I have switched from Microsoft Office on my Mac OS X system to Apple’s iWorks package, which works great except every so often someone complains that my files are in .pages format, not .doc, which is what they want to see. I can’t see how to save a file in Pages as an MS Word doc file, but I know it can be done. Help?
I also migrated on my Mac from MS Office to iWorks and haven’t looked back in the eight months or so since. Certainly Keynote is a huge improvement over PowerPoint, and my Keynote presentations look so much better I am kind of embarrassed it took me so long to switch, but Pages is a splendid replacement for Word too, and so far, for me, offers 100% of the functionality and capability I need.
Even better, as I bet you’ve found out, you can open .doc files created by Microsoft Word in Pages without a problem. Saving Pages docs in Word format, however, isn’t quite as obvious as you may imagine, because it’s not a “Save As” it’s an “Export”.
Let me show you…
Open up your Pages document, then choose “Export…” from the File menu:
Chose that and you’ll see that there are a bunch of formats you can create:
The default is a PDF document. Easy, straightforward. Click on “Word” and you’ll see:
No options, just click on “Next…” and you’ll be able to type in the doc name you desire:
Enter a good name, add “.doc” if you think it’ll make it easier for the recipients, and click “Export”.
That’s it. Done. Now you have a “.doc” file on your computer that’s a Microsoft Word friendly version of your document. Not too bad!
Hi Dave,
It seems you have so many answers that I dare you for this question:
I try to convert a Pages document into Word. What happens is that the resolution of the imported pictures goes down.
I run an Apple and my client a PC. When she opens the file and prints it it’s no good.
So, how can I keep the resolution high (in my Mac) when converting to Word?
Looking forward to hear from you.
Onno (The Netherlands)
It appears you need to use a third party app for this task, Onno. Check out this discussion: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7949011
Fantastic post . I was fascinated by the insight ! Does anyone know if I could possibly find a blank a form example to use ?
when i save my pages file in to word format via itunes the outlines ( headings ) that i created in pages are lost
please help
Shabbir, haven’t bumped into that problem before but I’m wondering if you save it in “rich text” (aka “RTF”) format, do the headings also get lost?
Hi,
I hope you can help me, I’ve done just that exporting process with a college project which is saved in pages format and every time I export as a word document it says the “characters borders aren’t supported and were removed”. Now, this file is text only, no pictures, graphs, anything, just plain text. It’s a college paper so there is no fancy borders, actually NO borders whatsoever.
And the problem is some text just gets out of its place, titles that were supposed to be on the next page are on the page before, quotations that are supposed to be 4 or 7,5 cm from the margin aren’t. I can’t figure out what I’m doing wrong.
Exporting to pdf seems to present no problem, but I have to hand in a doc. copy, not a pdf. copy.
Thank you,
Lucas.
Probably late but I had the same problem. I became suspicious of some links I had in my document so I cut them out, then re-exported. Problem disappeared. I pasted the links back in and… no problem. So maybe the links were the problem. Maybe not. I cannot reproduced the problem. However, I would suggest trying to cut the whole text out, then repasting it back in or into a brand new document. Voodoo I know but it worked for me and if it happens again, that’s what I will try.
Great troubleshooting tip, Leslie! Thanks.
It has a great help. Many many thanks.
I’m confused that you don’t have the export option, Jeanne. What version of Pages are you running?
I don’t have the option to “export” on my file menu. Can I still save a Pages file as a Word file?
Thank you Dave Taylor! I always forget how easy things are on a Mac.
I have in my “Documents” files that were created in “Word”. I changed to Pages and am now unable to open these Documents. I get a window stating “you can’t open the application Microsoft Word becaus PowerPC applications are no longer supported”. Can you help me?
Not sure what you mean by “resolution of the doc”, Maria. Are you saying you had a big photo in the original Pages doc and when you save as MS Word and reexamine it, the image has been scaled down to the point where it’s not usable? In a case like that, you might need to simply replace the low-res photo with the original high-res in MS Word after the conversion…
Thanks Dave. I followed your instructions for a simple 8.5×11 bio and it worked, but the resolution of the Word doc is awful and can not be used. Also others who open the file can not seethe contents. Any advice?
Hey Dave,
Thank you so much!!!!! This was awesome. Super helpful.
Kester
Thank you for writing this article. Very helpful. Go Cardinals.
You suggest the PDF default format as a solution to the problem of converting a Pages document to a Word .doc, but most editors don’t want a PDF because it cannot be edited. How do you make a Word .doc from Pages ’09 and still keep the same formatting? (Eg, what about that warning about character borders?)
That was awesome advice & so easy to do! Exactly what I was looking for. THANKS!!!
I have tried saving a Pages file as a Word document, both by SAVE AS and by EXPORT. In both cases I receive an error message that says “Wrapping text in text boxes around inline shapes isn’t supported in the chosen file format. Text will overlap inline shapes in text boxes.”
So not very useful when I am trying to export a newsletter with some illustrations and text wrapping.
Any ideas how to keep the text wrapping without saving/exporting as a PDF, which creates a very heavy file?
Thanks.
very good explanation, easy to follow and excellent presentation.
Thank you
Jess, if you are saving the file in “Microsoft Word” format, it should automatically have a .doc or .docx filename suffice. If not, try File -> Export (I think that’s the menu item name) and specify an MS Word file.
Hello.
I have recently just downloaded Pages from the app store. I followed the instructions above about saving in a word format, however when I type in “.doc” after I type in my desired doc name, I’ll go into my Finder and my document will only have my doc name not “.doc” after it. Should my friends with word have any trouble opening the document if I were to send it to them?
Hi Dave
This was very useful.
Thanks!
Dave…I’m so glad I found you! You made a frustrating problem disappear in a few well explained steps…you even have visuals! Thank you a thousand times!
Hi Dave,
I have found a document in word that I have saved with a password protection 5 years ago. Now I have forgetten it, and the doc is very important, a story on my best friend, she passed away that year.
Can I open it or must I buy the software that will allow it?
thanks you, micaela from Italy
I’ve followed the instructions for exporting a PAGES file out as a Word document, exactly as you specified on your site. But, when I look at the file in an “explorer” mode, the PAGE version is 152 KB long, and the Word version is only 19 KB.
What did I do wrong?
I would like to use Apple Pages in a typical MSOffice environment (an Italian law office) and I always experience a huge problem: exporting to word seems to work well but, when my coworkers try to print the doc I created, even after modifying it, the printer acts funny.
The page seems to be created in an horizontal format, with only a few (huge) lines per page. Changing the page format seems to solve the problem, but:
1. I can’t ask my coworkers (computer dummies) to do such a “difficult” thing every time.
2. The problem is not visible from inside any word processor I tried, so it’s not easy to find what docs are affected.
If you can help me, even with a private mail, I will be really greateful
what version of word does pages export? the pages word export wont open in word 2003.