How to do a SAVE AS in Numbers in the new iworks version 2.1

What is a major failure is the fact to use standard documents as starting point.

Rename them as wxcvbn.template for pages documents

as azertyuiop.nmbtemplate for Numbers documents and you will no longer loose their content.

I'm beginning why, so often, askers are naming template s what are in fact standard documents.

A template is a document designed to create a new document based upon its contents.

It's not the duty of a standard document.

If you work as I describe, double-clicking your new template will create a new document and the Save… button will be available as I wrote.

If you refuse to use templates, and continue to use standard document as starting point you will have to use

Duplicate to create the new document. Doing that there will be no interference upon the original file.

But I really don't guess what is your problem to use the dedicated kind of file.

Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) mardi 26 juillet 2011 14:13:42

iMac 21”5, i7, 2.8 GHz, 4 Gbytes, 1 Tbytes, mac OS X 10.6.8 and 10.7.0

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I have to admit it is a major failure to eliminate the save as feature. I fully understand your explaination Yvan. What you are trying to say is you should always use a template as a starting point in your work and not just an old document. I tried that and see now that the save as feature is indeed there. My problem is that I rely on speed in some documents I use in numbers. For example I run a construction company and have fullly automated my time sheet with lookups and all to speed up my payroll process. I can go in to a time sheet and change a few minor options and get my sheets done fast. Job names and codes change on a weekly bsis and to work out af a template is cumbersome. Probab,y the proper way to do things but a pain in the you know what.

For example I have 6 guys with the same time sheet information. Before I could just go to the drop down tab I created in the name field, pick the employee and save as. Good enough for what I need to do. I understand my documents.

I don't understand where is waste of time in the described process.

At this time, you use a standard document which I will name azertyuiop.numbers.

You open it, make some changes, save it as azertyuiop#2.numbers

What I urged you to do is just to rename azertyuiop.numbers as azertyuiop.nmbnumbers. Leave it were is stored the original file.

When you want a new document based on this template, double click it or open it thru the open dialog.

Doing that you will get a new document.

As long as you don't apply Save… on it, it will not be autosaved.

If you want just to print it, apply the wanted changes, print close it without saving.

If you want to save it, trigger the Save… menu item just after creating it. This way you will get the benefit of the AutoSave. Apply the wanted changes, print if required, close it.

That's all

It match perfectly your described needs.

Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) mardi 26 juillet 2011 14:42:04

iMac 21”5, i7, 2.8 GHz, 4 Gbytes, 1 Tbytes, mac OS X 10.6.8 and 10.7.0

Please : Search for questions similar to your own before submitting them to the community

To be the AW6 successor, iWork MUST integrate a TRUE DB, not a list organizer !

mciurzyn wrote:

For example I have 6 guys with the same time sheet information. Before I could just go to the drop down tab I created in the name field, pick the employee and save as. Good enough for what I need to do. I understand my documents.

I repeat, renaming the original document as qsdfghjklm.nmbtemplate will change nothing to your process.

You will open the doc

trigger Save…

make the required changes

close

or

make the required changes

close, which will ask you if you want to save .

Please, don't answer in a hurry.

Duplicate one of your source documents , rename it as I wrote and apply the described process.

Respond only after doing that.

Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) mardi 26 juillet 2011 14:46:23

iMac 21”5, i7, 2.8 GHz, 4 Gbytes, 1 Tbytes, mac OS X 10.6.8 and 10.7.0

Please : Search for questions similar to your own before submitting them to the community

To be the AW6 successor, iWork MUST integrate a TRUE DB, not a list organizer !

How can I send you a copy of my numbers template. You will then see what I am talking about. Job names change weekly.

You may click my blue name to get my mail address but I really don't understand where is the problem.

The items whose name change weekly may change exactly the same way in a template.

This is one of the reasons why I asked you to try before responding.

Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) mardi 26 juillet 2011 15:45:24

iMac 21”5, i7, 2.8 GHz, 4 Gbytes, 1 Tbytes, mac OS X 10.6.8 and 10.7.0

Please : Search for questions similar to your own before submitting them to the community

To be the AW6 successor, iWork MUST integrate a TRUE DB, not a list organizer !

