Create an ePub on your Mac with iWork Pages

You can now create ePub ebook files directly within Apple software thanks to a recent iWork update to the Pages app for Mac. The iWork update brings Pages to a version which includes functionality to export documents as ePub format, it’s easy to do.

Here’s how you can create an ePub document from Pages app:

• Go to the Share menu and select “Export”
• Choose EPub as the output format

You can get the iWork and Pages update through the Software Update control panel. This is highly recommended for Mac authors and content creators if you’re looking to ever publish something in the ePub format. ePub is the standard for the iBooks store on iTunes and the preferred ebook format for iPad, iPhone, and many other digital readers.

This is a great addition to Pages because before you would have to convert to epub using a third party tool, which works fine but ultimately it’s always better to be able to directly export to a format rather than convert.

If you don’t already own iWork, it’s a pretty decent office productivity package that rivals the Microsoft Office suite with a good word processor, spreadsheets, and presentation app.

The iWork suite of Pages, Numbers, and Keynote is free from Apple and can be downloaded from the Mac App Store, for newer Macs anyway.

If you’re on an older Mac and want a version of iWork that supports those older releases then can buy iWork on Amazon for $49 which is about 40% cheaper than the Apple Store. My only complaint is that the spreadsheet app isn’t quite as powerful as Excel.