How to Open a .Pages Format File in Windows & Microsoft Word

Jul 16, 2014 - 166 Comments

Pages

The Pages app is the Mac word processor similar to Microsoft Word on the Windows side of things, and by default any Pages document is saved as a Pages format file with with a “.pages” file extension. Typically that’s invisible to Mac users, but if you send a Pages file to someone on a Windows computer, the .pages extension is visible and the file format is unreadable by default by most Windows apps and by Microsoft Office. At first glance that may seem like Windows can’t use the file, but that’s not the case.


Fortunately there’s a super simple trick to open the .Pages format from Microsoft apps in Windows, including Word, and it involves convincing the PC that the pages file is not pages format, but rather a zip (yes, like a zip archive). This is done with a simple file extension modification from the Windows file system, and though it’s not an ideal solution (a better method would be to simply re-save the pages file to be compatible with word from the get-go), it does work:

Opening a Pages Format File from Mac in Microsoft Windows

Be sure to save the Pages file somewhere easily accessible to Windows Explorer, then do the following:

  1. Make a copy of the .pages file just in case you mess something up
  2. Right-click on the .pages file and choose “Rename”
  3. Delete the “.pages” extension and replace it with “.zip” extension*, then hit the Enter key to save the extension change
  4. Open the newly renamed .zip file to be able to open and access the Pages format content within Microsoft Word, Office, or WordPad

* Note that you may need to have file extensions visible in Windows to be able to properly change the extension of the pages document. They may need to be made visible first through the Folder Options > View > Uncheck ‘Hide extensions for known file types’ – You can safely ignore any file extension warning change warning.

That’s pretty easy and it works when you don’t have another option to either convert the file from pages to .doc, or to re-save it as a compatible file format ahead of time.

Note: There can be some formatting issues with this approach if the pages doc is particularly complex, so it’s best used as a last resort when there’s no other choice but to work with the file from Windows. This will not work to force open a pages file that has been password protected, however, in that situation, the file would need to be unlocked first.

This great solution for modifying the file extensions for Pages documents was found on the Microsoft Community, so try it out the next time you or someone you know is struggling in Windows to work with a Pages formatted file created from a Mac. It’s usually easier than returning to a Mac to change the saved file output, though you can certainly do that too and directly save a Pages file as a Word DOCX file if needed.

Alternative Solutions for Opening Pages Docs in Windows

Finally, another option worth considering is using iCloud to open Pages files on Windows, because icloud.com has a web based version of the Pages app available which can be loaded on any web browser on just about any computer or PC, whether it’s a Windows PC, Linux, Mac, or whatever else. The primary downside to the iCloud.com approach is that it requires an Apple ID login (however, anyone can create an Apple ID for free at any time), but the plus side to using iCloud.com is it’s widely versatile and you can export directly from the Pages iCloud.com app to a Windows compatible format like Microsoft Office and Word DOC / DOCX file formats.

And it may be worth mentioning there are online converter tools as well, but if you’re going to use an online tool anyway then using iCloud is probably better as it’s at least a trustworthy service, whereas some third party conversion tools may have uncertain privacy practices with whatever documents are being converted.

If you know of another method or a better way of opening Pages files on a Windows PC, let us know in the comments below!

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Posted by: Paul Horowitz in Tips & Tricks

166 Comments

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  1. JT says:

    Much obliged

  2. Szczepan says:

    I found simple solution. I asked sender to use common format when contacting me.

  3. Starborn says:

    I received two .PAGES files. I cannot open them in Windows, of course.

    It says: “Open the newly renamed .zip file to be able to open and access the Pages format content within Microsoft Word, Office, or WordPad”

    Which “content” inside the zip-file does/can one open with Word (or LO/OO Writer).

    One can “extract” an ODT (Open document format) file and get to the content, but which of the many files contain the actual text content?

    Word will ask to choose from a million filters (giving me over 300 pages in Word).

    Why in Tux’s name does anyone advice to open non-MS Office files within a ZIP-file with Word? Geez, that will not work…

  4. Sunny Fenwick says:

    Worked a treat – thanks so much!

    Cheers Sunny

  5. Jo says:

    Did not work on a .pages file I received. Renaming to zip and extracting the file gives me a full folder and file structure. There are 60+ files within the extracted structure. The .pages file was made on an iPad.

    The structure has folders called Index, Metatdata and subfolders called Tables.

  6. rp says:

    Or just go to the CloudConvert site and upload it directly.

