Apple Updates iWork Apps With Improved Apple Pencil Integration, Custom Shapes and More

As promised earlier in March, Apple today introduced major updates for all of its iWork for iOS apps, including Pages, Keynote, and Numbers.

Today's update brings enhanced Apple Pencil functionality, coinciding with the addition of ‌Apple Pencil‌ support on the new iPad Air and the fifth-generation ‌iPad‌ mini.


The new version of Keynote allows you to draw paths with your finger or with the ‌Apple Pencil‌ to animate an object, and there are options to add action build effects, like new move, rotate, and scale animations.

You can create and share animated GIFs by exporting one or more slides, and there's an option to edit presenter notes while presenting or rehearsing a slide show. With Keynote and the other iWork apps, you can also save custom shapes. Keynote's full release notes are below:

- Draw a path with your finger or ‌Apple Pencil‌ to animate an object across the slide.
- Add emphasis to presentations with action build effects, including move, rotate, and scale animations.
- Create and share an animated GIF by exporting one or more slides.
- Edit presenter notes while presenting or rehearsing a slideshow.
- Save custom shapes for use in other presentations and access them on any device using iCloud.
- Create themes to use as a model for new presentations, and access them on any device using ‌iCloud‌.
- Slides with custom wider aspect ratios now display better in the slide navigator, light table, and presenter display.
- Create image placeholders to easily replace images without affecting the formatting of your slide.
- Improved performance while collaborating on presentations.
- Edit grouped objects while collaborating.
- Support for vertical text in shapes and text boxes in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean languages.

In the Numbers app, there's a new feature for making precise changes to table row and column counts with the format pane, the maximum zoom level has been increased to 400 percent, collaboration features have been improved, and there's an option to create templates to use as a model for new spreadsheets. The full Numbers release notes are below:

- Make precise changes to table row and column counts and sizes with the format pane.
- Performance and usability improvements to Smart Categories.
- Save custom shapes for use in other spreadsheets, then access them on any device using ‌iCloud‌.
- Create templates to use as a model for new spreadsheets, and access them on any device using ‌iCloud‌.
- Increased maximum zoom level to 400%.
- Enhancements to Excel and comma separated value file import.
- Create image placeholders to easily replace images without affecting the formatting of your spreadsheet.
- Improved performance while collaborating on spreadsheets.
- Edit grouped objects while collaborating.
- Support for vertical text in shapes and text boxes in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean languages.

Pages features a new table of contents view to navigate through a document or book, and a table of contents can be inserted into a page. Custom shapes can be saved and used in other documents, and image placeholders can be added to replace images without affecting page formatting. Release notes for the Pages update are below:

- Use the new table of contents view to easily navigate your document or book.
- Insert a table of contents onto a page in a word-processing document.
- Save custom shapes for use in other documents and access them on any device using ‌iCloud‌.
- Create templates to use as a model for new documents, and access them on any device using ‌iCloud‌.
- Create image placeholders to easily replace images without affecting the formatting of your page.
- Switch your document between word processing and page layout.
- Improved performance while collaborating on documents.
- Edit grouped objects while collaborating.
- In Chinese, Japanese, and Korean languages, you can now type vertically in your entire document or in an individual text box.

Apple has also updated its iWork for macOS apps with some of the same features that have been added to its iOS apps. All of Apple's iWork apps for both macOS and iOS are free for you to download.

• Pages for iOS [Direct Link]
• Keynote for iOS [Direct Link]
• Numbers for iOS [Direct Link]
• Pages for macOS [Direct Link]
• Keynote for macOS [Direct Link]
• Numbers for macOS [Direct Link]

Apple first announced all of these updates on Monday, March 18, when debuting the new ‌iPad‌ mini and the new ‌iPad‌ Air models. All of Apple's iPads now support either the original ‌Apple Pencil‌ or the ‌Apple Pencil‌ 2 (iPad Pro models), both which can be used in all of the iWork apps.