Another way to view a Pages file in Windows

Oct 27, '10 07:30:00AM

Contributed by: Anonymous

There are plenty of export options in Pages for crossplatform compatibility (.pdf, .doc, .rtf and .txt are all obvious choices). If you happen to find yourself on a PC and have to open a .pages file, you might think that you're stuck. There is a simple workaround, however.

It turns out that the document bundle used by iWork 09 is just a zipped folder. [crarko adds: As documented in this previous hint.] Here's what to do (on the PC):

What you see inside the folder are some files and a QuickLook folder. Inside the QuickLook folder there is a file named 'Preview.pdf' and that is the Pages document in PDF format. It can be opened in Adobe Reader or another PDF reader for viewing or printing. You would need a PDF editing tool to edit it, of course.

[crarko adds: I tested this, and it works as described. I took a look at Keynote and Numbers files, and they behave similarly except that the Quick Look preview files are JPEGs and not PDFs. This hint will not work with earlier versions of iWork, as they used a different file format, discussed in the hint I mention above.]

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Mac OS X Hints
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20101027052002236