  7. Richard Ashton says:

    Easiest way is to upload to Google Drive, select ‘Open with’ then ‘Cloud Convert’. You’ll then need to sign into authorise using the app.
    Decide which option to convert you want (.pdf /.doc etc) and thats it.
    Finished product is then on your Drive to do whatever with.

  8. Cynthia L Schoonover says:

    Using iCloud was easy and allowed me to convert my document. I was already using iCloud for back-up.

  9. Joseph says:

    Worked like a charm – you guys f*****g rock!!! :D

  10. Robin says:

    Thank you. That worked.

  11. Jason says:

    Thanks alot :)

  12. Frome says:

    Hey thanks a lot buddy this was a lifesaver. I don’t see why they have to reinvent the wheel with the file extensions when the develop this software, I mean if its a zip then its a zip right? For some reason a client sent me the file which had the doc extension in front and then the pages extension after. I wish they would design it with some consistency in mind. Thanks bro :)

  13. Trish says:

    Such useful advice! Thank you. The advice to login to icloud and then download as a word file was the simplest process. The comments and tracked changes were retained in the downloaded file.

    • Bill says:

      It only creates a jpg of the first page of a multi page document, so very limited use.

      • Lori says:

        I saw the same thing at first when I just tried to open the zip file but then opened the document from within Microsoft Word and the document opened fine showing track changes and multiple tables/figures. I am using Windows 10.

  14. Clément says:

    Awesome. Thank you very much ! It worked.

  15. Harry says:

    Libreoffice will cover almost everything on almost any platform.
    LibreOffice is a opensource, free office suite that works on Windows, Mac, Linux and BSD. It has been able to open page files since 2016. It works with almost all formats that you could save it in. It is something i download straight away onto a new computer.
    https://www.libreoffice.org/

  16. John says:

    Thanks! I found it easiest to unzip the file after renaming it, and then viewing the image files that appear.

  17. Henry says:

    Thanks! This is great…God bless you!

  18. nico says:

    this was awesome. did the trick. thanks so much.

  19. Susy Ball says:

    I used to have to edit resumes on a PC. Iwould get documents from both Mac and PC computers. Would simply have the sender save their document as a RTF, this format can be read by both computers.

  20. steve says:

    create icloud account and id via itunes copy to icloud save as pdf or word solution suggested here worked well for me thank you

  21. fida says:

    the Icloud.com solution is working very will .. but this renaming will give you some jpg files.. and more..
    i found the icloud trick very helpful.
    thanks to every one.

  22. Melanie says:

    I’ve re-named the file with a .zip and nothing else many times, but it keeps trying to open it in word and giving me error messages :(

  23. Kate says:

    Arghhh.. so I have been sent a .pages file I do not have access to icloud and on my new laptop when you select to rename it doesn’t allow you to change the type only the name! So frustrated… please any other ideas?!?!?!?

  24. Aliz says:

    Lol the most useful thing about this post is the iCloud post by Ryan.

  25. Irma Prunesquallor says:

    The free office suite Libreoffice will open these without problem on Windows or Linux. Download from http://www.libreoffice.org .

    • JYB says:

      LibreOffice Writer succedeed in opening my .pages file … as a blank page. Although the actual file itself is not empty (it contains a 1-page text, which I managed to read via an online converter).
      Maybe I misunderstood the procedure you pointed out: could you, please, elaborate a bit more on the way you managed to open a .pages file with LibreOffice (menu/sub-menu…)?

      Many thanks in advance.

  26. Mark Throneberry says:

    Hey Mark!
    I want to retrieve some of my Windows documents. You told me not to download anything w/o asking you, and I have not. However, I did find, in Launchpad, something called Boot Camp Assistant, which purports to help one retrieve Windows documents. Would that work? Be OK to download?
    Thanks,
    Claire

  27. PAOK says:

    Bolches y tibios yarboclos pa todos los asnos.

  28. Mauricio says:

    Stop suggesting Icloud!. Don’t you realize that you need an account first. Not everyone owns an iphone and have on apple account in advance. You can always create an account, but that is far from an optimal solution. The trick described here does not always work unfortunately.

    A better solution: Go to google an find a pages to doc converter online. Upload your file to be converted (Be aware that the document hopefull will not contain confidential information)

  29. phil says:

    The zip method did not work for me (Windows 7 / Word 2010). But luckily my wife has an iCloud account and that worked easy (as M Ron states above):
    1. login to icloud
    2. open PAGES app
    3. Drag .pages file onto PAGES app
    4. Export >> as pdf/word/whatever

  30. Andrei Tallent says:

    Ok, so now I have a zip file. Then what? Your article is missing the conclusion mentioned in your headline.

