long, complex pages file will not convert to word

Yes and have you seen the requirements?

12 pt type double spaced with first line indents, ragged right, 1" margin all round.

Usually they require no bold text, no All Caps, no underlining.

That is it. You could do it in NotePad.

Saving it as Word .doc is just so there are no surprises when they double click on it.

The whole point of this thread is that they never ask for a .pages file. Certainly not for one with complex formatting.

You seem to totally miss the point I was making. Both .txt and .rtf open perfectly in Word and were a way out of the O.P.s problems. Making a pdf then jumping through hoops to convert that whether by OCR or any other means (Preview could have done it) is going from Dublin to Belfast via Upper Volta.

Peter

denise.stephenson wrote:

Ulitmately, the actual Adobe Acrobat Pro did the work quite well

Glad to heart that.

In general I always recommend that people submitting work that is really important for their academic or business success use the same app as the recipient, usually Word, rather than run the compatibility or other risks of using Pages or another substitute.

My relative said that using MSWord is an industry standard for editors. Most people (especially in college) have had to use MSOffice. The editors like the ease in which they can make suggestions in MSWord and then send it back to the author.

The one question my relative did have for Denise is "...why is Denise not using MSOffice for Mac?"

Which Tom and I were both asking.

Even TextEdit opens and saves in .doc, whilst Pages doesn't.

I still question the complex formatting which seems irrelevant to a novel which is just basic text.

Peter