I generated a PDF file from Pages, and now I want to know if the images are RGB or CMYK. What do I do?

The only answer I have is expensive: get Adobe Acrobat Pro.

* Open the PDF in Adobe Acrobat Pro.
* Go to Advanced > Preflight.
* Highlight any profile, for example "List all images".
* Execute.

In the resulting window, expand the data for all image and check if it is CMYK or RGB.

Where is the future of Pages?

There was some consternation at Macworld in San Francisco January 2007, as Steve Jobs did not present any computer updates - no new Macbooks, no news about MacOS X and no new versions of iLife and iWork.

This clearly does not mean that Apple will stop producing computers and MacOS X. The new iPhone runs MacOS X after all, and Apple has a huge investment in computers and software.

It seems Steve simply thought this was not the place for that kind of announcements.

But regardless of that, it may be good to be skeptical about updates to iWork and Pages.

Apple is unlikely to ever position Pages as a business word processor. To fullfil the needs of all businesses is a daunting task, and even MS Word does not do everything on its own. Microsoft has been investing in Word for more than 20 years, and it still is not perfect.

The two main purposes of Pages are likely to be
1. to make sure there is a reasonably priced Apple branded word processor for people who want one.
2. to show off Apple's technology - like advanced typography, graphics and inclusion of media in text documents and so on.

Point 1 is solved. There is nothing more to be done there. Pages works - it creates documents and saves them. There are quirks in Pages. There are things that could be added to satisfy some users or markets, but for most users it does most of the things we want.

The application AppleWorks/ClarisWorks is arguably one of the greatest applications ever. When I started using it in the beginning of the nineties, I said to myself "it only needs so little extra development to be perfect". But Apple never added that extra development. They never added an efficient index to the database and they never made it as easy to enter dates in a spreadsheet, as it is in MS Excel. And they never added unicode support.

It looks easy to do it, but it would cost Apple a lot and it would not bring a lot of additional revenue. So they did not do it.

However, point 2 is only solved for MacOS X 10.4 - not for upcoming versions. It is likely that MacOS X 10.5 will include new graphical and typographical features, which Pages can use, if it is updated. For that reason, it is likely that there will be new versions of iWork.

But do not expect big expensive development dedicated to Pages. If it can be reused in other applications, the OS will get it. If not, it will probably not be implemented.

The text above was written before iWork '08 came out in August 2007. It is still largely valid.

How do I import AppleWorks spreadsheets to Pages?

You do not. Pages only imports AppleWorks text documents, and only the ones created by version 6 of AppleWorks.

However Numbers, which comes with iWork '08 imports AppleWorks spreadsheets.

How does Pages handle PDF-X files?

Pages does not handle PDF-X files at all, but MacOS X does through the standard print dialogue. There are some known problems with it - especially in Leopard, but if you have simple documents, it should work fine. Some of the problems are described here.

When MacOS X 10.4 prints to PDF-X it creates a PDF/X-3:2002 compliant file, probably regardless of the original content of the file. All fonts are embedded. RGB images without color calibration get a generic ICC profile called "Generic RGB Profile", if you generated the file from an English system. The file itself contains the specification of this profile. The ICC profile for an embedded image typically looks like this:

Profile version number: "2.2.0"
Color Management Module (CMM) type: "appl"
Profile/Device class signature: "mntr"
Color space of data: "RGB "
Profile Connection Space (PCS): "XYZ "
Magic number: "acsp"
Primary Platform: "Apple Computer, Inc. (APPL)"
Device manufacturer: "appl"
Device model: ""
Profile creator: "appl"
Creation date: "13/5/02 12:00"
Default rendering intent: Perceptual
Profile illuminant
- Illuminant X: 0.964203
- Illuminant Y: 1.000000
- Illuminant Z: 0.824905
Copyright information: "Copyright 2002 - 2003 Apple Computer Inc., all rights reserved."
Profile description: "Generic RGB Profile"

The output intent of the file is defined as "CGATS TR 001 SWOP". This basically means that it follows an agreed standard for printing with CMYK color space. CGATS is the Committee for Graphic Arts Technologies Standards. SWOP is an abbreviation for Specifications Web Offset Publications. Both organisations are American but the standard could be applied throughout the world.

