iWork '05, the Missing Manual

iWork ’05, Apple’s successor-to-Appleworks software suite (www.apple.com/iwork $79), consists of two applications: Pages for word processing and page design and Keynote 2 for presentations. These two applications, while seemingly disparate, both feature intuitive tools and beautiful, eye-catching templates and themes that give ordinary folks the power to create top-quality, professional-looking results at a modest price.

In iWork ’05, the Missing Manual, Jim Elferdink takes these two versatile and powerful applications through their paces, from creating the most basic documents and presentations to employing the more sophisticated features of each application.

The book discusses each application in a separate section, since, unlike AppleWorks, there’s little or no overlap or connectivity between the programs. The Pages section covers creating and formatting documents, advance word processing, laying out pages, building tables and charts, sharing documents, and using and creating templates. The Keynote 2 section starts with an overview of planning and creating presentations, then goes into detail on building a basic presentation, laying out slides, methods for sharing presentations and ways to customize Keynote. The book concludes with a menu-by-menu tour of each application, information on installing and upgrading iWork ‘05, and iWork on the web.

Lest you get the impression that iWork ‘05 comes without printed manuals, I’d like to point out that the boxed software includes two very handy small format user guides.

iWork ‘05, the Missing Manual expands on these manuals to give users the in-depth knowledge they need to make these programs really sing.

– Elsa Travisano