In this article, we'll walk you through how to add shortcuts to Apple Watch with a detailed step-by-step process. One of the most useful features of Apple Watch is the ability to create shortcuts to quickly access frequently used apps and functions. However, these iWork actions are a great stake in the ground for first-party apps - Apple has demonstrated their intent to make apps like this have feature parity when it comes to Shortcuts support, they've pushed quality-of-life updates for users wanting to take more advantage of Pages, Keynote, and Numbers, and they're honing in on the particular use cases for each app and making them easier.Guide on How to Add Shortcuts to Apple WatchĪpple Watch is a popular device among Apple users, as it is a perfect complement to the iPhone. Plus, Numbers should be able to insert data in the background without opening the app - that experience is very antithetical to the Shortcuts experience and unfortunately means many people won't utilize it. In the next iteration of these, I'd love to see more ways to interact with my iWork files: getting data out, inserting data, and being able to extract details from the file's parameters would enable much more programmatic access to everything. Screenshot of iWork shortcuts in the Shortcuts app (Image credit: iMore)

Overall, these set of Shortcuts actions for Pages, Keynote, and Numbers are welcome - each application is on a level playing field across iOS and Mac, they provide great access to files and the templates in the app, and Apple gave Keynote and Numbers extra attention for their app-specific features. Plus, your 'logging' shortcuts work on mobile and desktop, so your workflow can be smooth anywhere. When you run the shortcut, get the prompts, and input all your data, the action will then take you into the Numbers app and insert your values directly - this requirement to manually open the app is the one downside of the action and a weird limitation from Apple, as inserting values in the background would be much smoother.ĭespite the manual input, this action is extremely useful - you can use Shortcuts' scripting and Numbers to do all sorts of data entry that'd otherwise be very laborious to enter manually, especially from an iPhone or iPad. Using Shortcuts' other scripting actions, you can create/ask yourself to enter those values on the fly using a series of Ask For Input actions, with prompts like 'What's the description?', and 'What's the amount?', then add those results (and the current date) into the Values field (note: leave any columns blank if you don't want to add values). Screenshots of Personal Budget template in Numbers and shortcut to add to the spreadsheet. Keynote presentations can also be password-protected, so there's additionally a Password field on Open Presentation so you can unlock as necessary - Shortcuts can prompt you for the password for a document before trying to open it. With Open Presentation, the action works the same as Pages' above - users can open a specific presentation (maybe you're working on one for a whole month), or pick from a list of files and open that presentation. Keynoteįor Keynote, Apple has four actions: Open Presentation, Create Presentation, Open Presentation in Rehearsal Mode, and Open Presentation in Show Mode. Learn more with iMore! Contact me with news and offers from other Future brands Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over. IMore offers spot-on advice and guidance from our team of experts, with decades of Apple device experience to lean on.

Apple watch shortcuts