What has been GAINED in the Numbers 3.0 upgrade?

Dear Numbers 3 users,

Thank you all who have posted improvements. I can not acknowledge all, but I see that we are working together.

Continuing on the positive note of this discussion, here is a list of improvements revealed so far, how to find some old features that appear to be lost, and workarounds to replace some things that (so far) appear to be gone.

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Share.

Remember the confusing Share Menu in Numbers '09? And the number of posts about the grey menu items (headings) that did nothing? In Numbers 3, the share button is no longer confusing.

Share Button > Send a Copy > Email > choose a format from Numbers, PDF, Excel, CSV > Next…

and Mail opens a new email message with the document attached. Nice and intuitive.

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Sorting the contents of Sheets under Sheet tab pop-ups.

Select an object on a Sheet and Arrange > Send Backward or Bring Forward. This will change the order of objects listed under a Sheet tab.

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Better cross-platform sharing/collaboration (between OS X and iOS).

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The alignment guides (for moving or resizing objects) remain. Go to Numbers > Preferences > Rulers and turn on the guides. Bonus: we can change the colour of the guides.

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New ability to rotate axis labels on graphs (Charts).

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Improved management of custom templates. In Template Chooser > My Templates, right click (control click) on a custom template and Rename or Delete.

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To "add" a shadow to a Table, there is a workaround. Insert a rectangle Shape and give it a shadow. Send to Back and slide it under the Table. Use the alignment guides to help you resize the rectangle and line it up with the Table edges.

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New ability to attach a comment to a Chart (graph), a Shape, or a Text Box (not just to Table Cells). Select the object and click on the Comment Button. That will attach a comment to that object. If nothing is selected, a comment will be placed on the canvas and can be dragged around (as in Numbers '09).

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New Statistics Pane. The old stats pane with only five stats has been replaced by a much more functional Bar across the bottom of the window. The Bar allows up to 31 stats function results to be displayed. Click on the gear wheel icon to see more.

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New Bubble charts (much requested as an addition to Numbers '09).

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I look forward to positive responses from other users who have found ways to make Numbers 3 work for them. Please state which operating system you are running (OS X for Mac, or iOS for iDevices such as iPad). The title of this thread is "What has been GAINED in the Numbers 3.0 upgrade?" Please note that this is not a whinge thread; we have enough of those in this Numbers forum.

[Whinge (Mac Dictionary): complain persistently and in a peevish or irritating way. "Stop whingeing and get on with it!"].

Warning: if you want to keep your old documents in Numbers '09 format, do not open them and then save them in Numbers 3. Some features will not revert, even with File > Export To > Numbers '09. Make a spare copy of a document before you try this.

Hint: if you have downloaded Numbers 3 and you are looking for Numbers '09, do not despair. You can find Numbers '09 inside an iWork '09 folder in your Applications folder.

Regards,

Ian.

OK!

Got it!

Now I understand about the Star Rating. It is a new Cell Format, another plus to add to the list!

Regards,

Ian.

Summary of good 🙂 things (and they keep coming).

- Share is now a button. Nice and intuitive.

- Sort the contents of Sheets under Sheet tab pop-ups.

- Better cross-platform sharing/collaboration (between OS X and iOS).

- The alignment guides (for moving or resizing objects) remain. See Numbers > Preferences.

- New ability to rotate axis labels on graphs (Charts).

- Improved management of custom templates.

- Adding a shadow to a Table is now a workaround. (Hint: slide a shadowed rectangle behind the Table).

- New ability to attach a comment to a Chart (graph), a Shape, or a Text Box (not just to Table Cells).

- New Statistics Pane (Bar at bottom) with many new auto statistics. Click on gear wheel.

- New Bubble charts.

Added since last update

- New Cell Format "Star Rating"

- Function Browser (with definition and examples as in Numbers '09) now appears in the panel on the right whenever you type = in a cell.

- Copy and Paste now carries cell formatting (for example, cell borders) as well as cell content.

Happy Numbers!

Ian.

Quick work around for different colour fills for cells.

Close format side bar

Command shift C for colour pallet > Drag coloured square from top of colour pallet and drop into the cell.

Drag fill colour works too.

You can also drop the colours from the colours pallet to the Charts.

Just playing as I prefer light colours.. 🙂

Ian,

Useful thread. Thanks.

I suggest your warning needs to be more along the lines of:

"Warning: Opening a file in Numbers 3 can result in it being automatically saved in a new file format incompatable with Numbers 2. Loss of formating and other changes may occur. Some features will not revert, even with File > Export To > Numbers '09. Make a spare copy of a document before you try this."

Nice, didn't know that. Now I found out how to apply cusom colours the way they probably meant it to be.

Go to Cell > Fill in the sidebar. Choose a stock colour or directly select "Filll Color". After that, the colour chooser shows up where you can choose any colour.

Hi t quinn,

Thanks, and noted!

Regards,

Ian.

"Warning: Opening a file in Numbers 3 can result in it being automatically saved in a new file format incompatable with Numbers 2. Loss of formating and other changes may occur. Some features will not revert, even with File > Export To > Numbers '09. Make a spare copy of a document before you try this."

Hi SG,

As this is your thread, I am replying to you. But this is for all to consider.