To see more of this data go to Applications > Utilities > ColorSync Utility > Filters.

In theory, it should be possible to create your own Filter and apply them with Automator. The general idea is to take an existing workflow from /Library/PDF Services and copy it under another name to your own equivalent folder ~/Library/PDF Services. Edit the PDF service and data with Automator and give it a PDF file as input.

However, the process to create new filters is buggy, unless you know exactly which way to take. It was bad in Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) and it is not better in Mac OS 10.5 (Leopard). The I work in Pages blog has one process which is said to work. Again, there is a list of known problems and workarounds here.

When I print a document or save as PDF, Pages crashes. Why?

This can happen if you have inserted a footnote in the document and then removed the footnote text, but not the footnote itself.

I just bought iWork and I think Pages is a horrible application. What do I do now?

Oh dear! That is a philosophical question. There are a couple of ways out.

1. Do not accept defeat. Learn to like it. All applications have quirks, and Pages is no exception. You may be surprised at what things turn out not to work, and which ones turn out to work very well. Try to see what the application is able to do. Stop trying to make it do what you thought it should do. It cannot make coffee or read rtf files with graphics, but it can do a lot of other things if you explore it.

2. Take it as an experience. You bought an application that did not do what you wanted it to do. Ok, that was a mistake. However, did Apple say it would do it? You thought Apple said so, but if you really read all the fine prints, does it say it contained the function you are so disappointed about not finding? Did you try it out, before you bought it? There are probably methods you could have used to verify this before you purchased iWork. Go through them. Learn from them. And next time you buy software, it is more likely that you will use those methods than this time. You learnt something. You are now a more knowledgeable person. Congratulations!

3. Tell Apple what you think at: http://www.apple.com/feedback/pages.html

How do I copy or delete a page?

The easiest way of doing this is by going to View > Show Page Thumbnails and then to click on a page and select Edit > Cut, Copy or Delete and then Edit > Paste.

But note that what you copy is not a "page" but a "section". A section can contain several pages. To split a section into several pages you go to Insert > Section Break.

If you want to copy just the objects (graphics, text boxes...) from one page to another, the easiest way is to highlight them all.
1. Shift-click object after object, until you have them all.
2. Go to another page.
3. Make sure that your cursor is not in the body text (you do this by clicking in the margin of the page).
4. Select Edit > Paste.

How can I embed sounds or movies in a document for Windows users?

In Pages 3.0 you cannot. In Pages 2.0 there was a cumbersome and not elegant way to do it with HTML export.

Exporting to pdf or rtf will not embed movies or sounds.

Exporting to Word will link the movie/sound to the document, so it will play fine on your own computer. However, if you transfer it to another Mac, you will have to transfer the movie/sound as well as a separate file.

And even if you send both Word document and movie/sound to the Windows user as two separate files, it may not play on Windows. The help for MS Office 2004 for MacOS X says "Compatibility Report: Inserted QuickTime movies might not appear in Office for Windows."

What pdf features are supported in Pages?

When you create a pdf from Pages 3.0 in MacOS X 10.5 (Export or Print to PDF) it retains the following features:

* Hyperlinks defined in the Pages document
* Bookmarks defined in the Pages document
* Hyperlinks from the page numbers in the Table of Contents
* Scalable graphics stays scalable
* Transparency and shadows of graphics
* Well formatted unicode characters (like 日本)

It does not have any of the following features:

* Outlines (as a special side bar in Adobe Reader or Preview)
* Embedded media (sounds or movies)

Note that PDF/X files do not support any active content, like hyperlinks or bookmarks..

For advice about which method to use to create PDF files, see this entry.

How do I express if-statements in a formula?

Pages 3.0 has if-statements built in, but in Pages 2.0 and earlier there are no conditional functions for the formulas.

If you still use Pages 2.0 you can simulate if-statements in some cases.

