These are very easy to use yet powerful applications for OS X. As a Windows transplant, I still I still prefer the "within-one-window" program design. Having couple Mac programs open would some times give me 5 to 6 windows, i.e. font palette, paragraph formating, etc. Very cluttered.

Apple has created a new version of iWork, and they provide no upgrade pricing, effectively sticking it to customers and vendors. If you buy this product, you will be stuck with the old version and have to pay FULL PRICE for the new version that contains a spreadsheet application.

And, yes, Apple deleted any comments complaining about the upgrade policy on their discussion boards.

This is an awesome program for those who are looking for a better presentation. Great software!

I got this mostly for KeyNote. I haven't really done anything but play with it yet, but it looks like it will do a bang up job. I'm an old PageMaker user. Just now starting to work with InDesign, so pages isn't something that I will be using. But my wife uses it! This is a good thing. She dose a news letter for work. Before iWork I did most of the layout for her. But with Pages she now does the whole thing start to finish, and on my Mac on less. (she is a PC user)

iWork certainly has enough quirks to solicite criticism: Pages is terribly counterintuitive for a beginner, is not as powerful as Microsoft Word, and the suite lacks a spreadsheet program.

But, I suppose, having been manipulated by Microsoft for all our lives, Apple gets a break. The only reason Pages seems difficult to grasp at first is because we've been force fed Microsoft Word for fifteen years; we're used to seeing the layout a certain way, and that's what we're comfortable with. Apple changed all that with Pages, so there is a learning curve, even though Pages is much simpler to use than Word.

In any case, even if you intend to remain with Microsoft Word (the recent 2007 release being a new leap in programming, by the way) Apple's Keynote presentation software is more than enough to excuse the price tag. Keynote is elegant, easy to use, very powerful, and incredibly addictive.

As is true with all Microsoft software, using PowerPoint is an experience to be dreaded. Not only do you constantly fear of a frozen program but also bugs with which to contend. Now, instead of concentrating on the project, you must also try to remember to backup the information every five minutes, be careful not to hit the wrong keystrokes to solicite an angry, childish response from PowerPoint, and sweetly cajole your computer to remain cooperative until you can save again. And the experience is no less dreadful on a far more reliable Mac. The software just doesn't seem to communicate with the system. PowerPoint is like a spoiled child, constantly throwing tantrums and causing hell.

Keynote is like your neighbor's good son. You wish you could have given birth to such a wonderful child. Well...

Apple's presentation software is, as stated before, simple. No mucking about with it as in PowerPoint. The layout is very intuitive; the templates are shockingly more elegant than whatever PowerPoint gets shipped with; and the software comes with helpful utilities to maximize efficiency and productivity (as well as fun): from powerful calculation tables to shape-forming slide cutters to sticky notes that you can apply to invidual slides as reminders for further development, Keynote has it all to make presentation development a breeze.

iWork is typical Apple...perfect.

I've been using Windows products for as long as I can remember, and only had a few complaints regarding its uses and capabilities. I recently went out on a limb, based on a friend's whole-hearted suggestion, and purchased a Macbook. After the initial day's growing pains, I fell in love with it. It included a 30-day trial of iWork as well as a Windows word processor. Not only was iWork more user-friendly, it ended up being cheaper to purchase. I'm completely satisfied with this product. My needs aren't great, but they're growing in terms of word-processing and presentation, and iWork fills that need very well.

The fact that far more people use Powerpoint than Keynote is a travesty. Keynote is far superior is just about every aspect that I can think of. It is both easier to use and your can create much more impressive projects. It was extremely easy to learn how to make fairly sophisticated presentations. Keynote just has a WOW factor that cannot be denied.

The word processing program has some nice features, but seems to be kind of limited in its applications. For my uses, Microsoft Word still is far superior. However, the clear superiority of Keynote makes this product a must buy.

I look forward to creating a web page with iweb.. I expect Mac products to be intuitive.. this is a little more brain engaging.. but i am not As afraid of trying my hand now. Garage band is not my speed. Hope my husband uses it.

