OS-Related

•	Because iData 3 takes advantage of system features that were introduced in Tiger, it requires OS 10.4 or later.
•	iData 3 is provided in the new "Universal" format, meaning that it will run natively on both the old Power PC Macs (G3s, G4s and G5s) and on the new Intel Macs.

Freeform Text Formatting

•	New Formatting Tools: We've added a number of formatting features to help with the Freeform Text Area. • Add or edit tables and lists (sometimes they are copied from the web and make text hard to manage) • Use rulers and tabs in the Freeform Text Area • Mark text with a new highlighter toolbar icon as though you had used one of those yellow highliter felt pens • Modify line and paragraph spacing in the Freeform Text Area. Choose Spacing... in the Text submenu under the Format menu and specify spacing details in the Spacing dialog
•	Plain Text Options: Because styled text copied from Web pages or imported as HTML email can sometimes be difficult to read, iData 3 adds several features that make it easy to have simpler text settings.
•	After copying something like a Web page with images and styled text, choose Paste as Plain Text from the Edit menu (or type command-option-control-V) to have the text come in as plain text with no included images or font styles.
•	To change all the text in the Freeform Text Area of the current record to the default font settings, without removing any existing images, choose Apply Default Font Setttings to Current Record in the Format menu. You can use this option after pasting, if the Paste as Plain Text option is too extreme.
•	To change all the text in the Freeform Text Area of all selected records in the datafile to the default font settings, without removing any existing images, choose Apply Default Font Setttings to All Records in the Format menu. This is useful if you already have lots of records that are full of messy-looking text in a variety of typefaces, sizes, styles, and colors, and you want to regularize the entire datafile.
•	To add a record and paste text as plain text, choose Add New Record with Paste as Plain Text in the Records submenu under the Edit menu. Pressing the shift and option keys while clicking the + button has the same effect.
•	Improved Link Handling: Links now work the way they do on a web page. A word or phrase can have a hidden URL attached to it. So, when you click on the word, a web page will open. There are tools for accessing and editing the hidden URL.
•	Use Hidden Links: Just like a web page, you can have a word have a link to a web site without showing the URL for the web site. For example, instead of having http://www.robincasady.com in the Freeform Text Area, you can have Robin as a link to the web site. Such links copied from other sources will be maintained, and you can edit them with a Link toolbar icon.

Field-related

•	Drag and Drop Into Fields: You can now directly drop dragged text into fields from other fields, from the Freeform Text Area, or from other applications.
•	Move Freeform Text Into Fields: Two new commands have been added to make it easier to convert old freeform datafiles to field-based format. These commands move the first line of text in the Freeform Text Area into the first field, the second line into the second field, and so on. As a result, they may require some initial preparation of the data in the Freeform Text Area to make it match the field structure of the datafile. (Although the freeform format is very convenient for many purposes, the structure provided by fields can often make manipulation of your data easier.)
•	Create a New Field With Content: Add a new field containing static text and/or sequential numbers. If desired, automatically add new records to accommodate an ending number.
•	Text Wrapping in Fields in Basic View: If there is too much text to fit on one line in a field, a Datafile Settings option can be enabled to allow the text to wrap, expanding the field to multiple lines.

Record-related

•	Move Current Record to a New Location in the Datafile: Choose Move Current Record... in the Records submenu under the Edit menu, and type in the new record number that you want the current record to have.
•	Remove Blank Lines at Beginning of All Records: Clean up your imported email and other files by automatically removing any blank lines at the beginning of all records.
•	Show Record Information: View record information, showing when and by whom any given record was created and last modified.
•	Added an item to the General tab in Datafile Settings to always add new records after the current record (the only "option" in earlier versions), at the beginning of the datafile, or at the end of the datafile.
•	In List View, holding down the shift key while option-clicking or option-control-clicking a column header now resizes the affected columns to fit the column titles (field names), rather than the widest column text.
•	Added the ability to create links to other records within the same datafile.

