What has been lost in Numbers 3.0 upgrade?

Simon,

I will continue to use Numbers V2 for my well-established documents. And, I'll follow the updates to Numbers V3. I left MS Office when Numbers V1 was introduced. I upgraded to iWorks '09 the day it was released and was thrilled with the improvements.

Last night I downloaded the most recent release of LibreOffece. It had its usual problems; crashed a couple of times, told me there were updates available, even though I had just downloaded. Hate the user interface.

I've explored IBM Symphony (nothing like the wonderful old Lotus Symphony). I'll see if there are updates for it and give it another try. The user interface is better than Excel, but like LibreOffice, not too stable.

And, I'll be downloading the trial version of MS Office. I'm hoping it's not as cluttered and boring as when I walked away years ago.

My hope is that Numbers V2 will be reincarnated as Numbers Pro and that Numbers V3 will be named something more appropriate, like Numbers Lite, or Collaborative Numbers. I plan to stay active in this wonderful community as long as I have the time to give to it.

Kind regards,

Jerry

Hi thyondesign,

If you often need to insert the current date-time see this thread for a pretty good solution in Numbers 3.0.

After a short one-time setup it's just a menu pick or keyboard shortcut followed by command-v.

SG

one other thing i have noticed... it doesnt remember your zoom level when you restart.

it always starts at a zoom level of 125% for me, and i have to reduce it down to 100% (on every single sheet -- and there are loads of sheets). but when i start the program up again, they are all back to 125% again.

not a big deal, obviously, but still a little bit annoying

Hi Craigco

I found that if 75% is selected then saved, it opens as 75%

If 100% is selected and then saved, it opens as 125%

A bug they need to fix..

Martin

I plan to stay active in this wonderful community as long as I have the time to give to it.

Jerry, I was relieved to read this. I was worried yesterday when you suggested upthread that you were thinking about taking time off from the discussions. We all need your help as Apple drags us into the "share-o-sphere" as you put it.

SG

This is to correct a false report in my list. The first item on the most recent list, Alignment Guides, is not truly gone. I must have been thinking of the elimination of Alignment Guides in Pages. I started out keeping track of changes in both apps, but Peter was doing a much better job on that subject.

To repeat: Alignment Gides are not gone in Numbers V3.

Jerry

Another feature lost - Ability to import QFX (Financial files) has been removed. Most banks, credit card companies, and brokerages have the ability to export data in QFX format. Numbers was able to import directly. GONE!

Thanks Ironex,

Hadn't noticed the QFX Import loss yet. Here's an updated list of the losses, including your contribution and scratching the false report on Guides.

Function or feature or issue

• Applescript support has been reduced or eliminated
• Can’t open Numbers 08 documents
• Categories View gone
• Cell border custom line weight is sometimes lost when using Filter Rows
• Charted Dates don’t display properly when used as X-Axis values - hope this is just a bug
• Comments can’t be repositioned
• Comments can’t be resized
• Comments only display as Tool Tips now, can’t be static displays
• Contacts; Drag and Drop into Numbers from Contacts no longer supported
• CSV file import seems to be limited to dragging a CSV file to the Numbers Dock Icon. Pasting to a table or the canvas is gone
• Custom Formats gone
• Share Menu is gone, and Export to PDF not longer has the option to make a PDF in Sheet View mode with no page breaks.
• Find and Replace Results Pane is gone - was a great navigation tool
• Formula Bar is gone, replaced by a field at the bottom of the Numbers window in which the expression is displayed but can not be edited
• Formulas and Functions user guide PDF, easily searchable, is gone, replaced by web help page
• Graphics Inspector no longer treats a Table as an Object that can be formatted by the Graphics Inspector tools. Or, looking at it from the Table perspective, there is no way to add Shadow effect to a Table’s outline.
• Insert > Date and Time is gone
• Keyboard Shortcut reminders have been removed from Drop-Down Row and Column menus
• Numbers User Guide PDF is gone, replaced by web help page
• Page Headers and Footers are gone
• Page Margins can’t be adjusted
• Print Preview view not available while editing
• QFX Financial File Exchange, bank and brokerage files, import is no longer supported
• Reorganize Panel gone, no multi-level sort.
• Return key option to set the behavior while editing a cell is gone
• Show Autocompletion List in Table Columns is gone
• Sort Selected Rows is gone
• Sorting detector now stops cell references from following the sort movement. This loss a PLUS.
• Split Cells is gone
• Table Fills are not supported
• Toolbar Editor(add, delete, rearrange tool icons) is gone.

You can no longer paste a jpg into a cell.

I have an art inventory that used a photo in column 1 to identify the painting. This is no longer possible. Sigh...

I think it is safe to say that these guys really did start from the ground up starting from the very first line of code. I sure hope they simply left out a few features because they did not have time.

Hopefully we will start seeing things coming back, The just added websearching from spotlight back with 7.0.3 so at least we can tell the are adding things that are being asked for sometime.

Jerry

SG: The problem of course is that paper is never going away completely. We all have to hold something in our hands on occasion. The loss of layout control is surprising since the major paradigmn shift that Apple triggered back in the early days was giving layout control to "everyman", and not just the typesetter.

I think the priority must have gone to having a common feature set across all versions. What I would rather have had is a common document format across all versions, i.e. I can open it on every device, and if the edit isn't supported, somehow, that becomes apparent, but, the data remains.

Having the new version strip out images from my old inventory spreadsheet was a **** of a shock. Thank god for Time Machine! At the very least there should have been some kind of warning that this was a down grade.

I went back and watched Eddie Cue on the Keynote - he gives the new iWork programs about 10 seconds each - now I think I know why. He's less than thrilled with the result. Love to know who drove this choice.

Hi Brian

It works in mine, by both copy and paste from a desktop file and also directly dragging a photo from the desktop. Having said that have had a lot of file locking problems where copying photos from e-mail was not possible unless I rebooted the computer. My workaround is now to right click and export into iPhoto then drag it over into where you need it.

Martin

Thanks - I got it to work.

The key is the image is a Fill, not Data, in the cell

Copy and paste works if you select a cell, BUT, do not click it as if you were going to edit the contents. If you do that, it doesn't work.

There is a new image Fill set of formating tools.

Also, the table that got trashed was in Pages, not Numbers - sorry.