Apple Pages converter
Open and convert Apple Pages documents without a Mac: PDF to read and print, Word to keep editing, PNG or JPG for images, with notes on what changes.
.pages
Format
About Apple Pages
A .pages file is a document from Apple Pages, the word processor and page-layout app that ships free on every Mac, iPhone and iPad and also runs in a browser at iCloud.com. It is the default format for anything typed on an Apple device, which is why .pages attachments keep arriving at offices, schools and print shops that run Windows. Word and Google Docs cannot open it, and double-clicking one on a PC usually ends with Windows asking which app to use.
Two generations of the format are in circulation. Pages '09 and earlier wrote an XML description of the document inside a zip, together with a full PDF preview under QuickLook/Preview.pdf. Since Pages 5 in 2013 the zip holds Apple's binary IWA files (Index/Document.iwa and friends), the pictures under Data/, and a single preview.jpg of the first page only. Some documents are saved as packages: a folder that macOS shows as one file, which turns into a folder or a .zip once it leaves the Mac. Our office engine reads both generations; in testing it opened every unlocked file from Pages '09 up to Pages 14.5, including documents made on an iPad and at iCloud.com.
What carries over well is the substance: body text, page size, headers, footers, page numbers, footnotes and placed photos. What changes is the Apple polish. Mac fonts such as Helvetica Neue are replaced by open fonts, so line breaks move; text no longer wraps around pictures; tables lose their ruled borders; and an automatic table of contents comes out as an empty page. In a Word copy, headings arrive as bold Normal text rather than Heading styles.
Password-protected Pages documents are encrypted and cannot be opened by anyone without the password, us included. When the layout has to be exact, the most faithful copy still comes from Pages itself, and the iCloud.com version of Pages runs in any browser with a free Apple Account.
Common Apple Pages problems
A .pages attachment will not open on a Windows PC.
Use /convert/pages-to-pdf to read or print it, or /convert/pages-to-docx to keep editing it in Word.
The Word copy has no headings in the Navigation pane.
Headings arrive as bold Normal paragraphs. Apply Heading 1 and Heading 2 in Word, then insert a new table of contents.
The contents page of the converted document is blank.
Pages builds that list as a live field we cannot read. Export the PDF from Pages or iCloud.com if the contents page matters, or rebuild it in Word.
The converter says the document is password-protected.
Open it in Pages, turn the password off, save, and upload the new copy.
The .pages file arrived as a folder or a .zip.
That is the package form of a Pages document. Compress the folder if you only have the folder, then rename the .zip so it ends in .pages (report.pages.zip becomes report.pages) and upload it; the folder inside is unwrapped before conversion.