On Tuesday, my internet got knocked out for about 17 hours. It reminded me of a dark time, back in the 1990s, when I had to use this thing called a "modem" that would "dial-up" to the internet. There was no wireless, there was no cable...just...telephone cable. In those dark days, I would use my spare hours messing with the programs on my computer.

Apple iWork \\'06 (Mac DVD)

It was recalling a time such as that, when, on Tuesday, I set about to work with a neglected product I've owned for two years, iWork. I worked with it for a while, but I noticed there weren't many superfluous extras. It was basically what Apple made, and whatever you saved. It can import the zillions of Word and Powerpoint files, but I didn't find a great number of templates. I thought that if my internet ever came back on, I'd scour the internet for the best iWork goodies. What I found was there were precious few iWork goodies to be found. Other than the rare training book (Apple Training Series: iWork 06 with iLife 06) you could buy from Amazon, there wasn't a whole lot out there. However, I did find some iWork goodness on the interweb, and I thought I'd share what I found.

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Apple - iWork Why not start with corporate? This is where the magic happens (what magic there is), and you get it all in 1000-pixel-wide pages. But you have to dig deeper to find some of the good stuff. Yeah, blah blah blah, use iWork to help your something something. ENOUGH! There's things to rip off of Apple, and they aren't buried well enough to hide from my vice-like tight-wad grip. Apple - Education - Pages in the Classroom Here we go. Scroll down the page, and on the right you'll see some templates. It would help if you were in a classroom or something, but my extreme greed causes me to take anything that isn't nailed down. They are zipped files because of how Pages and Keynote package files. Don't ask, that's a whole other story. Apple - Education - iWork '05 in the Classroom - Lesson Plans Yes, that says "iWork '05." Goodies may be outdated, but it doesn't make them undownloadable. The PDF files show how to use the other files, so there's thinking involved. It's best to get over your downloading lust before you actually try to use the files. KeynoteUser.com I think this place started up 15 minutes after Steve Jobs announced Keynote in 2004. Something like that. This site predates iWork, and focuses on Keynote. I guess you could already figure that out. Also, water is wet, sky is blue, and the Sun? Warm. KeynoteHQ.com Unlike KeynoteUser.com, KeynoteHQ.com is after my own heart: it's all about wanton lust of money. Actually, it started as a theme seller. And what better way to sell your themes than to show people how to use 'em? There ain't none, that's how. PagesUser.com You knew this was going to happen someday. This is a relatively new site, even though Pages has been out since 2005. It just goes to show how little attention this app's gotten over the years, after the much anticipated move by Apple into the office arena. iWork Community Templates - Downloads After iWork '05 was announced, I think this showed up a day or so later. It's a great idea that's never really taken off. The concept is that you add your templates to the pot, then everybody shares in the good fortune. Two years later, they just cracked 100 downloads. iWorkAbuser Odd name, but similar to iWork Community. This site focuses on getting iWork to do thing it wasn't implicitly built to do. The intent is to create scripts, mess with the file formats, and yes, upload some templates. It hasn't worked out that way, though. The forum appears to be under a major overhaul, so I'll reserve judgment for how it works. Apple - Support - Discussions - iWork There's always good fortune in the forums. It's a great place to ask questions and get help with some of the problems you'll encounter. In fact, I'd say this is the best place to go to get anything for iWork. If somebody doesn't know how to solve your problem, somebody else can help them out.

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I'll admit, I didn't really do much web-scouring. I really expected to find more, though. It's a shame that something like this can go so under-appreciated. With Microsoft Office being it's main competitor, I can understand. Here's to hoping somebody starts taking an interest in iWork. Somebody who makes goodies.

status: published
lastmod: '2006-10-19T06:50:57.000Z'
author: John Stansbury
cms: wordpress
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