Sending a Pages letter by e mail.

michael,

First, it wouldn't do any good to send a Pages document by email, unless the recipient also had a copy of Pages.

Second, Pages files (although they don't look like it in the Finder) are actually packages of files -- the equivalent of a folder full of files. To email a Pages file, select it in the Finder, then ctrl-click on it. Choose Compress (file name) if you have Leopard, or Make Archive of (file name) if you have Tiger. Then email that.

Finally, relating to my first point, if the recipient uses Word, you can choose File > Export in Pages to save a copy in Word or PDF format. If you do that, you don't need to compress it before emailing it.

-Dennis

I see the point about creating an archive of the Pages letter but I have tried this with a letter of ordinaary length. It increased the size of the letter from 72 K to 120 KB. When exported to Word its size came down to 20 KB and even as a .pdf it was only 32 KB. I would have thought that the best solution to your correspondent was to send the letter as a .pdf and not trouble the mail system.
Meanwhile, it is a shame that Apple's flagship word processor is so profligate. It might have been better to have a stand alone word processor, which could be linked with a page layout application when desired. It is this page layout part that makes it so heavy.

Alan,

I don't think your experience is the norm. I don't always check the before-and-after sizes of my archived files, but those I have checked have always come in smaller as an archived file.

Meanwhile, if you want to offer advice to those who post, feel free.

-Dennis

Hello

Using "Make Archive", as Dennis suggested, to package up a pages-generated document, creates a .zip file, which neither stuffit expander nor zipit seems able to open and recover the original pages "document" (which I realize is a set of files). Any other suggestions?

Thank you

dmck

I solved my problem (how to open a pages archive) by updating stuffit expander. One should always update free software before complaining about it. My bad.

dmc,

I can't remember what Tiger uses to open it up, but Leopard uses something called Archive Utility. All you have to do is double-click on on the .zip file, and it opens automatically.

-Dennis

Isn't it easier to use 'Mail PDF' from the Pages Print dialogue (in the PDF drop-down menu)? You get an instant Mail message with your doc already attached - just fill in the address. No fussing with zips or archives.

But I agree with Michael, Royal Mail is certainly still more stylish...

Sashura,
Normandy