Mac Pages Export to MS Word (.docx) Does NOT Recognized Text Wrapping Around Images??

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Mac Pages Export to MS Word (.docx) Does NOT Recognized Text Wrapping Around Images??

I am working on a large book in Pages (11.2 on Monterey) with A LOT of images. Of course, I use text wrapping around all of the images. I need to send the Pages document to a copy editor now for grammar checking, suggestions, etc. She works In Microsoft Word on a PC for editing.

So I used Pages to "Export" my Pages document to a Word .docx file. However, when I open the exported Word document in MS Word on a PC, ALL of the text is just moved to the front of the chapters and ALL of the images in that region of the chapter are just laying over the text, blocking the text from being read. In the .docx Export, the text wrapping formatting is completely ignored. In Pages, under Arrange, I use the "Around" text wrap style.

This is killer! Any suggestions about how to get Text Wrapping to happen in the Export to a MS Word .docx?

Thanks,

Gordon

Mac mini, macOS 10.14

Posted on Feb 7, 2022 6:31 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Barry

Level 9

60,041 points

Feb 7, 2022 6:53 PM in response to SolarEclipseTimer

Hi Gordon,

While Pages has some compatibility with MS Word in that it will translate the documents of one of the applications to the format of the other, the translation is not guaranteed, and will fail in the manner you describe.

Any feature supported in Pages, but not supported or supported differently in Word will be lost in the translation. The same is true in the other direction. Any feature supported in Word, but not supported, or supported differently in Pages will be lost in the translation to Pages internal working format.

If your work depends on sharing documents with persons using Windows and MS Word, and format is critical to their tasks, your best choice is to do this work on MS Word where you are working with the same file formats and coding as the person receiving your product.

MS Word for Mag is part of the Office Mac package made by Microsoft. Microsoft 365 can also be used with a Mac, but can be expensive as it is sold as a subscription only product.

Regards,

Barry

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Answer 2

Feb 8, 2022 9:51 AM in response to SolarEclipseTimer

Ok, I just tried that also. Doesn't work either. I changed the format of the book to Word Processing. Exported that file as a Word .docx file. When I open the .docx file in Word on my Mac, or open it in Word on my PC, the Text wrapping does not transfer.

The thing that does work is exporting as a PDF file and using the program Adobe Acrobat Pro DC. The PDF file keeps all of the proper formatting and the Acrobat Pro DC allows editing and apparently collaborating on the cloud. It is a Mac and Windows program. So maybe my editor will work with me that way, in that Adobe program. I am still waiting to hear back from her.

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Answer 3

VikingOSX

Level 10

124,298 points

Feb 8, 2022 4:13 AM in response to SolarEclipseTimer

Apple's iBooks Author still works on Monterey 12.2, contrary to what Apple lead us to believe prior to it being removed from the Mac App Store. Granted, no future for it.

Several years ago, the Pages product team was generous enough to mention that Pages translation was compatible with Word 2013. They have since no longer mentioned what version of Word they are using for the translation target, and that may or may not be a contributing factor in your current text wrapping dilemma.

I don't have MS Word here, but if I did, I would export a Pages document to PDF, and then with Word v16.31 or later, I would open that PDF and convert it to a Word .docx document. It would be interesting to see how text wrap around images survives that escapade. Otherwise, Apple is not invested in transforming Pages into a Word clone, InDesign, or Affinity Designer, and the different layout engines in Pages and Word will persist in their disparity.

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Answer 4

VikingOSX

Level 10

124,298 points

Feb 8, 2022 10:03 AM in response to SolarEclipseTimer

What happens when you use MS Word to convert the PDF directly to a Word .docx file. Similar results to the Acrobat Pro to Word conversion?

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Answer 5

Barry

Level 9

60,041 points

Feb 7, 2022 7:12 PM in response to SolarEclipseTimer

Can your editor work with only the text?

Regards,

Barry

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Answer 6

Feb 7, 2022 7:08 PM in response to Barry

Barry,

Thanks for your response. Yes, I would guess that not all features are transferrable back and forth between the two word processing products. But I would have thought that text wrapping would be something that Apple would make work in the Export Process. It's kind of an important feature in word processing!

And Pages does NOT support Exporting to RTF or plain TXT, although those selections are available in the Export Drop Down Menu, it won't let you do it!

The only reason I am working Pages is that I want to get this book uploaded to the Apple Book Store with the smoothest upload workflow possible. I actually started this book in iBooks Author which Apple is no longer going to support so I used their conversion mechanism to get it into Pages so I could upload it as an EPUB file. The conversion from iBooks Author to Pages also caused me a lot of reformatting work. Ugh!

I really want to work with this editor who uses MS Word. I am following up with her today to see if she has access to a Mac for this project.

Gordon

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Answer 7

Feb 7, 2022 7:23 PM in response to Barry

Probably, although the context of the work would be difficult without seeing the related images on the page with the text. But, as I said, Pages will NOT export to RTF or TXT. So I can't get it to all text easily.

The other 2 options that I have tested are to go into the Word document and choose each image individually and Move the text "in front" of the image. Then the text is visible but hard to read because it is laying over the image. Or I can go into the Word document and "cut" every image that is in the first part of the chapters that lays over the text. Neither of those options is great and both are labor-intensive. I could NOT make Word do a Text Wrap in the Exported document.

Gordon

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Answer 8

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

122,496 points

Feb 8, 2022 9:20 AM in response to SolarEclipseTimer

SolarEclipseTimer wrote: And Pages does NOT support Exporting to RTF or plain TXT, although those selections are available in the Export Drop Down Menu, it won't let you do it!

Is that because you are using the landscape format template? Exporting does seem possible on my machine with the portrait book templates.

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Answer 9

Feb 8, 2022 9:30 AM in response to Tom Gewecke

Yes sir that could be it. Also, I am working in the "book" mode, not the word processing mode. Your comment made me think of something! I could try making a copy of my book, converting the copy to the word processing mode, and then doing the Export of that version. That might bring over the text wrapping? Thanks for your comment which made me think of that! I am going to try it.

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Mac Pages Export to MS Word (.docx) Does NOT Recognized Text Wrapping Around Images??

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