How do I get svg files into Pages?

SVG files are "images" which can be resized without losing any information. They can be created by programs like OpenOffice (the drawing module), Inkscape or Adobe Illustrator.

Often the program that created them can also save to PDF, which Pages handles directly, and that is then an easier solution.

However, there is a way to import black and white SVG files to Pages with the help of some other programs. It it may be cumbersome, the first time you set it up, and you will have to type commands in the Terminal, but it does work.

1. Download the program svg2key and follow the corresponding instructions at http://mcb.berkeley.edu/labs/zusman/dave/svg2key/ .
2. Run the program on the SVG you want to import to Pages.
3. You will get a Keynote file. Open it in Keynote.
4. Copy the content and paste it into Pages.

(Images are usually stored inside the Pages file "package" as separate objects. However SVG objects are stored inside the index.xml file in the package, just like "shapes", text and style information. As far as I can tell, they appear within the tags SFDBezierPathSource.)

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 can't I add Reflections or Adjust an Image?

The text below was written before Pages '09. With Pages '09, you can add reflections to shapes, but the other restrictions remain.

...

If you highlight an object and go to the Inspector > Graphic, it is possible that the Reflections checkbox is greyed out. And if you go to View > Show Adjust Image, it is possible that none of the controls work.

This may be because you
a) have not highlighted anything. (Make sure you clicked on the image.)
b) have highlighted something that is not an image. Images can for example be PNG, JPEG, GIF, TIFF with or without layers and transparency in CMYK, LAB or RGB colour space.

You cannot add reflections to inserted shapes (Insert > Shape > whatever), tables, text or charts, even though you can add shadows and change transparency for them. Neither can you use the Adjust Image window with them.

Reflections work only on images and PDF files you have inserted from elsewhere (for example with Insert > Choose... or drag-and-drop from the Finder).

Adjust Image only works on images but not on inserted PDF files.

Why does Pages have these limitations? It is because PDF files and inserted shapes are vector graphics. They have a completely different way of handling colours. Take for example the slider for "Sharpness". To apply sharpness to bitmap graphics, you simply change the surrounding pixels a little. However, for vector graphics, there is nothing called "surrounding pixels", to that kind of adjustment does not work.

The main problem here is not that Pages does not apply adjustments to vector graphics. The main problem is that it does not provide any user feedback why it cannot be done, and what the user can do to get around the problem.


In this image the left circle is a shape from Insert > Shape > Oval, so it does not accept reflections. The right circle is an image that was dragged onto the document from the Finder, so the reflection works fine.

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.)

How do I password protect a document?

From Pages '09, you set the password in the Document Inspector's Document pane.

In previous versions, you could not do it from Pages itself. The following describes ways to handle the problem with previous versions of Pages.

The safest way is to create an encrypted disk image using Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility, and put your document on that one. You get 128 bits encryption, which should be good enough for most purposes. Apple has more detailed instructions.

Using an encrypted disk image is more convenient than many people at first assume. It is high security. It is one password. And you can put a large number of different files on it (Pages, Numbers, pictures, mp3s...).

At first glance MS Word encryption seems simpler - just add a password to the document itself. However, it is not to be trusted. According to Microsoft themselves their passwords for file modification is not a security feature. It is a collaboration feature, and it can easily be hacked. According to Lastbit, no MS Office passwords before MS Office 2007 were secure. And with MS Office 2007, only the passwords for opening a document a document are safe.

From Pages you can get some kind of a Windows-compatible password protection by printing the document to PDF and encrypt it. However, neither you nor the reader will be able to easily modify the document. The encryption in the first versions of Leopard and earlier is just 40 bits RC4, which means it can be cracked with some patience. However, from Security Update 2008-002 (early 2008), the encryption is 128 bits RC4, which should be safe enough for most of us.

You could also use standard file system security (File > Get Info in the Finder), but any other user of the Mac with admin rights will be able to get to the file fairly easily. This kind of security is useless if you put the file on a memory stick or send it over the internet.

Also remember that no security mechanism is safer than the password you choose. If you choose "password" or the file name as password, it is easy for anyone to guess it and access the file content.

Which languages do Pages and Mac OS X support?

Pages has full support for most major languages in the world, including Chinese and Japanese.

Pages does not support right to left writing, like in Arabic and Hebrew. Neither do MS Word 2004 or MS Word 2008 for Macintosh.

Pages also sometimes has problems with contextual forms in non-Latin languages - especially with OpenType fonts.

For certain languages, like Burmese, Pages does not have full support. Some characters, like ႏ, cannot be displayed for some reason.

Pages does not support vertical writing, so Chinese and Japanese have to be written horizontally. OpenOffice and the English and Japanese versions of MS Word 2004 and MS Word 2008 support vertical text. There was a discussion about this limitation in Pages on Japanese Slashdot in August 2007.

Pages does not support ruby/phonetic guides/furigana/振り仮名 [ふりがな]. OpenOffice and the English and Japanese versions of MS Word 2004 and MS Word 2008 support it, but their implementation is not very elegant. The Japanese version of Adobe InDesign also handles Japanese features. A Western version of InDesign is able to display them but not to modify them.

The following applications have Japanese language features, but they save them in a non-standard format, which makes it difficult to exchange documents with other users: LightWayText, iText, iText Pro. The web pages are in Japanese, but some of those applications also have an English user interface.

There are some scripts that Mac OS X supports, even thought fonts and keyboards are not available by default. For example:

• Bengali/Bangla - free fonts and keyboard available from ekushey.org.
• Kannada - free fonts and keyboard available from nickshanks.com.
• Telugu - free font available from nickshanks.com. Keyboard is available from doe.carleton.ca
• Malayalam - free font available from malayalamlinux. It seems the rendering is not good, however. When you combine the characters ക and െ, the characters should basically switch place, but they do not.
• Sinhala - free font available from nickshanks.com.
• Amharic (and Tigrinya) - several links to free fonts at Ethiopian News Headlines, for example senamirmir

Mac OS X 10.5 does not have sufficient support for Lao, Khmer, Burmese or the Indian language Oriya. Neither does it have support for Nastaʿlīq script, which commonly is used to render Urdu. (This means that there are more than 100 million people who currently are unable to write their own language on a Mac, not counting the 150 million Urdu speakers, who can use standard Arabic script, if they have to.)

For more information about typing in foreign languages check this page.

For more information about using foreign languages on a mac check following resources:

• Unleash Your Multilingual Mac (maintained by Tom Gewecke)
• Multilingual Mac blog (also maintained by Tom Gewecke)
• Chinese Mac (maintained by Eric Rasmussen)
• Chinese Mac newsgroup
• Japanese Pages/iWork discussion forum
• Wikipedia help for Indic scripts