customers were transitioning to OS X Mavericks.
“The new iWork applications—Pages, Numbers, and Keynote—were released for Mac on October 22nd. These applications were rewritten from the ground up to be fully 64-bit and to support a unified file format between OS X and iOS 7 versions, as well as iWork for iCloud beta.”
The Cupertino company mentions the new design and an intelligent format panel, as well as other new perks (such as Keynote’s new animations), in an attempt to appease the public.
However, it admits that “In rewriting these applications, some features from iWork ’09 were not available for the initial release.”
As such, Apple is now planning on bringing back some of these features. Not all at once, but “on an ongoing basis,” according to KB article HT6049. A breakdown of these features, for each app in particular, is available below.
Pages
Customize toolbar Vertical ruler Improved alignment guides Improved object placement Import of cells with images Improved word counts Keyboard shortcuts for styles Manage pages and sections from the thumbnail view
Numbers Customize toolbar Improvements to zoom and window placement Multi-column and range sort Auto-complete text in cells Page headers and footers Improvements to AppleScript support
Keynote Customize toolbar Restoring old transitions and builds Improvements to presenter display Improvements to AppleScript support
Apple tells customers that these features were still available to them, if they’d bothered to look for the right folder on their Mac.
“In the meanwhile, you can continue to use these features by accessing the previous versions of the iWork applications which remain installed on your Mac. The previous versions can be found in Applications > iWork ’09,” the company adds.
Support document HT6049 also includes information on reverting documents to the previous version’s file format, EndNote compatibility, and more.