How to export docs from Pages, preserving highlights?

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Level 1

5 points

How to export docs from Pages, preserving highlights?

Hi there,

Hoping someone can help here.

I've been editing a doc in Pages on my iPad mini. I've a lot of different sections and snippets of text highlighted. I want to export the document, in some way shape or form, which preserves those simple highlights. But every time I try and send or export the document, or a copy of the document, the highlights get removed. Even when trying to send it as a PDF, which should be fine and should simply reproduce what's on my screen.

Can anyone enlighten me as to why I'm unable to export documents from Pages iOS, and preserve the highlights I've added?

Regards.

iPad Mini, iOS 8.2

Posted on Mar 31, 2015 7:55 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

annabels9

Level 1

4 points

Sep 7, 2017 6:48 AM in response to Muckley

This is 2017 and I am having exactly the same problem exporting a document to pdf complete with highlights.

This is even though I have a MacBook Pro with Sierra and latest updates installed. It's not just an iPad problem.

It's ridiculous that the only way seems to be to export to Word, re-highlight (because Pages highlights convert to Word comments) and finally export to pdf.

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Answer 2

Oct 5, 2017 12:29 PM in response to annabels9

I have to agree. Without being able to export a Pages document with highlights limits it’s usefulness. My work around is to change the color of the text which does export to other documents but Pages doesn’t make changing color easy either. It is like being back in the 1980’s when we had to use several steps and multiple fingers to produce documents.

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Answer 3

Mar 31, 2015 8:02 AM in response to Muckley

You can take a screen shot of a specific area of your screen (the document) by holding down command, shift, and 4, then selecting the area of the document that you need.

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Answer 4

Mar 31, 2015 8:26 AM in response to Muckley

The only path that I have found that retains highlighting is to export in Word format to the MS Word app.

You can offer Apple Feedback here: http://www.apple.com/feedback/

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Answer 5

Muckley Author

Level 1

5 points

Mar 31, 2015 11:46 AM in response to Kilgore-Trout

^I'm afraid that didn't work for me. It kept my added text and just removed all the highlighting.

Thankfully when I open the document in question on my laptop, the highlights are retained, so at the very least I can print the document with highlights (I hope) and just snail mail it to the person. But the highlights stupidly disappear when I attempt to export to PDF. When I try exporting to Word (from the desktop) the highlights appear as comments. Not useful, as I need the recipient to see what I've highlighted throughout the document. I might just have to reproduce all of the work in a fresh document created in Word, rather than Pages. There's no reason why it shouldn't export what you see on the screen directly. Especially if converting to PDF. It's baffling. I'll try and find a way of converting Word comments to highlights.

What a waste of work and time.

@misimichu - That doesn't work on an iPad which is where I'm having the problem. I foolishly did all my editing of the entire document on my iPad during the commute, without checking first if the results would export properly. That's on the iOS version of Pages, to be explicit... the desktop is a different kettle of fish.

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Answer 6

Muckley Author

Level 1

5 points

Mar 31, 2015 11:57 AM in response to Muckley

Ok, partial solution.

Exporting to Word (2011), all of my highlights got converted to comments. I can manually re-highlight each bit of text, then turn of markup view to just see the highlights, and export that to PDF.

But never again will I make the mistake of using Pages for that very particular purpose. I'll stick to using it on my Macbook instead of iPad.

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Answer 7

Apr 1, 2015 5:34 AM in response to Muckley

You can take a screen shot on an iPad by holding down the power button and the home button at the same time.

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Answer 8

Apr 1, 2015 5:46 AM in response to misimichu

With all due respect, a screen shot approach is simply not practical for a document of any substantial length.

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