One of the issue’s with Pages is it’s lack of support for the .doc format, which is something that can’t really be ignored as in most places trying to open a “.pages” document would be an absolute nightmare, so for now .doc is here to stay.
Pages work’s fine when saving a document in .doc format, but as soon as you try to save it again (e.g. a simple change to it) you get presented with the following window:
Which is a right pain when you’re trying to do virtually anything with a Word Document, so your options are don’t save until you’re finished and hope nothing goes wrong, keep going through the process above to save the document, or keep on reading to find a simple fix.
It’s all in the .plist
In common with Apple’s other recent “mishap”, there are just a couple of things you need to change in a .plist file. It’s nice & simple and only takes a couple of minutes, or if you’re lazy you can download the file which I’ve posted below.
For the technically minded
What you’ll need
For the sake of easiness I am be going to using Property List Editor, it comes included with Apple’s developer tools, if you haven’t got this installed it is still possible to do so, simply using TextEdit, although that is significantly more complicated, and I would reccomend that you download the .plist file at the end of this entry.
Update (11/8/09): As has been pointed out in the comments the actual plist entries which you are required to edit has changed with updated versions of iWork, please bear this in mind and look out for it when you follow this tutorial!
- First off, you need to open the Pages.app package, to do this simply browse to it using finder, then right-click and click “Show Packages Contents”.
- Now a new Finder window will appear, this allows you to browse around the … Package Contents, although for now we’re only interested in one file, “Info.plist” (in the Contents folder). This is what appears to be Pages’ main configuration file, so by editing it we can adjust the behaviour of it.
- I would recommend that you make a backup of “Info.plist” before you do anything, just in case something bad happens, to do this simply copy it to somewhere you’ll remember (like the Desktop). Now double click on the original file (within Package Contents) to open it with Property List Editor.
- Now we’re getting somewhere, you will see a view of the properties associated, you need to expand the “Root” by clicking the triangle/arrow to the right of it, and then expand the “CFBundleDocumentTypes” in the same way. This gives a list of numbers, and you then need to expand 8 and 9, which will let you view something similar to this:
- The properties which you need to change are CFBundleTypeRole, for both instances (shown above) change them to “Editor” (without quotes), you can do this by double-clicking on where it says “Viewer”. Now you just need to save the file (File>Save), close Property List Editor, and you’re good to go.
- Now when you open up a Word Document using Pages and try to save any pages it should all work seamlessly, although you may notice a small progress bar like this:
Which is nothing to worry about, it just let’s you know that all is working well.
Hopefully that was easy enough to accomplish, if not here’s the easy version below:
For the not-so-technically minded
Here’s a version of the above tutorial which accomplishes the same output but with fewer steps, just to make life easier for you 
- Follow steps 1 and 2 above.
- Download the updated Info.plist from here: Info.plist, you may need to tell your browser to download it (right-click, Save Link As).
- Copy the new Info.plist into the Contents folder of the Package Contents window. Now just close this and re-open Pages to have the ability to save Word Documents.
Conclusion
I think that it is rather odd that this support isn’t enabled by default, after all when you open a document the last thing you’ll want to do is save it somewhere else, as that’s what “Save As” is for. To me it is a completely illogical step for a user to have to take, and I can imagine there being many “.pages” documents inadvertently being passed around by unsuspecting iWork users. Although maybe this is Apple’s way of promoting the software, with the hope that people who receive these “weird” files will end up paying for software that they don’t necessarily need?
I hope that this post has covered everything, and that it is easy enough to understand. If you have any questions please leave a comment and I’ll try my best to help you out.
Update (6/2/09): Inserted link to the pre-built Info.plist, which I forget to add. Oops.
Very helpful. Thank you!
Very helpful. Thank you!
Dear Lee, thnx for the tip, it’s really great.
Just anther question: when I create a new document (either in pages or in numbers) I have two problems:
1) can I save it automatically in DOC or every time I do have to select the “word document” option, flagging it?
2) everytime I save a file in DOC or XLS, then when I open it again it tells me: “some problems occured: import warning – character borders aren’t supported and were removed” what is that?
thank you
Luca
@Lee Findlow, Sorry to hear that there’s no solution but thanks very much for your time. If I ever find a workaround, I’ll let you know. BTW I did find out that the doc solution also works for docx files which is great.
@Harold, I’ve done some looking around and it unfortunately doesn’t look possible, sorry about that, although if you do come across anything I’d love to know, you can find my Email address on this site!
Lee
@Lee Findlow, Thanks in advance, Lee. I’ll be checking back frequently to see if you’ve come up with a solution.