I admire your Bubble Chart of Losses versus Gains, and the Star Rating (new cell format!) that we can use as a weighting. I like your "Type" column that lists Functionality, Interface, Bug, etc. And your Table Name has a nice font!

Following your lead, I think that we should take a step back and concentrate on "what functionality has been lost or gained?" rather than ask "what features have been lost or gained?"

For sure, Numbers '13 (Numbers 3.0) is different from Numbers '09 (Numbers 2.x). Old dogs like me must learn new tricks. I rejoined the Mac fold in December 2012 and I was shocked, stunned and horrified to see that ClarisWorks, HyperCard, MacDraw and MacPaint were dead. It took me some time to adapt. But by following these forums, I found that Pages, Numbers, TextEdit and Preview could do all (and more) that I remember from the 'good old days'. Just a different way of implementation.

For example, Categories seem to be gone in Numbers '13, which is a pity. However, I recall a reply from you that we should think about segregating classes of data in separate Tables. Your reply fits the Numbers paradigm. We must break away from the Excel paradigm of enormous Sheets, and start using the Numbers canvas that can hold many discrete (but linkable) classes of data (Tables) and other objects. All objects are moveable, resizable and may be selected, copied or cut, and pasted.

I have followed the various posts in this Numbers forum, some with woeful tales. I can see that Numbers '13 has stolen some Numbers '09 documents from users, and that is bullying! But I wonder what functionalities have been stolen… We shall see after we learn how to drive the new car. The new car still has four wheels.

Regards,

Ian.

Disclaimer. I do not work for Apple. Contents will be hot after heating. This advice was processed on a machine that also processes nuts. No animals or plants were harmed in the making of this advice. Do not run with scissors.

Here are two really major improvements in Numbers 3.0 ( at least for my workflow): (1) Keyboard shortcuts have now arrived. (2) Filtering is radically simplified.

KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS

Particulary when one is working with large tables, there are times when you need to apply a formula to the entire column/row. Excel has a feature that allows one simply to hit Command Right Arrow or Down Arrow to be taken to the last cell, and Shift Command Right/Down Arrow to select all remaining cells in a row/column. That really big time saving feature wasn't available in Numbers '09, but it has appeared in Numbers 3.0.

FILTERING

It was technically possible to filter table views by header column category in Numbers '09, but it involved about four steps and the manual entry of the category value that you wanted to filter. No longer. Table filtering is now one click and way more intuitive. Either click the Filter button at the far right edge of the toolbar, or hover over a column's header (such as A, B, C, etc.), then click the arrow that appears, select Filter from the dropdown menu that appears, then select the column by which you want to filter. Takes about 1 second. Really nicely done.

Charts are more powerful in Numbers 3.0, as well, with new chart types and color options. Charts has been one area where Numbers really shines vis-a-vis Excel, and now Numbers' comparative advantage is even greater.

In my book, Numbers' structure for working with data (particularly with multiple tables in one sheet) has generally been superior to Excel's for a while, but the application was hampered by three things: lack of keyboard shortcuts, lack of pivot tables, and limitations on table size. Of those, for me the lack of keyboard shortcuts was the big one for which no workaround was available. (I.e., you can create pivot tables in Excel, then copy and paste the pivot tables' values into a Numbers spreadsheet.)

Hi SG and everyone,

Summary of good 🙂 things (keep them coming).

Added since last update:

- The Colours window remains and works as it did in Numbers '09. Menu > View > Show Colors, or shift command c. The full range of colours remains. Drag a colour from the patch at the top of a palette and drop it into a cell.

- Press Command Right Arrow or Down Arrow to be taken to the last cell, and Shift Command Right/Down Arrow to select all remaining cells in a row/column.

- In addition to Table filtering in the Filter Inspector, there is a basic Filter in the pop-up menu of each Column reference tab. Choose to show only those Rows that contain (in any Column) one of the values listed. More basic than the Filter Inspector, but quick.

- Many more Chart types, including some interactive charts controlled by a slider and buttons.

SG wrote:

I'd love to know if anyone has figured out how to set up interactive charts and how to use them.

SG, Format Inspector > Chart > Chart Type, at the bottom of the pop-up menu are some interactive chart types.

- Format Inspector > Cell > Data Format > Automatic or Number > Decimals, now allows Auto as well as the previous set number of decimal places.

Previous list:

- Share is now a button. Nice and intuitive.

- Sort the contents of Sheets shown in Sheet tab pop-ups by selecting an object, Arrange > Send Backward or Bring Forward.

- Better cross-platform sharing/collaboration (between OS X and iOS).

- The alignment guides (for moving or resizing objects) remain. See Numbers > Preferences > Rulers.

- New ability to rotate axis labels on graphs (Charts).

- Improved management of custom templates.

- Adding a shadow to a Table is now a workaround. (Hint: slide a shadowed rectangle behind the Table).

- New ability to attach a comment to a Chart (graph), a Shape, or a Text Box (not just to Table Cells).

- New Statistics Pane (Bar at bottom) with many new auto statistics. Click on gear wheel.

- New Bubble charts.

- New Cell Format "Star Rating"

- Function Browser (with definition and examples as in Numbers '09) now appears in the panel on the right whenever you type = in a cell.

- Copy and Paste now carries cell formatting (for example, cell borders) as well as cell content.

Regards,

Ian.