Q: How read .iwa files

This should make it totally clear:-)

https://github.com/obriensp/iWorkFileFormat/blob/master/Docs/index.md#iwa

I've not seen any way to recover text so far.

stephanemartin wrote:

 

I'm sorry @Tom but I really don't know what to do with your link . Could you help me please?

The link explains the format.  Unfortunately there is no way to help you yet as far as I know.

Not sure why the corruption happens - can't help fix that one. I did notice that the file that becomes corrupted gets a weird extension added making it a folder and preventing pages from opening the file.

*FIX*

Rename the folder to only include .pages and select the option to change the extension.

Once the rename is done you will be able to open the file in Pages again.

I3I2ad, I love you. I was seriously freaking out that I'd lost a huge spreadsheet I'd done a ton of work in today when I tried to reopen it and found it had turned into a folder.

Thank you so much for that ridiculously simple fix.

I am SO grateful.

l3l2ad's solution fixed my corrupted spreadsheet too. Thank you so much.

This saved my butt! At first I thought you meant to name the folder ".numbers" which it won't let you do. All I had to do was delete all of the crap after.numbers which was something like"conflicted version blah blah blah. I've been trying to fix this for 4 days! You are a life saver! THANK YOU!

i know you can unzip(1) an essay.pages

i heard a rumor this helps some microsft word import a file as if from older imac - though being a blog i doubt it does.

i had no problem "seeing the text" in Document.iwa.  However it is not a human readable file.  Some (text) is obviously not ascii text and so can't be represented with an ascii viewer (i'm surprised any are - but most text is viewable).  However - the document is binary encoded not human readable text.  The codes are likely numbers (or perhaps represent functions?).

#FIG 3.2

Landscape

Center

Inches

Letter

100.00

Single

-2

1200 2

2 2 0 1 0 7 50 0 -1 0.000 0 0 -1 0 0 5

         675 1500 3825 1500 3825 2775 675 2775 675 1500

4 0 0 50 0 0 12 0.0000 4 165 1005 1500 2025 Hello, World!\001

4 0 0 50 0 0 12 0.0000 4 135 930 1500 2250 Hello There!\001

My point?  If it were in xml (like microsoft .xml) it would still be beyond most people (time and money) to "get their text out".  Only saving as plain text will help "get the text".

The point the above xfig(1) save makes is this: even if it were human readable and free for all open software format, that doesn't help you read the document.  You seem to be implying that a pile of .xml that only ms software can make from jibberish is better than an .iwa that only apple can make from jibberish.  I don't see unzippig a ,docx and having "nothing to go on unless using microsoft" any better.  Infact since I'm an Apple user all of that is pointless.

The original idead of "post script" (now called PDF) was to have  a human readable / editable document and have metadata (fonts, layout changes, et al) at the end of the document in an area humans do not edit without a (graphical layout editor).

I will say, if you want a human readable picture perfect document that can be hand edited, but also preserve text: use Postscript language.  It would be like editing in HTML with a text editor: but have more perfect results at print and cross-OS viewing time.  I'm unsure if Adobe editors sill save in such a editable format (if asked to as an option).  They may still support may not.  I'm sure by default save format is PDF which is compressed.  Adobe has filters that rip text out of .pdf, i'm unsure if Apple has such a thing for .pages, I doubt it, Pages is not meant to replace Adobe.