@Harold, ahhh, unfortunately I don’t think that will be possible, since the export RTF is within a whole different menu section, so probably not going to be possible to move it about, i’ll have a poke around see if you can though.
@Lee Findlow, thanks for your quick reply. I know about the export option. But I was hoping that I would be able to open an rtf file, edit it and then simply save it again as rtf (similar to the doc workaround you describe on this page).
@Harold Yup, it can be, albeit not as simple as saving as a Word doc, you have to go into the Export menu (File>Export), and then choose RTF.
Thanks a lot for the usefil tip, Lee. One question: I would like to save documents as rtf files. Can this be done in Pages 09?
@Scott Powell, that is something I must get round to, thanks for the heads up! I must confess that I’ve actually been using MS Office recently, so not picked up on these things.
@Frank Lester, unfortuantely I don’t think this “hack” works as well with the rest of the iWork suite as it does with Pages, seems a bit hit & miss, so unfortunately it looks like it’s not a possibility with Numbers.
Great stuff, thanks very much, it works well with Pages. However when I tried the suggested editing in Numbers it tells me the document failed to save (as XLS). To close the file I select “don’t save” but when I reopen the file the changes have in fact been saved. Any ideas?
Thanks.
@Lee Findlow
Thank you so much. Just switched over from Office to Pages after just getting a macbook not long ago. This helps me out so much
@Derek Underwood
Is there anyway someone could share a corrected Numbers version so that my xls files will work this way? I don’t have the developer tool mentioned above.
Great post and plist edit.
I am just discovering this now (using Pages 4.02). Perhaps you could update the post because as of the latest version of Pages 4.02, the two Word file entries in the plist have changed to numbers 9 and 10. I blindly followed the instructions and couldn’t figure out why it didn’t work, until I realized that entry 8 is now simple text and the Word entries have been shifted up a number to 9 and 10 respectively.
@Barnabas
I think that is one of the issues with this workaround unfortunately!
@Rui Grilo
Yes, it does seem a bit daft for them not to have it enabled, although I think it may be due to the fact that there are a few little bugs with this workaround!
Great tutorial Lee! Thanks. I also don’t understand why Apple doesn’t have it enabled by default…
Dear Lee, this is great, I have been looking for such a solution for years now. When I open an existing word document, it works. However, if I intend to create a new word document with Pages, how should I do that? I tried to create a new document and then export it in word format, but then the automated process does not work. I will see exactly the same window that you posted at the top of this page. I can exit Pages and then re-open it, and re-open the created new, blank document, but if there is an easier way, let me / us know.
Thank you!
Thank you.
Dear Lee, this is great, I have been looking for such a solution for years now. When I open an existing word document, it works. However, if I intend to create a new word document with Pages, how should I do that? I tried to create a new document and then export it in word format, but then the automated process does not work. I will see exactly the same window that you posted at the top of this page. I can exit Pages and then re-open it, and re-open the created new, blank document, but if there is an easier way, let me / us know.
Thank you!
Thank you.
@Will Bruce Glad this worked for you, was looking over the Apple threads the other day (saw in referrer), noticed a lot of people not understanding that Office comparability is almost a necessity for most, even though I’d rather not have to consider it!
@Lee. Thanks for your reply. But for some reason, if I try to save a doc file as a Pages document, the only options I get are:
- save as word document
- save as iwork 08 document
Do you know how I can save a doc file as a Pages 09 document?
Hello, can you please post some more information on this topic? I would like to read more.
Thanks so much for this information.
I asked about it on the Apple support forums and got practically cursed out by a bunch of fanboys who seemed convinced that Pages should not support saving to .doc at all, let alone without confirmation.
This makes Pages worth using for me.. Thanks a million! There are ten to fifteen separate unanswered threads about this problem on the Apple boards. Apple needs to post a direct link to your site!
@michael I think it could be because Keynote is built on different principles than PowerPoint, such as all the 3D stuff – making it hard to convert between the 2 formats. Sorry I’ve taken a long time (ooops, nearly 2 months) to get back – been busy with college work & stuff.
@Fritz Glad I could help you, this was actually the first plist hack I found too
@Presenz I’m pretty sure it should still work, if not just update iWork then follow this process again!
@Allie Parker Yeh, you just need to use the “Save As” dialogue – let me know if you have any problems!
Very interesting! But does it work the other way around? Can I save a Pages-document as a doc-file first and then – after a couple of revisions – save it again as a Pages-file?
Great tip! One question:
Apple recently issued an update to iWork 09 called “iWork ’09 Update 1″ version 9.0.1.
