Do more with iWork
Mix charts, slides and more in all iWork apps
SKILL LEVEL
Taking things further
IT WILL TAKE
15 minutes
YOU’ll NEED OS X 10.9 or later, iWork 5.0 or later
Just because iWork’s word processor, spreadsheet and presentation tools serve different purposes, it doesn’t mean they work in isolation. All three sport a shared user interface, and that collective approach also applies when it comes to populating your iWork documents. You can grab a chart from Numbers to insert in your Keynote presentation, or steal some explanatory text from a Pages document to place above your spreadsheet.
Elements created in one application can be copied and pasted to another, whether it’s text, images, music, video or, in the case of Numbers, some data sets and a chart or two. All you need to know – and what we’re going to show you – is what is and isn’t transferred, and how best to copy data from one document to another.
Basic copy and paste
The most common element you want to cut and paste between documents is text. Here you have two choices, based on what you select. To copy the text only, simply select said text inside its box or frame and choose Copy.
Switch to the other application document, select where you want the text to go – typically another text frame in Pages and Keynote, or a table cell in Numbers – and then choose Paste. You notice that by default the formatting of the original text – its font, size, colour and style – is preserved.
If you’re appending text to existing text, select Edit > Paste and Match Style instead. You also notice a third paste option – Paste Formula Results. If you select a formula in Numbers, this option allows you to paste the current result of that formula as opposed to the formula itself.
You can also copy and paste entire frames of text – just make sure you select the frame rather than the text inside, and then copy and paste it to recreate the actual frame (and its contents) rather than just the text itself.
As with the raw text, the original formatting is brought across by default, but you can make the frame match its
Tables, charts, shapes, comments and even entire Keynote slides can be shuttled from one app to another
stylistic equivalent in the other document by choosing the Paste and Match Style option. It’s worth noting that if you paste your object into a table cell, the formatted text rather than the complete frame is pasted in.
Transfer images
It’s a similar story with images. Select an image in one application and then choose Edit > Copy. Switch to the target document and paste it in – it appears as a floating image unless you inadvertently select a table cell, in which case its embedded into there instead.
As with text, all existing styles and effects are preserved, unless you choose Paste and Match Formatting.
The same is true for music and video, which preserve any editing, looping or volume adjustments you’ve made in the original document. Note that copying a video into a table cell simply pastes its poster frame in as an image, while music files can only be pasted as floating objects.
Other page elements
It’s perfectly possible to copy and paste other page elements between different document types too – tables, charts, shapes, comments and even entire Keynote slides can be shuttled from one to another with no problem.
With most of these elements, it’s just a case of making sure it’s selected correctly, then copying it before switching to your other document and pasting it into place – again, choosing Paste to carry across all existing formatting, or Paste and Match Style to make it better fit in with its new surroundings.
Two particular elements come with additional caveats: charts, and Keynote slides. To find out what options are available to you, check out the step-bystep guide opposite.