Mac 101: Getting iWork files on your Mac onto iCloud

Here's another Mac 101 tip for novice Mac users.

When I first heard about iCloud syncing iWork documents between Apple devices I became quite excited. Like many, I create iWork documents on my Mac and then access them on my iPad or iPhone on the move. Up until now, I've been using Dropbox to sync my files between my Mac and my iDevices. And though this works really well, the whole seamless, behind-the-scenes ease of iCloud really appeals to me.

Since iCloud debuted alongside iOS 5, I've been really pleased with how well this works. That is, between my iPad, iPhone and accessing my docs through a web browser. However, where I've struggled to see the seamless beauty of iCloud is when syncing my iWork docs created on my Mac to the cloud. I thought I hadn't flipped a preference switch in Pages or in my iCloud settings, but after having a complete read through of Apple's description of what iCloud does when syncing iWork docs between your devices, I realized there is no automatic syncing of iWork docs between a Mac and iCloud -- iWork docs need to be saved to iCloud manually.

To do this is not all that complicated. And while there are a few different ways, the simplest is as follows. Have your iCloud account open in a web browser. Click on iWork and then Pages (if you want to upload a Pages document, for example). With all your Pages docs visible, simply drag the Pages document from your Mac onto your web browser, where all your documents are. You will be asked if you'd like to upload the document to iCloud. That's it.

While this is convenient, it's not as convenient as saving a document on your iPad and seeing it automatically appear on your iPhone. It's likely this kind of implementation will come to the Mac in the future, but for now I'm sticking with Dropbox.