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How can I save and read files from Apple's office suite, iWork? It includes applications like Keynote (for presentations), Pages (word processing), etc.

Lekensteyn
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Jorge Pinho
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  • If you need to use .pages files, Google Drive Editor can do that or you can go to icloud.com. You have free access to iWork using your Apple ID –  Jun 17 '14 at 04:15
  • Related question: http://superuser.com/questions/154481/how-to-open-mac-keynote-presentations-on-ubuntu – Waldir Leoncio Sep 17 '14 at 12:55
  • I am finding that .doc files from LibreOffice 3.5 are not readable on the iOS version of Pages. On the Mac version of Pages, the .doc will open but formatting, footnotes, headers are usually gone. Word to Pages and back is fine. LibreOffice hasn't ever balked at Pages' *.doc export. The problem is only outbound from LibreOffice. I like LibreOffice, but I need the export to be well behaved. –  May 09 '12 at 20:29

2 Answers2

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Pages file is actually a .zip archive, there's a handy blogpost here http://blog.cleverly.com/permalinks/346.html

explodingzebras
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There is no universal "Mac format". Applications have their own file formats for storing data.

An office suite for Ubuntu is LibreOffice. To allow for document exchange, save the file in a format understood by both programs:

  • Keynote / LibreOffice Impress: .ppt
  • Pages / LibreOffice Writer: .doc
  • Numbers / LibreOffice Calc: .xls
Lekensteyn
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  • Thnx for your answer, but i know what you have said. The only question i have is that sometimes there is Text format problems when we change docs between OS's...So, instead of saving information on a mutual extension, why can't Ubuntu read directly pages extensions (xxx.pages, or xxx.keynote?) and avoid format problems? – Jorge Pinho Jun 18 '11 at 14:24
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    Let's make a real life example of it, we can both communicate in English, but if I start speaking Dutch I'm sure you've problems in understanding it. Back to the office file formats, if Apple releases its file format and there are volunteers programmers to implement it for LibreOffice, then Ubuntu can handle the .pages and .keynote files too. Otherwise, it'd take a lot of time to make the documents compatible and it'll probably have display bugs. – Lekensteyn Jun 18 '11 at 14:31
  • And there isn't programmers for that on Libreoffice team? – Jorge Pinho Jun 18 '11 at 14:34
  • @JorgePinho: if it's easy to make document formats fully compatible, the big companies won't be able to sell their products. Not everything is free (in both libre and free) – Lekensteyn Jun 18 '11 at 14:36
  • I've found this on wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pages) "Compatibility

    As of August 2010, Pages does not support OpenDocument file format. At the same time, Pages is restricted to Mac OS X only. While there is no program that can view or edit a .pages file using Windows or Linux, some content can be retrieved because a .pages file is actually a bundle." So, what i'm saying is if Apple doesn't allow anyone to read their .pages format, ubuntu community should create some app to read it anyway. We are good! :D

     – Jorge Pinho Jun 18 '11 at 14:40
  • The format problems are also linked to differences in the fonts used in each different operating system. Even TTF fonts with the same name and, in theory properties, display differently. That's the main cause of problems working with these kind of files among different OS and programs, and the reason why I keep a virtualised Windows machine with MS-Office in it to work with clients and other projects. If we should chose a format to make standard it should be a free one like the ones of Libre and Open office and definitely not private and minoritary like Mac apps. – Ramon Suarez Nov 26 '12 at 16:26