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Identifying other common iWork features

There's an important interface element in the Pages document called a popover. Common to all iWork apps, this is like a dialog on Mac OS X and other operating systems, but it's redesigned for iPad. Here are three actions you can take with popovers:

  • Know what the popover is for. Each popover includes an arrow that points to the button that opened it.
  • Dismiss the popover. If you want to dismiss the popover (the equivalent of a Close or Cancel button on your Mac), tap anywhere outside the popover.
  • Make a selection on the popover. When you tap a choice in a popover, it is carried out and the popover closes automatically.

The toolbar, which runs along the top of the screen. On the far-left side of the toolbar, the My Documents button lets you see all of your Pages documents. Next to My Documents is the Undo button. (It is the same as the Edit → Undo command you may have on Mac OS X for iWork and most other apps.) In the center of the window is the document's name.

At the right of the iWork toolbar are four or five buttons.

  • Info: This provides information and choices about the current selection in the document. From here you may choose a style, a list format, or a layout (alignment, columns, and line spacing) for a selected paragraph. If nothing is selected, this button is dimmed.
  • Insert: This button lets you insert images from your photo albums on iPad. If you want to insert a photo into your iWork document, add it to your album by synchronizing it in iTunes. (There's more on this later in this tutorial in the "Working with Photos and Images" section.)
  • Animation: The double-diamond button appears only in Keynote. It's used to add an animation to slide transitions.
  • Tools: The wrench opens a popover containing tools that are based on the document as a whole rather than the current selection within the document.
  • Full-screen: The double arrows expand the document to fill your iPad screen, hiding the toolbar and other features. Tap in the full-screen document to return to the editable view with the toolbar.

Keynote also has an Automate button to the right of the Tools button. Tapping the Automate button begins playing your presentation.

The ruler that you have seen in Pages is used by its word processing features. Similar tools at the top of the screen are used in Numbers and Keynote depending on what you're trying to do.

Another interface element that you'll encounter from time to time is known as a modal view. Think of this as a dialog that appears on top of the screen (sometimes covering all of it) with the background appearing to be slightly dimmed. Often, a button in the upper-right corner (usually with a blue background) lets you accept the information in the view. Sometimes a modal view presents you with a choice - there will be buttons in both the upperright and upper-left corners. In these instances, tap the button that represents the action you want to take.

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