Datasheet

14
Part I: Introducing iWork ’09
Customizing with themes and templates
The iWork applications have a variety of tools for reuse; the chief ones are
themes and templates:
✓ Themes (Keynote): A theme allows only certain types of modifications.
The limits on what you can change means that an application that sup-
ports themes knows the basics about what to expect. You can switch
from one theme to another without compromising your data. This hap-
pens with Keynote and with other applications, such as Bento.
✓ Templates (Pages and Numbers): A template is a document that’s ready
for you to modify with your own data and formatting. It has formatting
set for you that you can then customize. It may have placeholders for
text and images that you later insert; it may have text and images that
will be used without change in your documents. After you change a
margin in a template, for example, your new margin is used in docu-
ments you create from that modified template.
All iWork applications support themes or templates and allow you to save
a document as a theme or a template. If you choose to modify a theme or a
template, you can then resave it as a theme or a template of your own.
Figure 1-5 shows how easy it is to create your own theme in Keynote with
a simple command. Design the presentation you want to reuse, and then
choose Save Theme. When you want to reuse it, use the Choose Theme
command.
Figure 1-5:
Create your
own theme
in Keynote.
The iWork applications ship with themes and templates ready for you to use
(see Figure 1-6). These are worth exploring even if you plan to start from
scratch because you can find ideas in all the themes and templates that you
can use in your own ways. Apple has built on the real-life experiences of iWork
users. The themes and templates may remind you of features or issues that
you haven’t thought of.