Back Up your iWork documents when syncing with iCloud.

iCloud syncing of documents is a great idea, it lets you work on your iWork documents in progress at home, in the office or on the go. Occasionally however things can go wrong and documents can become corrupt in the process of a sync. This doesn't happen often, but when it does it can be extremely inconvenient.

Many of us have become used to backing up our work on our desktops and laptops regularly, but very few of us have given any consideration to backing up our documents on the go. The process described below is extremely simpleto implement and protects against losing all your work, should your documents become corrupt during a sync, and prevents the inconvenience that this causes.

In many cases, it may only be necessary to back up when you have finished your work and just before you close the document for it to be synced to iCloud. In other circumstances where you may be working for long periods, you may wish to backup every 10 or 20 minutes or so. The process described below involves the numbers application, but can be applied equally to pages or keynote. The demonstartion is performed on an iPad, but can be applied to other iOS devices.

1. While your document is open, tap on the spanner icon in the top right corner of the screen.

2. Tap the "Share and Print" Option.

3. Tap the "Send to iTunes" option.

4. Tap "Numbers" (Pages/Keynote, if you are using those Apps).

THAT'S IT !!! Your work is on it's way to being backed up.

Should you be so unfortunate as to need to restore your document.

1. Navigate to the main document page of your Numbers (Pages/Keynote) App and tap the "+" icon in the top left corner.

2. Tap the "iTunes" option.

3. Choose the document you want to restore.

THAT'S IT !!! Your document has now being restored and will be added back to iCloud for you.

NB. If you are backing up the same document regularly, you will overwrite your previous back up unless you give it another name when prompted. Giving your back up a new name will produce incremental back ups should that be desireable.