I designed a brochure for my restaurant using Pages and it was great. I converted it to a PDF and sent it to be printed. The result was stunning. I would definitely recommend it. Easy to use and powerful.

I've used iWork for a number of projects including my wedding invitations which were sent to a professional printer and a Quicktime slideshow for job interviews. Both Pages and Keynote are fairly intuitive applications with sleek features allow home users to produce some very nice documents and presentations.

Both applications come with some fantastic templates, though I was disappointed not to find a large collection of user-created templates online.

Pages, in particular, was what I was most interested in, having familiarity with--but not the budget for--both Quark Xpress and InDesign. However, I discovered a major problem with Pages that made the program so unreliable that I'm now very reluctant to use it for anything that will be shared. After producing dozens of resumés in Pages, exporting them to PDF format, and mailing them to potential employers, I ran into a few that would require me to mail a hard copy.

For some reason which I can no longer recall, I decided to print these resumés at a nearby 24-hour print center. So I exported the PDFs, emailed them to the print center, and when to pick them up. Unfortunately, the printouts were a garbled mess of nonsensical characters. So I tried again, but got the same results. Surely this problem was due to the fact that the print center was printing the documents using PCs and not Macs, I thought. But when I opened the documents on my Mac using Adobe products like Reader or Illustrator--rather than Preview--I found that the problem was not limited to PCs.

After a short time on Apple's support pages, I found others with the same problems and there was no patch or update available to fix it. I can no longer trust Pages to produce documents used by anyone other than myself and shudder to think how many of my resumés and cover letters were disregarded when the receiving party was only able to view a mess of random characters. Shame on Apple for not releasing a fix for this known problem in iWork '06 and I can only hope that it will be taken care of in '07.

EDIT: After reading the comment which said that the PDF problem is system-wide and not iWork specific, I've upgraded my rating to **** from **. I'd probably give it 5-stars if some reliable cross-platform export solution had been present (like a reliable PDF export).

Having worked on both Macs and PCs with professional-quality design programs, I found iWorks to be a great fit for someone working on his own. The templates are easy to use and modify.

The iWork suite is amazing. The software has a word processor program and a presentation program. It is amazing because it works, Yes, it works. No need for third party software to organize photos or burn DVDs (conflict galore). The presentation SW is fantastic. I've used the Microsoft product Powerpoint, but Keynote has some very nice features. These features are very eay to understand as well. Presentations done on the Mac, just seem to stand out/above. Products for the Mac just seems to work and work well. Kudos to the Apple, I do not know why it took me so long to convert.

Its more easy to work in iwork and my papers have better looks

For years I used Microsoft office for word processing and slideshows. I hated it with all that is within me. I BEGGED my boss to buy iWork for the office. She refused - if Office was good enough for the peecee using accountants and office managers, it was good enough for us mac-lovin' creatives as well.

When I bought my new iMac for use at home the first software i purchased was iWork. I have not been disappointed. This is the best word processor I have ever used. Definately worth purchasing.

Want To Make A Magazine, A Show That Shows Info, A Book?
Well You've Come To The Right Place, Cause iWork Is The Best Way To Do It!
Part 1: Pages
Pages Is Good For Making Magazines & Books. I'm Making A Magazine Called "Studs". To Make A Good Magazine, Add Comedy, People Think It Is Funny.
Part 2: Keynote
Keynote Makes Presentations, &/Or Info-Movies. I Made One Called "Super iMac"! There Are Also Cool Transitions Too!
The End!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This software package makes desktop publishing and presentations a snap! I am continually amazed by the software available for the Mac. I don't understand how anyone can prefer a PC. This software package is the perfect example of simplicity and power. I threw together a family newsletter in about 20 minutes shortly after installing the software on my machine. All my relatives think I had the newsletter done professionally! iWork is simply amazing!

I was stunned when I started using Pages v2... because I'd been convinced that Apple would never get a word processor right. AppleWorks pretty much sucked (tedious interface, limited capabilities, never fully updated for Mac OS X). TextEdit is nothing more than a rough draft of an application.

Pages, by contrast, does everything I need for letters, how-to documents, meeting notes... that is, everything that I want a word processor for (as opposed to a text editor, like BBEdiit).