To illustrate the principle, you may want to show the biggest of two numbers. You can then type:

=(A1>A2)*A1+(A2>A1)*A2

(For this you could also use "=MAX(A1,A2)" directly, but that is not as fun.)

As another example, you may want to fill cells conditionally. Let us assume that F2 should be transferred to a cell, if the value of E2 = 1, but not if E2 = 2. You can solve this with:

=F2*(E2-2)*-1

Well... almost solve it anyhow. You will get a 0 in the field, if E2 = 2, and there is no way you can hide that 0.

How do I reference a cell in one table from another one in a formula?

In Pages 5 (2013) you enter a formula (Insert > Function > Formula Editor) and click on the other table, and a table reference (usually something like "Table 1::A1:A2" will be added automatically.

However an imported Word document with referenced tables does not get converted properly. If you import that document to Pages, you will see that the cross reference is removed. How to do it in MS Word is described in MS Office help. It is not that easy, but you enter formulas from the Table menu and you have to add bookmarks to tables to be able to reference them.

In Pages 4.3 or earlier, this does not seem possible - not even using Applescript. If you open the Applescript dictionary for tables in 4.3, you can see that a table has no properties that are not also properties of graphics. This unfortunately means that a table works like a black box, whose content cannot be reached by the outside world.

Why cannot Pages show pictures in .rtf files?

Part of the reason is that Pages is silly. If a picture is in a file, it should of course display it.

However, there is method in the madness. When it comes to rtf-files, Apple decided not to support pictures, as the rtf handling of images is too limited. Rtf supports only jpg pictures and png pictures and a number of "meta" image formats. This means that if you insert for example a small eps or pdf-file into an rtf document, MS Word will have to convert it to jpg or png, and then it is no longer scalable, even if you print on a printer with high resolution or with a large paper format. You can see this by simply increasing the view size in MS Word.

When an application like TextEdit saves to rtf, it instead uses rtfd, which allows for pdf and other high quality scalable formats.

If you open an rtfd from TextEdit in Pages the edges are still smooth with a high magnification. However, in any magnified rtf Word the edges of original PDF files are jagged.

So, Pages it not that silly after all? Oh, yes it is:

1. If a well formatted rtf file contains a picture, there is no excuse why Pages should not display it.
2. When Pages exports to rtf, it does not warn you that it is not going to export to rtf at all, but to rtfd, which no Windows application can read.
3. Not only that, the embedded picture in the rtfd file is not PDF! It is tiff, which is a rasterized bitmap format, so it still gets the jagged edges.

I really want to use Pages, but you keep recommending other word processors. Don't I ever need Pages?

No.

You never need Pages. It would be exceptional if you ever needed to do something that only Pages could do.

However, there are a lot of things Pages does really well.

If you want a great layout for a document with correct colours, shadows, typography and image handling, Pages does an excellent job for its price.

There is currently no cheaper program that handles that kind of layout tasks better than Pages. There are a few much more expensive programs of course, like Adobe Creative Suite. But many more expensive programs, like MS Word handles most layout tasks less well. MS Word is for example completely unable to handle ligatures or the typographic features of OpenType fonts, even though Microsoft were the ones who developed OpenType with Adobe.

Besides, if you think these FAQ are as much about what you cannot do in Pages as what you can do, that may be a sign that Pages is reasonably easy to use. What Pages can do is usually easy to do, so people will not ask how to do it. However, it is not always easy to see what limitations Pages has, so that is where people ask questions. And this blog tries to answer them.

People send me files with macros, but the macros will not run in Pages. What should I do?

Do not use Pages. Use the word processor that created the document. There is a fairly good chance that it is MS Word 2004. (MS Word 2008 for Mac does not support VBA macros.)

People send me .rtf files with pictures in them, but the pictures are not displayed in Pages. What should I do?

Do not use Pages to open those files. Instead use one of the free word processors like OpenOffice or NeoOffice or AbiWord or a pay for word processor like Nisus Express or Mellel or many other ones.

Apart from images, Pages 3.0 cannot handle RTF files with tables either. The solution is the same: use another application.