Affiliate Disclosure
If you buy through our links, we may get a commission. Read our ethics policy.

Macworld: Apple unveils iWork \'05 productivity suite

 

Apple today unveiled iWork '05, productivity software designed to take advantage of both Mac OS X and iLife '05 to help users easily create, present and publish professional-looking documents and presentations.

iWork '05 introduces Pages, a new Apple-branded word processor with a sense of style, and also features Keynote 2, a major new version of Apple's presentation software that lets anyone create cinematic-looking presentations.

Both Pages and Keynote 2 take full advantage of the advanced typography and graphics engine of Mac OS X, are seamlessly integrated with iLife '05. They include a collection of themes and templates that make it easy to produce stunning results in minutes.

"With iWork '05, we're building the successor to AppleWorks by taking advantage of the latest innovations in Mac OS X and iLife '05," said Sina Tamaddon, Apple's senior vice president of Applications. "iWork '05 makes it incredibly easy for anyone to create really great-looking documents, newsletters and presentations quickly and easily."

Pages gives users the tools to create great looking letters, newsletters, reports, brochures and resumes with advanced typography, multiple columns, footnotes, tables of contents and styles. Featuring dynamic text wrapping and alignment guides, Pages lets users create free-form arrangements of text, graphics, photos, tables and charts. An integrated iLife media browser lets users drag and drop photos from the iPhoto library directly into documents, and with over 40 Apple-designed templates, Pages makes it easy to create professional documents in minutes.

Keynote 2 is a application that gives users everything they need to create compelling presentations, portfolios, interactive slideshows and storyboards. Keynote 2 delivers powerful slide animations to synchronize the movement of multiple objects and cinematic real-time animated text. The iLife media browser within Keynote makes it easy to insert photos, movies and music directly into presentations and with image masking, it's easy to frame the exact part of the photo users want to display. Keynote 2 comes with 20 themes making it easy to create stunning presentations in minutes. Keynote 2 also helps presenters stay on track with the ability to use a second monitor to display upcoming slides, notes and a timer.

iWork '05 imports AppleWorks and imports and exports Microsoft Word and PowerPoint files along with supporting a wide range of industry standard file formats including PDF, Adobe Photoshop, TIFF, JPG and QuickTime. Keynote 2 now includes the ability to export presentations to Macromedia Flash.

Pricing & Availability

iWork ‘05 will be available in the US on Saturday, January 22 and worldwide on Saturday, January 29 for a suggested retail price of $79 (US). Minimum system requirements include Mac OS X version 10.3.6, a Macintosh computer with a 500 MHz or faster PowerPC G3, G4 or G5 processor (G4 for PowerBook), 128 MB of RAM (512MB recommended), 8MB of video RAM (32MB recommended), QuickTime 6.5 or later and iLife '04 or later recommended.