By AppleInsider Staff

Published: 01:05 PM EST (10:05 AM PST)

Apple on Tuesday announced iWork ’06, a new version of Apple’s suite of productivity software with new features designed to make it easy for users to create even more compelling documents and presentations.

iWork '06 includes major enhancements within Pages 2 and Keynote 3 including stunning three-dimensional charts, iPhoto-like advanced image editing and masking tools, and spreadsheet-like tables that make it easy to get great results in minutes.

“By leveraging the power of Mac OS X and seamlessly integrating photos, movies and music from iLife, iWork '06 brings productivity software to life,” said Rob Schoeben, Apple’s vice president of Applications Marketing. “With great new features in both Pages and Keynote, iWork '06 offers even more ways to create, present and publish professional-looking documents and presentations.”

iWork '06 is highlighted by a set of new features within Pages 2 and Keynote 3 that give users the ability to create more sophisticated documents and presentations.

Tables with spreadsheet-like calculations can be inserted within any document or presentation giving users the ability to add, multiply or average numbers in rows or columns. Users can also create three-dimensional charts featuring realistic wood grain, metal and marble textures and fully control the viewing angle.

iPhoto-like advanced image editing tools help to perfect photos directly within documents and presentations. Freeform shapes and curves, including Bézier curves and shapes with perfectly smooth edges are easy to create and use to mask images. iWork '06 also adds the ability to include reviewer’s comments to slides and documents without affecting the layout.

An easy way to create great looking documents from simple letters and flyers to professional-quality newsletters and brochures, Pages 2 features mail merge with Mac OS X Address Book, making it easy to personalize documents with predefined fields within templates and quickly drag and drop individual contacts into documents.

Pages 2 also features two dozen new templates for newsletters, flyers, posters, school reports, scrapbooks, brochures, business proposals and invoices to give users a head start in creating custom documents. New thumbnail and search views make it easy to work with large documents and quickly find any word or phrase within a document.

Keynote 3 offers more ways to create cinema-quality presentations and interactive slideshows with new features designed to bring those presentations to life. The new version features new cinematic transitions including vertical or horizontal blinds, revolving door, and swoosh. Additionally, the application offers even more Apple-designed themes, including four specifically designed to take advantage of HD displays. A new Light Table view mode makes it easy to view an entire presentation at-a-glance and reorganize slides using drag and drop while flexible build animations provide more control of bullet lists, tables and charts including unique timing and sequence of individual bullets, rows, columns or series.

iWork '06 supports a wide range of industry standard file formats including Microsoft PowerPoint and PDF. Keynote 3 imports and exports PowerPoint files and exports presentations to QuickTime, Macromedia Flash, HTML and iLife. Pages 2 imports and exports Microsoft Word, RTF, HTML and plain text files. Both Keynote 3 and Pages 2 export to PDF and import associated AppleWorks files.

Pricing & Availability

iWork ’06 is now for a suggested retail price of $79. A 30-day iWork '06 trial will be available on new hardware and with copies of Mac OS X and iLife '06 sold at retail. After 30 days, the trial becomes an iWork '06 player.

iWork '06 requires Mac OS X version 10.3.9 or 10.4.3 or later, a Macintosh computer with a 500 MHz or faster PowerPC G4, PowerPC G5 or Intel Core processor, 256MB of RAM (512MB recommended), 32MB of video RAM, QuickTime 7.0.3 or later, and a DVD drive required for install.