Pages for Mac fails to read .docx correctly - is there a workaround?

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Pages for Mac fails to read .docx correctly - is there a workaround?

A friend sent me a document created using a version of MS Word on Windows. It's purely textual (no graphics) and laid out in two columns. I tried to read it with the latest version of Pages (10.2) on an iMac running MacOS Catalina 10.15.6. It appeared to open and showed both columns, but in fact it only showed about 3 out of 17 pages. No obvious errors were reported.

I kind of managed to retrieve the document by reading it with an old version of Preview on an old Mac running High Sierra and saving it as a PDF which works everywhere. The current version of Preview on Catalina won't open it at all, nor will NeoOffice.

Is there a more guaranteed way of reading such documents without buying a lot more software that I don't need?

iMac Line (2012 and Later)

Posted on Sep 28, 2020 4:51 AM

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Answer 1

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VikingOSX

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Sep 28, 2020 9:43 AM in response to Living Fossil

You do not run LibreOffice from its opened DMG installer. Instead, you drag the LibreOffice icon onto the Application folder alias within the open installer (as the green arrow indicates). That actually unpacks and installs the application suite, and once that is done, you eject the installer from your Desktop.

In your /Applications folder, you then click once on the LibreOffice icon, and follow the steps in my previous post.

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Answer 2

Sep 28, 2020 6:59 AM in response to Living Fossil

The fallback application to use when Pages or Preview cannot cope with Word documents is LibreOffice, which is more robustly developed and supported than OpenOffice, or its custom derivative, NeoOffice. Once you download and install LibreOffice, you one-time initialize it by right-clicking on the application icon, and choosing Open, let it verify, and then select Open on the next dialog. At that time, LibreOffice will open.

Open your reluctant Word document in LibreOffice 7, and then resave as Word 2007-365 (.docx). Now, see if Pages v10.2 can handle all of the pages of this document. Apple's Pages is no Word clone, and Apple has long since stopped advertising what partial version of Word documents it can accept. The last I recall, it had partial Word 2013 support.

Any fonts referenced in that Word document must be physically installed on your Mac, or Pages will attempt font substitution, or may just give up.

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Answer 3

Living Fossil Author

Level 2

153 points

Sep 28, 2020 8:21 AM in response to VikingOSX

Terrific answer, thanks! I immediately downloaded the latest version. Sadly at the moment I can't start the DMG because I keep getting "Resource Busy" when I double-click to start the installation. I guess this may mean restarting my Mac (why is it busy?). Anyway when I get over this little local difficulty, I feel pretty confident your solution will work. Will report back.

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Answer 4

Living Fossil Author

Level 2

153 points

Sep 28, 2020 10:44 AM in response to VikingOSX

I'm familiar with the process you describe, it's just that I couldn't open the DMG file. However after leaving my Mac alone for an hour or so that problem went away, and then things went as you suggested (green arrow etc). Anyway I did the authentication as you told me and then opened my docx file and it all appeared! It appears to be read-only, I don't know why. As I only wanted to view it this doesn't matter at the moment. Maybe I will have to solve the problem later.

But anyway thanks to you I can read my friend's document. It's a translation of an English poem into Italian, as it happens.

Thanks again

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Answer 5

Sep 28, 2020 11:12 AM in response to Living Fossil

You are welcome. LibreOffice to the rescue again.

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Pages for Mac fails to read .docx correctly - is there a workaround?

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