How to open Pages documents on a PC?
June 9, 2011 5:01 AM Subscribe
I'm a Mac, my business partner is a PC. We use Dropbox. We are having compatibility issues between Pages and Word.
By compatibility issues I mean he wants to be able to open Pages documents, or at least to open my documents.
I don't have Word on my MacBook — I HATE Word on the Mac: I have found it crashy and difficult, not to mention expensive — so I use Pages, which is perfectly serviceable for me.
I know that my Pages documents can't be opened in Word, so I export them from Pages as PDFs or .Docs when they are finished, but sometimes I forget to do this, or I'm working on a draft for a while so I don't export, or I don't like having two work-in-progress files if I can help it, and — well, for a lot of reasons, it works out that my partner can't read all of my files. This is not optimal.
I am looking for a solution where my partner is able to read all of my files, without my having to export to .Doc manually every time I create/save/work on a document. I'd rather not have two versions of a document going at once (Word and Pages), but I'll live with it if I have to.
Internet, I'm turning to you for help. Is the answer an Automator script? Is there a Pages plug-in for Word on the PC? How can I make this as seamless as possible for both of us?
By compatibility issues I mean he wants to be able to open Pages documents, or at least to open my documents.
I don't have Word on my MacBook — I HATE Word on the Mac: I have found it crashy and difficult, not to mention expensive — so I use Pages, which is perfectly serviceable for me.
I know that my Pages documents can't be opened in Word, so I export them from Pages as PDFs or .Docs when they are finished, but sometimes I forget to do this, or I'm working on a draft for a while so I don't export, or I don't like having two work-in-progress files if I can help it, and — well, for a lot of reasons, it works out that my partner can't read all of my files. This is not optimal.
I am looking for a solution where my partner is able to read all of my files, without my having to export to .Doc manually every time I create/save/work on a document. I'd rather not have two versions of a document going at once (Word and Pages), but I'll live with it if I have to.
Internet, I'm turning to you for help. Is the answer an Automator script? Is there a Pages plug-in for Word on the PC? How can I make this as seamless as possible for both of us?
And, as an aside, you might want to give Nisus Writer Pro a try. I switched to it from Word, and then Pages, and prefer it to both of them.
posted by synecdoche at 5:11 AM on June 9, 2011
posted by synecdoche at 5:11 AM on June 9, 2011
Maybe you aren't looking for a suggestion like this, but, could you use OpenOffice instead?
posted by jozxyqk at 5:11 AM on June 9, 2011 [3 favorites]
posted by jozxyqk at 5:11 AM on June 9, 2011 [3 favorites]
It seems you both refuse to use the other person's software (he can't because Pages doesn't exist for Windows so he'd have to go buy a new computer) and you can't becuase you HATE Word. Find some other software that is cross-platform (or at the very minimum uses an open file format), such as the already suggested OpenOffice.
Or, start using TeX.
posted by Brian Puccio at 5:54 AM on June 9, 2011
Or, start using TeX.
posted by Brian Puccio at 5:54 AM on June 9, 2011
What version of Word did you try? I have to use it for work (not by choice!) and I have less of a problem with Word 2004 than any other version. Not what you're looking for, I realize, but something to consider if nothing else works.
posted by theredpen at 5:59 AM on June 9, 2011
posted by theredpen at 5:59 AM on June 9, 2011
FWIW OpenOffice has fallen out of favor. LibreOffice is the thing now.
posted by BeerFilter at 6:40 AM on June 9, 2011
posted by BeerFilter at 6:40 AM on June 9, 2011
Maybe you can rig up a folder to perform a folder action to convert the files? You could get in the habit of saving things for projects you work on him with into that folder, then emailing from the resultant conversions?
Something like one of these setups?
http://www.esquiremac.com/2009/09/convert-pages-docs-to-word-docs-en-masse/
http://hintsforums.macworld.com/showthread.php?t=83002
posted by davextreme at 7:38 AM on June 9, 2011 [1 favorite]
Something like one of these setups?
http://www.esquiremac.com/2009/09/convert-pages-docs-to-word-docs-en-masse/
http://hintsforums.macworld.com/showthread.php?t=83002
posted by davextreme at 7:38 AM on June 9, 2011 [1 favorite]
3rding Google docs. Not as robust as Word or pages, but you can export as Word, RTF, or even HTML on either end. If you only need the info and not the formatting, you should be in great shape.
posted by Gilbert at 9:20 AM on June 9, 2011
posted by Gilbert at 9:20 AM on June 9, 2011
Best answer: Apple Pages Save/Export as MS Word via AppleScript
posted by plokent at 11:15 AM on June 9, 2011
posted by plokent at 11:15 AM on June 9, 2011
Best answer: combine plokent's AppleScript with Folder Actions in the Finder and whatever you drop into the specified folder will automagically convert to Word documents. (if you're on Leopard or Snow Leopard, the instructions are a bit different but the gist is the same. use the Help in Finder to figure out how to do the Folder Actions stuff if you're on a recent Mac OS X.)
as an aside, Office 2011 isn't nearly as horrible as the older versions were. I reluctantly had to install it for work purposes and I don't completely hate it as much as I did 2008 and prior. I still use iWork for personal stuff, though.
posted by mrg at 11:36 AM on June 9, 2011
as an aside, Office 2011 isn't nearly as horrible as the older versions were. I reluctantly had to install it for work purposes and I don't completely hate it as much as I did 2008 and prior. I still use iWork for personal stuff, though.
posted by mrg at 11:36 AM on June 9, 2011
As an aside, why not save as an rtf file?
posted by synecdoche at 7:20 PM on June 9, 2011
posted by synecdoche at 7:20 PM on June 9, 2011
Response by poster: Thanks for all your help! I'll explore those options and hopefully something will work.
posted by gauche at 8:25 AM on June 10, 2011
posted by gauche at 8:25 AM on June 10, 2011
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posted by synecdoche at 5:11 AM on June 9, 2011 [2 favorites]