Files with a .pages file extension are word processing documents created by Apple's 'Pages' application which forms part of Apple's iWork office suite, a set of applications which run on the Max OS X and iOS operating systems, and also includes Numbers (for spreadsheets) and Keynote (for presentations). Pages is a hybrid application, first released by Apple in February 2005, that allows users to perform both word processing and page layout tasks. A direct competitor to Microsoft Word (part of Microsoft's 'Office' suite) it originally aimed to take a more simplistic approach to document creation and editing than Word, stripping out many of Word's more complex features.
Pages includes over 140 Apple-supplied templates to allow users to create common documents such as posters, newsletters, certificates, reports, brochures and formal letters - iWork '09 added support for a further 40 new templates. Pages can used to create custom documents which include charts, tables, images, text boxes, shapes, equations and graphs. It incoporates most of the key features found in modern word processors, including the selection of fonts based on WYSIWYG ('what you see is what you get'), the use of headers, footers, page-breaks, footnotes, bulleted lists and support for automatically generating a table of contents. Pages also comes with the standard spelling and grammar checkers. Pages provides tools for collaboration through change-tracking and advanced commenting and feedback features.
Pages integrates well with other Apple applications - Since iWork '08 a media browser has been incorporated which allows users to drag and drop photos, movies and music from iTunes, iPhoto, Aperture and iMovie, and it is possible to link charts produced in Numbers to .pages documents so that they update when that data is changed. The version 4.2 release of Pages (in July 2012), added support for the auto-syncing of documents through iCloud, whilst the version 5.0 release (in October 2013) added online collaboration across Macs and iOS devices. The most recent major version is 5.5 released in November 2014, which was part of Apple's iWork '14 release.
Aug 6, 2014 - With that said, Pages is now offered as a free Mac app from Apple, so if. Open the Pages file you want to convert / save to Word format into the. Convert a Pages document in Pages for Mac. Open the Pages document in that you want to convert. From the Finder, Control-click the file, then choose Open With > Pages. If Pages is the only word processor on your Mac, you can just double-click the file. From the Pages for Mac app, choose File > Open, select the file, then click Open.
The key advances in Pages are summarised below: Version | Date | Key features |
1.0 | February 2005 | First version - basic features - tables, columns, headers & footers, and some formatting. |
2.0 | January 2006 | Released in iWork '06. Includes 3-D graphing, inline searching, page management, comment support and new table tools. |
3.0 | August 2007 | Released in iWork '08. Introduced a contextual format bar, change tracking, grammar checking (via 'Proofreader'), support for Microsoft Office 2007 .docx files (Office Open XML) and image masking features. |
4.0 | January 2009 | Released in iWork '09. New features such as a running word count, full screen editing, equation support (via MathType), support for iWork.com, outline mode, improved support for Microsoft Office documents. |
4.1 | July 2011 | Support added for Mac OS X Lion, full screen document editing, auto saving, resume, document versioning, better compatibility with Microsoft Office. |
4.2 | July 2012 | Support added for Mac OS X Mountain Lion, document syncing via iCloud, retina display support, voice supoprt via Dictation. |
4.3 | December 2012 | iWork iOS 1.7 apps supported. |
5.0 | October 2013 | Allows online collaboration for both Macs and iOS devices, but removed a number of more advanced features. |
5.2 | April 2014 | Improved language support for Arabic and Hebrew, and better AppleScript support. |
5.5.1 | November 2014 | Support for iCloud Drive, improved compatibility with Microsoft Word 2013 and faster performance. |
Do you have a Pages document but need to export it to a .pdf format? Follow along for how to convert a Pages doc to a PDF on Mac.
While Apple’s Pages word processing application is becoming more popular, there are times when you might need to convert a Pages doc to a PDF document (or Microsoft Word doc). Fortunately, Apple has built in a quick and easy way to export Pages documents to other formats.
How to convert Pages doc to PDF on Mac
- Open the Pages doc you’d like to convert
- Click File in the top left corner
- Select Export To → PDF…
- Click Next… in the bottom right corner
- Create a name for your exported doc, and where to save it, click Export
Here’s how the steps looks:
You can click the drop-down option next to Image Quality to choose another option and also opt to require a password by clicking the checkbox shown below. Choose Next as shown when you’re ready to convert your document.
Choose a name for the file you’re exporting and where you’d like to save it.
That’s it!
For more help getting the most out of your Apple devices, check out our how to guide as well as the following articles: