| File extension | .numbers |
| Category | Document File |
| Description | Files with a .numbers extension are created by Apple's "Numbers" application which forms part of Apple's iWork office suite, a set of applications which run on the Mac OS X and iOS operating systems, and also includes Keynote (for presentations) and Pages (for word processing).
Numbers 1.0 on OS X was first announced on August 7 2007, and the .numbers file contains many of the standard features of a spreadsheet with support for rows, columns, graphs, formulas and charts. The iPad version of Numbers was released in January 2010, and the most recent version of Numbers on OS X is version 3.5 released in November 2014 as part of Apple's iWork '14 update.
As with other products in the iWork suite Numbers includes a variety of layouts designed by professional illustrators and also includes support for importing documents from Microsoft's Office suite (in this case Excel spreadsheets).
The key advances in Numbers are summarised below:
| Version | Date | Key features |
| 1.0 | August 2007 | First version - basic features. |
| 2.0 | January 2009 | Adds features to allow charts in Keynote and Pages to be automatically updated when changed in Numbers files. |
| 2.1 | July 2011 | Support added for OS X Lion features such as "full screen", "resume", "auto save" and "versioning". |
| 2.2 | July 2012 | Includes features for integration with iCloud, retina display support and dictation features. |
| 2.3 | December 2012 | Includes improved compatibility with Excel documents, the ability to hide and unhide rows and columns amd filters. |
| 3.0 | October 2013 | Launched with a new UI to match that found in Pages and Keynote, and also includes the ability to create interactive charts. |
| 3.5 | October 2014 | New OS X Yosemite inspired design, support for iCloud drive, and an updated Numbers file format. |
|
| Actions |
Convert NUMBERS file
View other document file formats |
| Technical Details | A .numbers file is actually a compressed ZIP file comprised of a number of other different files combined that together make up a .numbers file. The most recent version of Numbers saves files with an "Index" directory containing Apple's proprietary IWA file format, a "Metadata" directory with .plist files and one or more jpg files for allowing quick previews. Similar to Microsoft products, the .numbers file type suffers from a lack of compatibility with other leading spreadsheet programs. |
| Associated programs |
Apple iWork
Numbers 2.1
Numbers 2.2
Numbers 2.3
Numbers 3.0
Numbers 3.5 |
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| Developed by |
Apple |
| MIME type |
application/x-iwork-numbers-sffnumbers
application/vnd.apple.numbers |
|
| Useful links |
MacWorld review of Numbers 3.5
Ars Technica review of iWork '14
Numbers supported file formats
More information on Numbers
Official Apple iWork Numbers details
Convert NUMBERS file |
