Exporting pages to word

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Exporting pages to word

This question has been raised for a few years now and only work rounds have been suggested. Surely, the fundamental question is, why is it offered as a function from Pages if it doesn’t work?

I use an iPad Air 5 generation with iOS 17.03 and Magic Keyboard. Using pages works OK. I use a windows pc with word that I have been using for many a year. Fudges don’t work to get papers I have written in Pages across to a form that publishers specify.

The same issue stands for export to pdf.

I spent several hours on line with Apple people and they have not come up with an answer.

Unfortunately, despite the convenience of using pages for writing, I do not use it because of the Word export limitation.

iPad mini, iOS 9

Posted on Oct 6, 2023 1:38 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

VikingOSX

Level 10

126,944 points

Oct 6, 2023 4:10 AM in response to Radiometeor

Apple never designed Pages to be a Word clone and exports to Word .docx are Apple's translation process which is not promised to be accurate (or even Word version current) and features unique to Pages that have no Word counterpart are dropped. The document layout engines are different between the two applications and that introduces yet another hurdle in how that exported Word document compares to what you see in Pages.

The long-standing (e.g. years) advice in this community is that if you are sharing a Word document with others that expect a Word-generated document, then use a comparable version of Word to ensure acceptable, native document interchange.

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Answer 2

VikingOSX

Level 10

126,944 points

Oct 6, 2023 9:19 AM in response to Radiometeor

Radiometeor wrote:

You missed the point. Why does Pages say it will export Word documents when doesn't!

What are you talking about, and under what circumstances does it not offer to export a Word .docx document for you? Apple cannot make the exported Word document be the same as if it were saved from MS Word. We have gone over that.

I have never had a Pages application version (including V13.2 on Sonoma 14.0), fail to export to Word docx. It no longer will export to the older Word doc format though and has not for several versions.

In iOS/iPadOS 16 and 17, with an open Pages document, the Pages ⋯⃝ > Export : Word : Save to Files, or your choice of alternative (docx Mail attachment as an example) works for me. Just did so on iOS 17.0.3 with Pages for iOS 13.2 and from one email account to another. Can Quick Look the result on macOS Mail.

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Answer 3

VikingOSX

Level 10

126,944 points

Oct 7, 2023 2:56 AM in response to Radiometeor

What happens when you choose > Export : Word : Mail? Do you still receive that Save 2 Images panel, or do you end up with a Mail compose window and an attached 2-page Word document as I do with Pages v13.2 and iOS 17.0.3 (I have an iPhone 15 Pro Max)?

The only way I can arrive at a comparable panel as you show above is via a Share : Export and Send : Images : Export and it shows an option to Save 2 images. Then, if I tap Mail, those two images are attached to a Mail compose window.

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Answer 4

Radiometeor Author

Level 1

10 points

Oct 6, 2023 2:32 PM in response to VikingOSX

This is a real issue authenticated by Apple. I even recorded the steps for them. I follow the procedure the same as you of share>export and choose Word. The result is this where Pages offers two images of my two page text document.

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