How can I export comments and tracked changes from Pages to Word?

Using Copy/Paste, it's normal that your comments / tracked changes are dropped.

Why aren't you the Export to Word feature which is available thru three channels.

(1) File > Save As > Word document

(2) File > Export > Word document

(3) Share > Export > Word document

Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) vendredi 24 juin 2011 22:50:44

iMac 21”5, i7, 2.8 GHz, 4 Gbytes, 1 Tbytes, mac OS X 10.6.7

Please : Search for questions similar to your own before submitting them to the community

To be the AW6 successor, iWork MUST integrate a TRUE DB, not a list organizer !

If you Export or Save as to Word comments and tracking will stay.

Did these solutions work for you, cjw?

With the latest upgrade to Pages, this FINALLY works.

I have tested it today and it works very well. When you have made your redline changes you can send the document as a Word document which then shows up correctly in Word.

VERY nice improvement to Pages!

Pity they haven't fixed format changing between Pages and Word with this build.

Ian, or someone, can you explain to me what is meant by not being able to export "format changing"?

After a week of frustration with my Microsoft Word 2011 for Mac in tracking-editing mode due to multiple and repeated crashes of Word when in tracking mode--apparently a known bug with Word, and when I called Microsoft they said they knew about it but didn't have a fix for it--I'm thinking of switching to Pages, latest version, for my Retina MacBook Pro with Mountain Lion.

Apparently the export to Word function of all tracking changes and inserted comments is fixed in Pages 9.3, and I can now be confident that an MS Word file imported into Pages, edited in Pages using tracking and comments, can then be exported again to a Word file that the original writer can use and see all the tracking changes and comments and accept or reject them.

But what are the formatting changes that /don't/ export, and is this a reason not to switch to Pages for editing Word files if they have to be re-exported to Word files?

Any general comments about the advantages and disadvantages of Pages versus Word for Mac would also be appreciated.

Thanks very much.

Here is what the Pages User Guide says:

" Exporting Pages Documents to Other File Formats

If you want to share your Pages documents with those who aren’t using the latest version of Pages, you can export your document to file formats that they may be able to use on their computers or other devices:

• PDF: You can view PDF files in iBooks, and view or print them in Preview and Safari. You can edit them with a PDF application. Fonts used in the Pages document are preserved in the PDF file.

Hyperlinks in your Pages document are exported to the PDF file. Hyperlinks are also created in the PDF file for table of contents entries, footnotes and endnotes, webpages, email addresses, and bookmarks.

• Microsoft Word: You can open and edit Microsoft Word files in Microsoft Word on a computer running Mac OS X or Windows.

Because of text layout differences between Microsoft Word and Pages, an exported Word document may contain a different number of pages than its Pages counterpart. You may notice other differences, as well, for example, table layouts and some special typographic features may not be identical. Some graphics (particularly those using transparency) may not display as well. Charts created in Pages appear as MS Graph objects, which you can edit in Microsoft Word.

• RTF: You can open and edit RTF files in many different word processors. RTF files retain most of the text formatting and graphics.

• Plain text: You can open and edit plain text files in many text editing applications, such as TextEdit. Exporting to plain text removes all document and text formatting, and images aren’t exported. ePub: You can open ePub files for reading in the iBooks application on an iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch, or in any ePub file reader. After you export your document to ePub format, you must transfer it to your device to read it in iBooks. To learn more about optimizing a document for ePub format, exporting it, and transferring it to your device, see “Creating an ePub Document to Read in iBooks” on page 257.

If your Pages document is password-protected, the password-protection is removed from the new file that's created upon export. However, if you export to the PDF file format, you can apply a new password at the time of export. "

Thanks, Fruhulda!! Very complete answer to my question.

The only confusing statement in the User Guide is "Some graphics (particularly those using transparency) may not display as well."

I can't tell if that means they don't display as well in Pages or in Word--presumably it means they don't display as well in Word, since Apple would never say that something Microsoft did was better than what Apple could do. :-)

What is your feeling (or anyone's, for that matter) about which word processor is better to use de novo on a document, Pages or Word, if you are going to eventually make it into a Word document for others to work with, and if you already have Mac Word 2011 (to eliminate the price issue)? Or to put it another way, which would you use if you could use either and if they cost the same? Just curious.

Transparency is something you can use on images.

If you mainly use text there shouldn be any problem coworking with Word users but if you use tables and other objects there will be problems, esp. if the objects are larger than one page.

OK, thanks again. Very helpful.