The feature set in Pages is limited compared to Word. For example, there are collaboration tools, but not as refined as Word's. But for my needs -- personal document creation -- the feature set is perfectly adequate. In fact, I love it: flexible nested bulleted lists; great header and footer support; great style support; beautiful layout; export to PDF, Word, and HTML; multiple columns; comments; custom templates... and lots more.

But what makes me love Pages, even more than the features, is the very clean, very discoverable interface. In fact, I wish the Mac OS X Finder were as well conceived as Pages. And the Pages interface leaves Word's interface in the binary dust.

(Not that I had trouble with Word. I've used it for many years and had figured out how to do whatever I needed to. But Word, as much as it was refined version-to-version and improved for Macintosh users, always felt a little hostile to me.)

Pages, on the other hand... Between the easily customizable Tool Bar and the elegant Inspector window and the sane menu structure, I really enjoy coming up with reasons to create a Pages document. Even the online help for Pages is exemplary. I've always been able to find an answer to my questions.

Well done, Apple.

I am new to Macs and, while I have mostly been pleased with everything so far, I find myself extremely frustrated with Pages. When I bought my iBook, my salesman recommended iWork after I told him that I have a small business and often have to make flyers and brochures for marketing. I used Microsoft Publisher for years, and find Pages inefficient and frustrating in comparison. I have not found an easy way to create flyers from a blank template, and feel that it is relatively labor intensive to create a text box or insert and format a picture. How I wish they made Publisher for Mac!

Just a pleasure to use, and easy to get the effects you want.

I am a graphic designer and use Keynote to develop multimedia presentations.

Here is how I use it:

* I create a Keynote presentation(s) with text and photos and transitions. When using a lot of text, still photos, graphics etc., you can create amazing presentations far superior to PowerPoint with look of templates, ease of use, ability to control transitions. It's superior if you want a superior finished product. These presentations can be used alone or you can go beyond a "slideshow" into the realm of iMovie/iDVD.
* Export as full-quality QuickTime movie
* Import QT movie into iMovie
* Combine video with Keynote presentation(s) and add audio (you can add audio in both Keynote and QuickTime, but you have a lot more control in iMovie).
* Next I import the iMovie into iDVD, create a menu page and have a sensational, inexpensive multimedia presentation

As for Pages. As a 21 year Mac user, if all I had was Publisher (which is not available for the Mac anyway) or Pages to create good looking newsletters and flyers, then I would choose Pages any day. I would never use Word. Word is not a page layout program---that's why they have Publisher. However, as a graphic designer I use inDesign which costs about 8 times as much as Pages and Keynote combined. I hate to say it but Amazon's price for iWork6 of $73 is basically the upgrade price. Apple made it cheap to start with and you will more than get your money's worth. I'm not sure if you need to upgrade if you don't already love the program.

Another tip: Buy Robin William's book, The Non-Designer's Design Book, follow her suggestions and start making everything you do look better.

Easy to use word processor with a nice, minimalist interface. But it does have some minor problems.

Bad exporting feature aside, iWork's Pages doesn't identify or help correct grammar mistakes in documents. Has an okay "spell check" feature, though. These features are important to me because I write lots of papers. For these reasons, I took off one big star.

I'm loving the combination of the ease of use of the templates and the flexibility of the program. As an old Unix gearhead, I've long preferred tools such as LaTeX which allow you to focus on content instead of formatting. Here, you can plunk your text into a template and let Apple's designers worry about the formatting, or you can create a set of style names (like "Heading", "Subheading", "Chapter Title", etc.) and then create the formatting for each one later.

Word Processors have had styles before, of course... but Pages makes styles the easiest way to do formatting, so that they actually get used. Visual formatting is used where that makes sense (e.g., placing pictures, rotating them, etc.), and the supplied templates are simply beautiful.

Lastly, to correct a previous reviewer, Pages does have a standard spell check function - go to the Edit menu, select the Spelling sub-menu, and click "Spelling...", and you'll get a spell check of the whole document, via a dialog box that gives spelling suggestions.

