iWork update brings return of mail merge and other tweaks

iWork has been available since 2005.

Apple has pushed out the latest small update to its iWork (Pages, Keynote, Numbers) suite, introducing a couple of important new features, including the welcome reappearance of mail merge in Pages. (Find out how to use Mail Merge in Pages on Macs, iPhones and iPads).

What’s new in iWork?

Apple recently updated the core suite to version 12.0, so v. 12.1 is merely a point upgrade. It’s incredible how many people don’t make use of the powerful suite of productivity tools, particularly as they work across all Apple’s systems. Especially when it comes to creating attractive documents they are much easier to use than alternatives.

Pages was first introduced in 2005, with Numbers making its debut in 2007. The suite cost $79 originally, but Apple began to give the iOS apps away for free from October 2013 and across all its platforms from 2017. The apps these days also boast useful collaboration tools thanks to their integration with iCloud.

This was the original user interface for Pages in iWork

Keynote improvements include

• Add subtle movement and visual interest to your presentation with dynamic backgrounds that move continuously as you move between slides.
• Additional animated themes featuring dynamic backgrounds.
• Skip or unskip all slides.

Pages enhancements include

• Mail merge which lets you produce personalized letters, cards, and envelopes for multiple recipients – this feature has been in Pages before, but is now available to Macs, iPads and iPhones.
• New templates for invitations and certificates.
• TXT file export.

Numbers counts just one tweak, a slight improvement in performance when inserting rows and columns into large tables.

What came before

More broadly, iWork 12.0 added a range of useful improvements when it shipped in April 2022. New features for the Mac versions of the apps introduced at that time included Shortcuts support, additional VoiceOver capabilities and the ability to publish to Apple Books with file sizes up to 2GB from within Pages.

On iOS, Pages also gained that latter g file size publishing capability and new VoiceOver features, plus the ability to insert page numbers anywhere and launch into a new document with a long press from the Home screen.

The latest versions of all three free apps are available now on the App Store. Apple also offers Web-based versions of the apps which it makes available via iCloud.

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