Problem with Pages.app editing

Question

Level 1

6 points

Problem with Pages.app editing

pages.app editing

I have my manuscript available to me in .pdf and .png formats but when I try to add it to a new pages doc it cannot be edited . What do I need to do so I can grab all my 100 plus pages of my manuscript text and copy and paste them into my pages doc so I can edit it?

If these two formats are not easy/possible to work with what text format should I be able to edit in pages?

Can I use mac's TextEdit to achieve this task?

Thank you

Chips

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 11.1

Posted on Jan 31, 2021 6:05 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

brbo

Level 8

35,861 points

Jan 31, 2021 7:52 PM in response to chipsr

It seems you want to copy and paste a manuscript from a .pdf to a new pages doc. It should be possible, as long as you have permission for the .pdf.

You can check permissions via "Get Info" (right click on the file, select "Get Info" from the menu that opens) ... at the bottom of the "Get Info" window that opens .. see if you have permission to read and write. If not, (says read only) you may be able to change it to read and write by clicking the up/down-arrow heads beside your account-name.

If / when you have the permission, you can simply open a new document in pages, then with the manuscript open (eg. you could use "Preview" app to open the .pdf) use "select all" from the "Edit" menu's drop down menu, and copy , and then paste in all in one go to the pages doc. (You could probably use Text Edit ... but may lose the formatting)

I hope this helps.

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Answer 2

chipsr Author

Level 1

6 points

Feb 2, 2021 11:58 AM in response to brbo

Hi Brbo:

Many thanks for your suggested solution.

But, I had read and write permission .

I found my solution :

On the advice of my brother I purchased the Enterprise edition of the app PDF OCR for $ CAD 39.99 which made the whole document a text ( .rtf, I think).

Then I was able to copy and "paste using present format" all of the text. There were a few cliches on the final editing in pages due to my lack of knowledge of headers and footers but I have edited the manuscript now in Pagesapp successfully.

Perhaps, Text Edit may also work to edit a .pdf in Preview but I don't think so. I never tried it .

I had such a large document that I chose this way to save time.

Thanks again

Chips

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Answer 3

Feb 3, 2021 4:41 AM in response to chipsr

Apple ships no PDF editor with macOS, and attempting to edit or change the original content of a PDF requires the purchase of a third-party PDF Editor. Apple does provide the PDF reader Preview, but the first sentence applies.

Pages can only accept a single page PDF dropped on it, where it becomes a document object that you can only resize and reposition. Again, there is no PDF edit capability.

Apple has the Automator application that has a PDF action in it that can convert a PDF to Rich Text (RTF) for free. Pages can then open the resulting RTF. Would have been no need for the PDF OCR expense.

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