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working in pages on mountain lion and cannot save file as word document

Hello,


I'm working in Mountain Lion on a Pages 09' document and I cannot save the file as a word document. I have tried export and all I get is "unknown error". The document is sved in iCloud. Could that have something to do with the problem?

MacBook Pro, iOS 5.1.1, Pages 09'

Posted on Aug 13, 2012 10:43 AM

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16 replies

Aug 13, 2012 11:09 AM in response to tlb301

Does the "unknown error" message say anything else?


Documents in iCloud are also saved in the Mobile Documents folder in your user library so I don't think that would necessarily be a problem. You could try saving the file as a Pages file to your desktop & then try exporting again. But I think the problem may be a corrupt Pages preferences file. Go to HD > Users > (your account) > Library > Preferences, delete the com.apple.iwork.pages.plist file & then restart Pages. In Finder, hold down the Option key while clicking on the Go menu & your user Library will appear about halfway down the list.


User uploaded file

Aug 13, 2012 3:22 PM in response to tlb301

You might be looking in the wrong library folder. There are at least three on your Mac & the one you need is hidden in Lion & Mountain Lion.


I'm surprised that copying & pasting into a new document doesn't work. Does the file name have any "Windows-illegal" characters such as a /? Another old trick to try is to save as in iWork '08 format & then reopen that in Pages 4.2. You don't need to have Pages '08 to do this.


A couple of screenshots to help you locate things.


User uploaded file


User uploaded file


User uploaded file

Sep 5, 2012 2:15 PM in response to Peggy

I'm having the identical problem - exporting to word for other documents worked fine until this afternoon when I pulled a Pages format document off the cloud to continue editing. When I was done, I tried to export and got the "unknown error" message. Copy and paste didn't work and when I tried to follow your directions above I ran into a roadblock in that there's no Library option in my menu when I'm in the "User" section. Any other advice?

Dec 3, 2012 1:13 AM in response to Peggy

Hi Peggy, I did read your post and did follow directions. I have a new Macbook Pro (as of Sept. 12) with Mountain Lion and Pages 09. I did briefly get a progress bar when trying to export but then the same "unknown error" occured... Ive also looked at certain fonts as an issue but still have no resolution. Deleting and reinstalling pages was of no help...

Apr 20, 2013 9:58 AM in response to tlb301

I know this is an ancient thread, but it was unresolved and I came across it whilst looking for a solution to just this problem.

After much frustration, I discovered that the document which I was trying to export contained what seemed to be a bulleted list - but on looking at the Inspector, I found that it was set to use <Text Bullets> but actually seemed to have custom images. I changed the bullet type to image - chose a suitable image and hey presto, the file exported OK.

It also had tables in - and I have worked out of long bitter experience, that tables need to be set to "Inline" not "Floating" in the text wrap tab of the inspector.


Hope this helps any random googlers such as myself!

Jun 14, 2013 5:12 PM in response to Wierdostomps

I was looking for a solution to this problem lately, but only found a couple o other threads filled with posts reporting having the issue. I do have bulleted lists in my file and they do have the option "text bullet" but I have so many that I don't have time to correct them all.

What I found by accident is that the iOS version of Pages has no problem with exporting the file to Word format, while keeping all the bullet lists formatting untouched. All you have to do is (besides having an iOS device with Pages installed) sync your iOS Pages with iCloud, open the file there and use the Send by email option. The app will then ask you to choose the file type you'd like to use, you can choose Word format, email the file your own mailbox and voilla!

working in pages on mountain lion and cannot save file as word document

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