No spell checker! Oh sure it underscores a word if its spelled wrong, but how about help to correct it. Nope no help there, Got to buy more software, My new iMac is dollaring me to death. Granted AppleWorks 6 didn't have a spell checker but it did have a database, spreadsheet, drawing, and painting applications. So is this an improvement, or something new with less for more money?
After all AppleWorks 6 came with OS 9.1

iWork contains both Pages 2 (a word processing/page layout application) and Keynote 3 (a presentation application). These apps are designed to work as intuitively as iTunes, iPhoto and the other applications from the iLife suite. In fact both Pages and Keynote are fully integrated with iLife so adding files from any of the iLife applications to a Pages or Keynote document is as easy as drag and drop.

I mainly use Pages and have created newsletters, envelopes, flyers and personal letters. I'd estimate I worked an average of 20 to 30 minutes on the flyers I have created, and most of that time was spent on the actual text of the document. Similar projects with all the formatting, colors, images and boxes, have easily taken me double that time using Word and AppleWorks.

Pages let you export your document in Word, PDF and HTML formats, however I have found that the exported files sometimes don't perfectly mirror the original. Drop shadows didn't appear and positioning was slightly off. Keynote has similar exporting problems. If you need to share actual files with others, the exporting problems in iWork will give you quite a few headaches. Thankfully, I'm printing out all my documents or sharing them with other iWork users.

The iWork interface is seamless and beautiful and offers many useful templates. These templates are so good that I'd like to se even more of them included. But if the templates don't offer what you're looking for then iWork lets you customize them to your tastes/needs or else create your very own templates from scratch. A few of the included templates give me a bit of lag when using them but it's nothing egregious. Aside from that minor quibble the only complaint I have is the trouble I have exporting my files to other formats.

If you routinely create letters, flyers or presentations, then you owe it to yourself to pick up iWork. Why? Well, iWork works hard for you by expanding your options and helping you create beautiful projects in a fraction of the time it would take with other software. And it does it all with a pleasing visual flair.

However, users thinking of upgrading from iWork '05 should perhaps wait for the next version of this package since nothing that new has beeen inturoduced this time. About the only new feature added to iWork '06 is support for basic table functions. The rest of the additions are new templates and effects, that while georgeous, don't improve or add to the functionality of either application.

iWork, while basic, does exactly what it says it does: provide a simple, easy way to create eye-catching pages and presentations. I use the software daily, and I've never had any issues or problems.

Good work, Apple!

I like Pages and it can import/export to both PDF or MSWord which is a necessity in this world. I like the page layout approach as opposed to my bloated Word program. I haven't had a chance to use Keynote yet so no opinon there.

On the positive side the software is easy to use, and lets users create professional looking documents.
On the negative side, it has not truly become the "next" AppleWorks as it was originally described. AppleWorks users such as myself never saw any spreadsheet or database features in iWork. Another thing we never saw was an upgrade price. I'm a registered AppleWorks user, and registered the original Keynote and iWork '05 as well. The original Keynote was promising but mediocre. With iWork '05 Keynote was MUCH better, and Pages was disappointing. iWork '06 seems to bring many bug fixes and improvements which in my opinion should have been a free update. Once again, there has not been any upgrade path for previous users.
This will probably make my review "not useful" for many readers, but I will say that I'm happier with Microsoft Office 2004. The bottom line is that I've used Word and PowerPoint more often than iWork (probably 98% vs. 2%). iWork is attractive because it is initially cheaper and is fairly easy to use, but after my experiences with the software I'll wait for iWork '07 or iWork '08. Office may be more expensive, but for me it has been a better value since it also includes Entourage and Excel, and it is a more useful tool that I use on a daily basis.
For people who are buying iWork for the first time, or only need presentation/word processing/layout software, it may be worth it. I learned the hard way not to purchase Apple software in their initial releases, and that disappointment -added to the lack of upgrade pricing- makes this version not worth it for me.

Put it short -- in under $80 package you get all the fuctionality that an average user would have to get InDesign and Photoshop for overwise. Real-time text and graphic manipulation tools are amazing. Flawless PDF generation on top of that. Amazing value proposition. But you've got to have a Mac :)