With iWork '09, Apple's productivity applications have come of age. Unfortunately, their user guides are stuck in infancy. That's where iWork '09: The Missing Manual comes in. This book quickly guides you through everything you need to know about the Pages word-processor, the Numbers spreadsheet, and the Keynote presentation program that Al Gore and Steve Jobs made famous. Friendly and entertaining, iWork '09: The Missing Manual gives you crystal-clear and jargon-free explanations of iWork's capabilities, its advantages over similar programs -- and its limitations. You'll see these programs through an objective lens that shows you which features work well and which don't. With this book, you will:

• Produce stunning documents and cinema-quality digital presentations

• Take advantage of Mac OS X's advanced typography and graphics capabilities

• Learn how to use the collection of themes and templates included with iWork

• Get undocumented tips, tricks, and secrets for each program

• Integrate with other iLife programs to use photos, audio, and video clips

Learn why iWork is the topic most requested by Missing Manual fans. One of the few sources available on Apple's incredible suite of programs, iWork '09: The Missing Manual will help you get the best performance out of Pages, Numbers, Keynote, and more in no time.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 11 Ratings

Highly recommended - 2010-01-18
Reviewer Rating:
Brief introduction... I got this book as I was just starting to use iWork. I was extremely frustrated by the application and to make matters worse, I'd agreed to demo the app at a Mac User Group meeting. I was in trouble, and iWork's built-in Help didn't cut it for me. Apple has a lot of tutorials on their web site, but I learn better by sitting down with the application and having a book at hand. Having benefitted from several other "Missing Manuals", that's where I turned for help this time.

Bottom line: this book really reveals iWork's power, and it does so gently and interestingly. Josh Clark writes very clearly and succinctly, and the book contains (for me) just enough illustrations to thoroughly communicate what's needed. Clark walks through every program element I could find and leads the reader to understand how iWork's elements and UI approach fit together. That's important. I'd highly recommend "iWork '09: The Missing Manual" to any iWork '09 user. Also, because of what this book revealed to me, I can now recommend iWork '09 to many Macintosh users who need "office" capabilities and would like a more usable software application than "some of the others" out there.

iWork '09 can be a perplexing application. As I told the user group, all of the important functions are very accessible--almost right in front of you--but you won't see them. And each of the three component applications works the same way, but that's not necessarily obvious when you first open them. There's almost a Zen to working with iWork '09, and that's what I came to understand, thanks to The Missing Manual.

I'm a cover-to-cover reader, and this volume is definitely readable that way. Useful information lies on each page, and by around page 150 I was convinced that Pages '09 is almost as powerful as Apple says. "iWork '09: The Missing Manual" quickly and almost effortlessly got me to where I'm producing fairly advanced documents and presentations after a very short time. And, importantly, it enabled me to introduce long-time Pages users to a number of incredibly useful features that they needed, but didn't know existed. In fact, several of them said they were heading right out to buy this book so they could see what else they've been missing.

The only real issue I had with the book is its claim to have been completely written with Pages '09. The problem I have is that according to both the book and everything else I've read, Pages '09 is unable to create an index. Yet the book has an index. I wonder how it was created. This nit plagues me, as I've written a couple of books and would love to use Pages for the next one...if it could create an index.

Efficiency for the Novice - 2009-09-19
Reviewer Rating:
iWork '09: The Missing Manual is a tremendous and necessary tool in order for the novice to realize the greatest value from the programs included in this suite of software. For the novice computer user who does not understand all of the specialized language that even Computer magazines use, I have found the manual to be friendly to use in order to, much of the time, shut off the automatic things that the programs do when they come out of the box. Just today I looked up how to find the cent symbol. This feature, I found will make it unnecessary for me to purchase a program offered by one of the so called "free" dashboard items.

I am amazed that the author, who is proficient in so many areas of life could learn all of the details of an imposing array of capabilities of this reasonably priced trio of programs. I am certainly glad that I stumbled on to this book.

iWork09 - 2010-01-31
Reviewer Rating:
Pages and Keynote are very well explained. But I still had a little trouble with all the in's and out's of Numbers. I don't think it fully explained how to use some of the installed temps. But overall it is well written.

iWork The Missing Manual '09- Review - 2009-12-28
Reviewer Rating:
The manual is well organized and that makes it easy to find subjects that you wish to learn more about. I have used several other volumes in the "Missing Manual" series and have found them all to be very useful.

Great Manual! - 2010-02-03
Reviewer Rating:
It's been a frustration to me that the written materials are not included int he purchase of new software. So, I rely heavily on manuals such as this one to fill in all the gaps in my understanding. So, thanks a million to Josh Clark for doing this for all of us iWork users!

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