Datafile-related

•	Show Datafile in Finder: Bring the folder containing the current datafile forward in the Finder, and highlight the datafile. This may be useful if you have a datafile in a non-standard location and don't remember where it is.
•	Added Always Open to Last Record item to Datafile Settings.
•	Added Fields and Find Box font settings to the Format tab in Datafile Settings. Previously all datafiles had to have one font for fields and one for the Find Box. Now each datafile can have its own settings for these fonts.
•	Changed the Merge Datafiles... item under the File menu to Combine Datafiles.... This adds options to append or prepend a datafile to the current datafile, and retains the option to merge. Merging involves sorting the final combined datafile and removing extra copies of duplicate records, while the other two options do not do this.
•	When printing all records in List View, iData 3 will now print as many pages across as needed to print all columns, and will not break any columns across pages. The one exception to this is that a single column that is too wide to fit the printed page will still be clipped.

Telephone Dialing

•	Automatic Phone Number Recognition: Dial phone numbers in text without having to highlight them first. The Dialing Preferences panel now lets you add phone number patterns, which permits iData to recognize phone numbers. iData will search from the current insertion point and dial the first phone number in the current record.
•	Dial Using Speaker: Use speaker dialing to dial phone numbers when your modem is busy--or if you don't even have a modem.
•	Added Show "Now Dialing" Sheet item to Dialing Preferences. When this item is enabled, iData will display a sheet showing the phone number that is currently being dialed.

Label and Envelope Printing

•	Added Label Copies button to toolbar in Templates window. Click this button to set the number of copies of each label to be printed. The default is 1. To make any change permanent, save changes to the template when you close it. There is also a button in the Templates window toolbar that will bring up the Label Copies dialog.
•	Images in the Edit Design window (for label and envelope templates) are now resizeable.
•	Holding down the control key while resizing a design element in the Edit Design window keeps the center of the element at the same point. This is handy for tweaking the sizes of superimposed elements.
•	The Design sub-menu under the Templates menu now has an Align Centers option. This combines the effects of Align Horizontal Centers and Align Vertical Centers into a single function.
•	Added options for text alignment (justification) of the address block on labels and envelopes. This appears in the dialog that comes up when choosing the Address tool, or the Change Settings button next to it, in the Edit Design tool palette. (We still recommend left alignment for actual mailing addresses, but labels with "address" blocks are sometimes used for other purposes.)
•	Added options for the horizontal and vertical placement of addresses within the user-defined address block area. This appears in the dialog that comes up when choosing the Address tool, or the Change Settings button next to it, in the Edit Design tool palette.

Other

•	The Date/Time Format items in the General preference panel now include Medium date and Full date options. Examples of each date format option is now shown in the preference panel. (These options refer to the format of dates inserted by the Date/Time Stamp function under the Tools menu.)

Existing Features Improved in iData 3

•	Selecting Records can now be done on the basis of record creation date or modification date.
•	Printing all Basic View records now has two options--the old one (Continuous) and a new one (Individually). Individually will start a new page for each record. When printed to Preview or PDF, each record will become a separate file.
•	File Links are now inserted into the Freeform Text Area as the name of the file, linking to the file on disk. When inserted into List View fields, they are still inserted as full URLs.
•	Find and Replace operations can now be limited to the current record. The Find and Replace dialog has a checkbox to provide this option.
•	Window sizes/locations and splitter bar locations are now saved separately for Basic View and List View windows.
•	Datafile Synchronization: Create a duplicate datafile on your laptop or remote machine that can be kept synchronized with the original on your desktop machine.
•	Save Datafile Changes Automatically: Set any datafile to automatically save changes every time you go to a different record. This is a datafile-specific option that can be set for each datafile.
•	Export a Datafile as iPod Notes: Want to take some notes with you on your iPod? Now iData 3 can manage them for you.
•	Clone Current Window: This feature returns from iData Pro 1.0. It was more difficult to do in OS X, but now we have it. By opening a clone of a window it makes it easier to compare two records.
•	Apple Address Book Import: Import all the contact information from your Apple Address Book into an iData datafile.
•	Back and Forward Buttons to navigate through recently viewed records
•	Sum the Contents of One or More Fields: Mathematically totals numeric data in one or more columns in List View, placing the sum in the same column(s) in a new record. This new feature permits the totaling of simple numeric data without having to move it to a spreadsheet.