How do I preserve word document formatting in Pages for iPad?

Question

Level 1

8 points

How do I preserve word document formatting in Pages for iPad?

I have several Word documents with tables and numbered sequences I use for work. When I open them in Pages on my Mac, they are fine. But when I open them on the iPad, there are several incompatibilities and the entire document is changed.

I would consider saving them as PDFs through iBooks, but these documents change often and that is not efficient. I do not have access to cloud storage sites at work and most clouds no longer allow uploading documents via email. I've considered Docs To Go, but several documents with macros are incompatible.

Is there another way to preserve the formatting of the document and still use Pages on the iPad?

iPad 2, iOS 6

Posted on Nov 18, 2012 9:24 AM

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Answer 1

K T

Level 7

23,895 points

Nov 18, 2012 10:47 AM in response to scoutmedic

I think it's up to the individual to come up with a specific recipe.

Each time I've smoothed things out, it changes with any different source from other authors, etc. Style templates are tough to count on, especially when custom, and nearly impossible to port over with accuracy.

As they say, the Devil is in the details 🙂

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Answer 2

scoutmedic Author

Level 1

8 points

Nov 18, 2012 10:55 AM in response to scoutmedic

What makes this difficult is that I can export the documents in PDF format, but then I cannot view them in Pages on the iPad as they cannot be uploaded into iCloud and Pages cannot access documents in other cloud storage sites. Pages uses the Word templates best.

I've considered Quickoffice, but don't want to spend the $$ on an app that may not work.

I've even thought about Team Viewer and accessing the documents on my Mac at home, but why remote access another computer just to view native files?

Thanks for the responses.

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Answer 3

Dec 5, 2013 6:36 AM in response to scoutmedic

Found this thread a year later, installed QuickOffice FREE for iPad, it works! Was trying to read a document that looked fine using Microsoft Word on my Mac, but all the formatting was lost when reading on the iPad.

Indeed QuickOffice rendered the document like Word on my Mac. Problem solved, thanks all!

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