If I update my iWork, will it erase the changes I made to my .plist files suggested here? I am afraid of screwing things up.
Thanks
Thanks so much for posting this. That solved a very tedious problem, plus it was my introduction to .plist hacking. Very useful information all around.
I tried that and got a message:
unknown error.
I don’t get it…if it could be figured out for pages and numbers – why not keynote? No complaints – I’m just surprised.
@michael Sorry about taking a while to get back to you, I can’t really think of what you can do … what happens if you manually add the .ppt suffix?
still hoping for guidance on Keynote…
thanks!
5-8 doesn’t seem to work. Also…after doing this change…when I open a ppt document I made and saved in keynote, I notice it still has suffix .key.
Suggestions?
Thanks!
@michael I think it’s basically the same process, but change entries 5-8 in Keynotes’ Info.plist
Please note I haven’t tried this though, let me know how you get on!
Lee
OK…that did great for Numbers – now could you please tell me how to do it for Keynote?? Thanks!
@michael
Open your plist editor and change Viewer into Editor on entries 2 & 3. Save and your done.
please explain more clearly as to how we do this with numbers.
also – if this will work with keynote…please explain that too.
This was really great!
One thing…I have found that when I CREATE a word doc in pages and save it as a word doc…my document still says untitled. I then have to trash the untitled document in front of me and open the document I saved as a word doc and from then on I am good to go.
Seems VERY PC-ish no?
Great tip!
I would like to do the same thing with numbers for xls-files, but I’m not familiar enough with the plist-files to find out how…
Lee, Yes – same technique for Numbers. Although in my installation I believe the plist entries do not start with “CF” – that may differ on some systems. Your tip here is really vital, especially for people trying to switch over from MS Office to iWork and looking to be productive. Also, as most people have Word and MS Office, it is really easier to just use the .doc (and .xls) formats for everything.
Thanks so much! I just got my first MacBook + iWork ’09 (with some trepidation, as it seems everyone I know uses Word or OpenOffice) and was just about to give up on ever saving files conveniently. This worked perfectly.
@ Derek Underwood I’m really glad this helped you out! In regard’s for the modifications to Numbers is it basically the same principle – look for the “xls” entries and change them to “Editor”?
Lee, I tried it in both Pages and in Numbers (for Excel files) – problem solved! Thank you for sharing this tip – I thought I was going to have to give up iWork otherwise due to the massive amount of Microsoft documents that I need to access and modify on our servers.
This is a great tip. With this modification, will Pages save the file in the same location as the original? For example, when I open a .doc file off a server and make a change and then try and save it, I would like it to save back on the server in the same place – I think your tip makes this happen, but just wanted to clarify.
Also, do you know if something similar to this will work for Numbers as well? (opening/saving .xls files)
Thanks again for sharing this.
@Clay Thank’s for the feedback, although unfortunately I am unable to help you as I don’t have access to Pages ’08, and this tutorial was only written with the intention of supporting ’09. Sorry about this, but maybe you could email a copy of the ’08 version Info.plist (leefindlow {usual at symbol} gmail {guess what goes here} com). I could have a look at it for you, to see if there is any clues.
Lee
I tried this in Pages ’08 (though it appears that you need to expand #6 instead of 8 and 9). It appears to behave as you suggest, with one small problem: it saves to some TEMP folder that I can’t even locate with spotlight.
Any ideas on what to do to correct this?
great guide – thank you! this was a real problem that you solved – thank you thank you!
Never mind, I’m using IWorks 08, I just figured it out. I should have tried exporting before I missed with the info file.
Isn’t is great how mac just makes everything so user friendly?? :rollseyes:
Hello, I tried this and I cannot get it to work. I followed the “For the not-so-technically minded” procedure.
I try to export it and I can select all the files except for the “word” tab. And if I try to save it as .doc it says you can only save it as .pages.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. If it helps I used a resume template from pages.
Thanks,
Mark
@Robert Thanks for the kind comments! I assume that this fix worked for you
You are a genius!
Thank you!! I have been trying to figure this out for a while now. I work with .doc all the time because I have to transfer my files to a computer lab at my university and then print using MS Word. This is so much better. Thanks!!
Thanks for positive feedback, just submitted to Digg @ http://digg.com/apple/iWork_09_Pages_doc_Support so please Digg it if you find useful
Lee
Interesting tutorial. Worked perfectly for me and removed the pages to doc, doc to pages stress I was having before. I still marvel at the simplicity of changing functionality on a mac.
I think this needs digging.