The iWork User

Templates for Numbers

Over at a site appropriately named Numbers Templates, there is a growing collection for the newest member of the iWork family. The templates at the site currently include:

• Mileage Log and Reimbursement Form
• Net Worth Calculator
• One Page Per Day Calendar Planner
• Mortgage Refinance Calculator
• Weekly Blood Sugar Tracker
• Fuel Mileage Tracker, and
• Checking Account Register

In addition to all the templates, this site is chock full of great tips on using Numbers.

Counting Words, Characters and Other Things in Pages

If your composing a document in Apple Pages and need to know the the number of words or characters in the document, cruise on over to the Inspector. Click on the Document Properties panel and then the Info tab. There you will find a whole host of counts:

words pages lines paragraphs sections graphics characters, and characters excluding spaces

As user jamesmac over at Mac OS X Hints noticed, one counting feature is missing. Word has the ability to tell you that you are at word x of x total words. jamesmac has a pretty good work-around. He suggests that you hit the Shift-Home key combination. This will select all of the text from the current cursor position to the top of the document. Then the Document Inspector will show how many words, characters, etc. are in the current selection.

Jumsoft Announces Keynote Quartet FX

On September 17, Jumsoft announced Keynote Quartet, a package deal for four of their existing Keynote enhancement products: Keynote Themes FX, Keynote Animations FX, Keynote Backgrounds FX, and Keynote Objects FX. If you purchase all four products separately the cost would be $192. The package is available from Jumsoft for $99.

Keynote Themes FX is a set of five themes that consist of moving backgrounds and approximately 10 master slides. I wasn't particularly impressed with the moving backgrounds that were included in this package.

Keynote Animations FX provide some unique animations that could work well in the background as accents in your presentation. It is unclear from Jumsoft's website whether Animations are compatible with Keynote 4.0. However, since they are QuickTime movies with transparencies, one would assume so.

Keynote Backgrounds FX offers 20, 1024 by 768 QuickTime movies for use as backgrounds. The backgrounds on display at the website look pleasing. However, for my taste the animations may be too quick. That certainly is a case of personal preference but I find that slower moving animated backgrounds tend to be less distracting.

Finally Keynote Objects FX offers a useful collection of objects with alpha channels (transparent backgrounds) that may have a variety of uses beyond presentations.

Overall, the Keynote quartet package may be a good value depending on the types of presentations and audiences.