Undocumented Proprietary File Format in Pages 5

The new Pages 5 file package format contains binary .iwa files that seem unreadable by other applications. This makes it very difficult or even impossible to recover file content if you are on a computer without Pages 5 or if Apple one day abandons the program. This is a big shift from the XML based file structure of Pages '09 (4.3) and earlier, which at least could be read by text editors, and which in theory could be recovered.

One important reason not to use Pages for crucial documents has always been the proprietary file format. I do not have a single Pages file on my hard disk without a backup in more widely used formats, like doc, docx, rtf, txt, PDF or whatever makes most sense for the file.

However, the new file format makes it doubly important not to use Pages to create files for long term storage.

My recommendation is simply: Never, ever, repeat, absolutely never, create a Pages file without a backup in another file format.

More information about the new file format can be found at GitHub and PixelEnvy.

Update 2019: Since some time, one has been able to access Pages documents through iCloud. From there one can download the documents in the cloud to for example Word format to access it on other platforms.

Note: this blog is not actively updated any more. Any information can be obsolete. I updated this entry only because the stats show that it is one of the more popular posts.

How do I attach a Pages document to an email?

In Pages '08 and earlier, each Pages document was a folder packages, something that confused a lot of mail programs.

In Pages '09, the files are just standard files by default. (You can change the default behaviour to packages in the preferences.) One easy way to mail files is to use the "Share" menu. Here you can send the front document using Mail.app in different formats.


If you want to mail a package, you can do that too:

1. Control-click or right-click on the file in Finder.


2. Choose "Compress ...." from the pop up menu.
3. You will get an "archive", a compressed zip-file, which you can attach to your mail, just like any other file.


The recipient will download the attachment, double click on it, and the original iWork file will be ready to be opened by Pages, Numbers or Keynote.

Why were Pages documents directories and not files?

Before Pages '09, Pages files were "packages" instead of files. There were some good reasons for that, but also a lot of inconveniences.

MacOS X is full of "packages" which in fact are directories.

Almost all MacOS X applications, including iTunes, Adobe Photoshop and NeoOffice are all packages. This makes it easy for developers to add and remove components and to see what files are included and what can be changed and needs to be improved. It also makes it easy to include a lot of information, which otherwise might have been spread over many files.

The main applications of MS Office 2004 are not based on packages. MS Office contains thousands of files. iWork '08 contains only 3 visible files: Keynote, Numbers and Pages.

So much for applications. But why use packages for documents?

The same reason. It is simpler. One can easily open the package of a Pages file and see what it contains if needed. If a picture does not display correctly, one can open the package and verify that the image file is there and that it works.


The drawback is that the files are difficult to attach to mails using webmail. But it takes just a right click to zip the file, and then it becomes both small and easy to attach.

Is there a Pages Viewer for Windows?

No.

If you only have a Pages document and a Windows PC, it is very difficult to see the Pages document as the author intended it. You have only two options:

1. Get a Mac with Pages, or call the original creator of the document and have the Pages document saved in a format that can be read on Windows. That usually means Word or PDF. If you want to edit the document on Windows, only Word or RTF formats work. RTF files with images and tables are not supported.

2. If the file was saved as a package, you can look at the files inside the Pages document directory and try to make something out of the different pictures and xml files that are there. You may at least get an idea what the document is about. If the author set the checkbox "Include preview in document", when the file was originally saved, this may work out reasonably well.

If you want to see what the Windows user will see in a Pages document you can control-click on the file in the Finder and Show Package contents.



You will see the included images and other files in their directory structure. If you clicked the checkbox "Include preview in document" when you saved the file, you will even get a PDF file with all the text and some very compressed pictures in the QuickLook folder.



Anyhow, there is currently only one application that can open Pages files, and that is Pages.

(The situation is the same for Numbers and Keynote documents. There is no available reader for Windows.)