Incredible file-size difference Word vs Pages!

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Lengerke Author

Level 1

16 points

Incredible file-size difference Word vs Pages!

Hi!

MBP: MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2016) / macOS 10.13.3 (17D47)

I have 4 documents:

A > Word-document / 5000 words / 77 kb

B > I exported A to Pages and then it was 951kb..

C > A new Pages document / 1 character / 520 kb..

D > A new Word (native Windows) document / 1 character / 12 kb

Is this normal??? Am I doing something wrong?? How can I avoid this?

Before I new this, I gave my clients advice to use Pages instead of Word (for Mac) / Office 365. But this file size issue makes me to rethink about the advice I gave them.

I hope Apple will take care of this problem soon!

Sorry for my poor English, I live in the Netherlands😉

Tom

MacBook Pro TouchBar and Touch ID, macOS High Sierra (10.13.3)

Posted on Jan 30, 2018 8:03 AM

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Answer 1

VikingOSX

Level 10

123,470 points

Jan 30, 2018 8:44 AM in response to Lengerke

Any clients left? Wait until they attempt to export multi-column content from Pages v6.3.1 to Word .docx and the multi-column is destroyed by the Pages export process. They will remember you. 😉

Pages is neither a Word clone, nor was it ever designed by Apple as a business capable, replacement solution. Sure, people use it in their small businesses, and some bold souls attempt to use it against the grain in corporate Microsoft document standard settings. But, at the end of the day, there is absolutely no guarantee by Apple that it will accurately translate from or to Word documents on open, or export. Caveat Emptor.

If I start with a blank template in Pages v6.3.1 on macOS High Sierra 10.13.3, and simply enter “ABC" in 20pt Helvetica, this document exports to Word .docx with size 8 Kb. Any version of Pages v5, or early v6 would have exported that as 500 Kb.

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Answer 2

Jan 30, 2018 8:10 AM in response to Lengerke

Yes this is well known for over 4 years now.

Pages 5 and 6 have incredibly badly written file formats and carry a large overhead of extra data in their document bundle.

We've been telling Apple about this and a long list of other issues for over 4 years, and as Apple is known for its responsiveness to customer concerns, nothing has changed.

Peter

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Incredible file-size difference Word vs Pages!

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