    1. I am unable to open a zip file in Word (of course!)
    2. After unzipping the file, Word does not “see” ANY of the files contained within the sub-folders that are now unzipped.

    So, now what?

    • ph says:

      Andrei, you can open the .pages file in Word after you change the extension to .zip and extract the contents. The .pages file is simply a container.

      If your version of Microsoft Office is having difficulty with the .pages extract, you can also use the iCloud.com website web version of Pages app to export as a .doc or .docx file instead.

      That means going to https://www.icloud.com and logging in with an Apple ID, opening the Pages web app, open the .pages file there, then save it as a .doc or .docx file for compatibility with your version of Microsoft Word. That’s a bit more complicated than using the .pages to .zip conversion approach but it works as well.

  31. GaryDoug says:

    The iCloud solution is way harder to do than the rename. It took me 15 minutes to go through the tortuous sign up procedure and then learn how to use iCloud just to be able to convert the document to pdf for printing. It is NOT intuitive. I guess all these folks who like it are Apple worshipers.

    • Chris says:

      I personally don’t like Apple use PC’s and the iCloud experience was super easy but we do have an Apple account already so that’s probably half your battle. The zip approach did not work at all for me on my PC, probably Windows 10 getting in the way! :)

  32. M Ron says:

    The icloud solution is very smooth!
    Login to icloud
    open PAGES ap
    Drag .pages file onto front
    Export as pdf
    Nice

  33. Oemsie says:

    Hi,

    The fix works fine, but would be simpler if there was a bulk .pages to .doc converter. Any suggestions?

  34. Travis Stein says:

    ICloud.com, uploading pages doc, downloading as Word doc… worked like a charm!

  35. Chelsee says:

    Just an FYI, I did this and the zip file extract produced a JPEG, which was only 1 page. After further review the document that had been sent to me was 8 pages long. Not sure if I did something wrong or what, but I followed the direction exactly.

  36. WJ Brock says:

    Doesn’t work. Plain and simple, this is a waste of time.

    • Commander says:

      I opened Pages documents in Word constantly with this trick. It’s the best. This is the best way to open Pages documents on Windows. It works for everyone but you little Brocky, that means you can’t follow instructions. Sad!

  37. CJ says:

    NO THIS does not work correctly. You will not see or have access to some of the pages are the end of the document.

  38. Ian Davies says:

    Hi there

    This issue had been driving me nut.

    The iCloud method works perfectly. Took me less than five minutes to access and read the document.

    Thanks for the solution.

    :)

  39. Riyaz says:

    Hi,

    Thank you for the post and iCloud worked fine for me. After opening the document in pages app, go for print, so that the document will be converted to pdf format and will be opened in web browser. from here you can download the pdf format of the document and can be used in windows.

    Thanks

  40. Setface says:

    Thanks! .zip worked for me – extracted as a jpeg but I just needed to be able to print it out so that’s good enough for me.

  41. Brett says:

    This didn’t work. After renaming it to a .zip I was unable to access any document that word could actually read. In the end, the trick of opening in iCloud and then downloading it as a Word file was the answer.

  42. sachi says:

    This method yields a jpg image,

    • yeseno says:

      No, the pages file is not a jpeg or image. This method allows you to open .Pages files in Microsoft Office Word. If your document has images they will be included, yes. You can also use Google Docs to open the Pages file, it is not a jpeg.

  43. JOHNIEJAMES says:

    hey apart from the given above tricks if none works for you then you could try cloudconveter it is fast and no need of apple id as in icloud.

  44. Dave says:

    Kind of worked – the zip trick created a thumbnail (low res) and an XML file that Word 2016 says has custom xml elements that are no longer supported. I renamed the XML file to .DOC. The single page document then opened in Word, but containted 214 page – mostly blank. At page 211, the information I needed was there, although the formatting was lost and it was quadruple spaced.

    Since I was only concerned about the content, I got what I needed. Lets call it a semi-success.

  45. MOHAMMED Masad says:

    Thanks so much

  46. Helen says:

    I converted it to a zip file. Now. How do I get past the first page of the document??????? All I get is page 1.

  47. jc says:

    Word to pages? Do this >before opening file just change .doc to .pages >>> boom!

  48. Boris Pogoriller says:

    It does not work with Word 2010

  49. Miryam says:

    It worked!

  50. Cedric says:

    Use Zamzar file converter online! Upload the file for free and they send you a converted file through your e-mail as .doc or .docx or whatever you need. Definitely works and is the fastest easiest way to go since I don’t have any iCloud login info!

