Pages document to OpenOffice

I haven't used Open Office if awhile but the last time I did it would not directly open a Pages document. The solution was to open the document in Pages and use the ages File menu Export to export the document to a Microsoft Word format and then use Open Office to open that.

I don't have Open Office available to confirm but I do have the very similar Libre Office on a Windows 10 computer and if I open it and then choose Open from the File menu, it defaults to "All Files" and if I click on that I get the long list of possible file types; however I can just leave it at "All Files" and it will open a file saved in Word format. In other words, when opening a file there is no need to first select what type of file it is that you want to open. My memory of Open Office is that with it I never needed to first select the type of file I wanted to open.

If you can't replicate that, another approach would be to use Finder, select (single click highlight) the file that you exported from Pages to Word format, then use the command i key combination (or File menu Get Info) and in the "Open With" section of the Get Info window, set it to Open Office Writer.

MDQ wrote:

...so that I can create a .pdf version I can upload to Amazon's Create Space, without the formatting change.

What happens if you click command-P to bring up the Print pane, and then click 'Save as PDF' from the PDF menu at bottom left of the pane?

Export your Pages document to Word, and then just double-click that Word document to open it in OpenOffice. Then in OpenOffice, simply export to PDF (you might consider embedding the fonts by choosing the PDF/A checkbox.

If OpenOffice is not working, and you do have the latest release, I can tell you from firsthand experience that LibreOffice will do the job. As for Amazon's CreateSpace, doesn't it require Word documents as input?

No version of Pages is a Word clone, and Apple offers no apology, or guarantee that exporting (translation) to Word is entirely accurate, or even intelligible to CreateSpace. So yes, using Word would eliminate any mystique from Pages, and CreateSpace may find the document more compliant with its input expectations.

What part of the following two paragraphs did or did not occur in those three failed attempts to download LibreOffice?

When you download LIbreOffice from their site, it will go directly into your Downloads folder. I have never had it fail to download. If you click on the Dock icon next to your Trash, that is an alias for your Downloads folder, and it will show a list of recently downloaded files. The file at the bottom is the last download. Click once on LibreOffice_5.1.3_MacOS_x86-64.dmg, and the installer will open on your Desktop. Drag and drop LibreOffice into the Applications folder. Eject the LibreOffice Installer icon from your Desktop.

Open a Finder window, locate your /Applications folder, and the single LibreOffice icon. Right-click on it to open it, and choose the Open button. Because it did not come from the OS X App Store, the operating system will put up a brief progress bar to verify the application. It will pose another dialog box ... just click that Open button, and LibreOffice will launch. You only have to go through that ritual once, and afterwards, the application will launch normally.

MDQ wrote:

...

So, does this mean I should purchase Microsoft Word for my iMac as there is no other alternative?

I have Microsoft Office For Mac 2016 and like it and also consider Open Office and Libre Office to be excellent alternatives.

If Open Office or Libre Office won't open the document after exporting it from Pages to a Word format it is possible that you may have the same problem in trying to open it in Word -- i.e., the problem may be with the document that Pages exported.

Did you try saving as a PDF from the Print pane?

The OP had a previous discussion: Pages to .pdf

Nice if he'd explained that. Though since when he saved to PDF it was OK in Preview but got messed up in Amazon one wonders whether a PDF created any other way wouldn't just do the same thing - even assuming the conversion to the other program maintained the appearance, which as has been noted is fairly unlikely.

If you haven't done so already, you might want to also put your questions in the CreateSpace forums and query their support.

https://forums.createspace.com/en/community/index.jspa

The LibreOffice Writer PDF manual is here. It is written entirely with LibreOffice Writer.

Also, if you haven't, take a look at Vellum. Takes a Word document, and generates multiple eBook formats simultaneously. Get to preview output format on screen.