Dear Yvan,

I believe there is a misconception here. I say this cautiously and kindly but I think that you think Numbers documents are like Notes docs in that we use a form and then reuse it again in a blank form.

I, on the other hand, use a file to manage my biz bank account. There are constanly additional records being added to the originals. Forecasted expenses and forecasted income as they appear. The bank account is probably the best example to be used.

Historically the first spreadsheet was called VisiCalc. According to my understanding of the history, a MIT grad invented the Visicalc in order to manage his bank account. If Numbers can accomodate bank management then it has its own justification. Without Save As, I am pretty sure there is not a "smart" way of getting past it.

I am of Steve Jobs generation and you can check up about the Visicalc story if you like.

Best Regards,

E. Ratzkoff

I never wrote about blank documents.

If you work with a document which may be huge in which some values change for this or that versions : contracts for instance, the template is the correct choice.

Of course if you work with a document whose contents evolve and must be stored it's logical to open it, apply the changes and save it.

The strength of the app with Lion is that a saved document contain, in a single file, it's history.

So we may use the document at least two ways :

(1) save it with embedded versions.

We may see it as a document saved with a powerful undo set of data which doen't behave as a LIFO stack but in which we navigate as we want.

(2) save a copy when we want to freeze a state of the doc.

For sure, with Numbers we may manage our bank account.

With use #1, we are able to move back in time

With use #2, we may store the status of our account at different dates.

As I'm 67 years old, I'm older than Steve Jobs and perhaps than you.

I used Visicalc on my Apple][. At first time, I thought that writing that I was using AppleWorks on mac since at least 1997 was sufficient to show that I wave some experience with spreadsheets. I even worked with Resolve whose life was alas too short for my taste.

As an autosave feature was asked, I wrote an AppleScript which already autosaved Numbers '08 document keeping chronological versions.

We may work this old fashion with Numbers under Lion

but we may also, and I bet that when users will be accustomed to it, they will use mainly the new scheme.

There are numerous features to learn about this new scheme. I hadn't time to study all of them.

For instance I want to check if we may remove some old versions of a document in a single one.

I know that the app save the change applied today several times a day.

I wish to know if, say : at the end of a week, we will be able to drop intermediate daily versions and keep only the late version of every days.

I hope that these words would help you to have a better image of the enhanced version.

Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) mardi 26 juillet 2011 19:14:51

iMac 21”5, i7, 2.8 GHz, 4 Gbytes, 1 Tbytes, mac OS X 10.6.8 and 10.7.0

Please : Search for questions similar to your own before submitting them to the community

To be the AW6 successor, iWork MUST integrate a TRUE DB, not a list organizer !

The new scheme adds no capabilities over the old one, and takes away many that the old one provided.

You assume:

1) That there is no need for a historical version outside the versioning system. That's not always true.

2) That we trust the versioning system (which is definitely not true in a dot-zero release).

The versioning system is great, but since it does not provide all the functionality of the old one, it cannot replace it. There is no good reason to remove Save As - just leave it there alongside the new capabilities.

Save As isn't gone.

We may do the same thing at least three ways which I already described.

Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) mardi 26 juillet 2011 19:26:42

iMac 21”5, i7, 2.8 GHz, 4 Gbytes, 1 Tbytes, mac OS X 10.6.8 and 10.7.0

Please : Search for questions similar to your own before submitting them to the community

To be the AW6 successor, iWork MUST integrate a TRUE DB, not a list organizer !

As I am only 65 I shall study your words and get back to you. Do I understand that to evolve continually, I shall have to recreate templates at each step?

BR,

E

May you read carefully before asking a dumb question ?

If your document is a work in progress, let the app save it automatically.

If you want to keep a fixed version of what it was at instant t, use one of the three schemes which I described to achieve this goal. Maybe somebody will discover other schemes.

On my side, I spent a sufficient chunk of time upon this question.

I apologize but I have more intertestings goals to achieve.

Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) mardi 26 juillet 2011 20:34:44

iMac 21”5, i7, 2.8 GHz, 4 Gbytes, 1 Tbytes, mac OS X 10.6.8 and 10.7.0

Please : Search for questions similar to your own before submitting them to the community

To be the AW6 successor, iWork MUST integrate a TRUE DB, not a list organizer !