  51. Anil says:

    Hi,

    This is actually an useful information and it actually worked

    It took hardly few minutes from me to read and to implement the instruction on the file which I would wanted to open on Windows

    Thanks for sharing this information

    With regards
    Anil.K.V

  52. Yakob says:

    As a mac hater and window user, I find this tedious and reprehensible. Windows has 90% world market share. So what kind of arrogant company builds a word processor that does not work easily with the majority entity? One that thinks that their tools are superior? Arrogance. One that wants a little club of those who use pages? Isolationist. One that wants to overturn the majority? Rebellious.

    If I ever get a pages file, I instantly disregard the sender as lost in the iclouds and ignore what was sent. I will not waste my time having to save a file as a zip, etc., ad nauseam, because idiots intentionally make their software not compatible. Are they doing this on purpose to get some sick pleasure of wasting my time? Or forcing me to play by their little ideologies? I really truly think it is because they don’t really care. Guess what? I don’t care either. Pages files go in the trash can.

    • MoccaMasterDK says:

      I agree with you there.

      This is not the first time Apple have programs that mainly only works with apple.

      I came along this file from a client, and told him to save it as PDF or RTF.
      The file contains personal/confidential information, and this renders all cloud solutions void, as it will violate with the laws in my country.

  53. j says:

    doesn’t work for me. changed pages to zip. emailed it to PC. PC recieved it but wouldn’t open it.

  54. Lis says:

    Wow, that was easy! Thanks for posting this. I have tried similar tricks for changing video formats with no success.

  55. Harriet says:

    Hi … I have renamed the file, but when I open the PDF, I can only see the first page … when I do ‘print preview’ there is only one page there. Any solutions to this? Many thanks … :)

  56. How do I convert-change a Microsoft Office Word file into a Microsoft Front Page file?

  57. Reda-Morocco says:

    Thank you so much..
    i m sitting with my diplom project and could not do anything, to work on it because of that pages/word conflict :-)
    thanks again.

  58. George says:

    I emailed the file to myself and opened the email “.pages”attachment on my iPhone. It opens in pages there and you can view there. If you want to take a step further, using the share icon (the little box with the up arrow on it) select the “Save as a PDF in iBooks” which will then open it as a PDF in iBooks. Then using the same share icon in iBooks you can email it back to yourself as the now PDF version.

  59. Jessica says:

    Changing to a zip extension worked great! There was a .jpg of the document inside that let me read the contents. Thank you :)

  60. jithesh says:

    thank you dude

  61. Sandeep Ronak says:

    Thanks you

  62. KarenM says:

    Another solution if you have an iOS device with access to the file is to open the file on that, click share button and send it to an email address. It seems to automatically send as a PDF.

  63. Nick Spence says:

    That worked great for me–in a way. Once I changed the .pages file to a .zip, it opened just fine as several files all zipped up. Inside were several files, one of which was named preview.pdf. That file opened in acrobat correctly.

  64. mary says:

    Your iCloud trick saved me! I tried the other option first and could only see it as a jpg which meant I was going to have to retype it, but then I saw the iCloud tip and it worked. Thank you! You saved me at least an hour :)

  65. trahajje says:

    I really think this only applies to Pages ’09 (and perhaps prior versions). If you use the newer Pages format, there is no PDF generated. I suspect that’s why it’s working for some people and not for others. Since this article was dated July 2014, I had hoped that the author had discovered a way to view the newer file format on a PC. Yes, iCloud.com works, but that assumes the recipient already has an iCloud account, or is willing to create one. In some sense, you’re still dependent on Apple for that to work. When there was a PDF embedded in the file, it wouldn’t matter if Apple didn’t exist. You could still get to your data. I prefer it that way.

    • coolstory says:

      It’s 2015, you can still open Pages in Word or iCloud.com on Windows. It’s not hard, read the article. It works in 2016 too.

      • trahajje says:

        I don’t know if you didn’t read my comment or didn’t understand it. I am aware that it’s not difficult to open Pages files today. If that is the only concern someone has, that’s great. My concerns, however, go deeper than that. My point was that the way it used to work in Pages ’09 didn’t require Apple for a solution. You could take any Pages file and open it on any computer by extracting the PDF. Yes, there is another simple way to read a Pages file now. Wonderful! I simply preferred the way that was not dependent on Apple. Even if Pages and iCloud.com ceased to exist (not saying they will), you could still read a file that was created with Pages ’09. As long as computers can unzip files and read PDFs, Pages ’09 documents will be readable. It’s not dependent on a solution from a single company.

  66. greg says:

    if you use the .zip extension you get jpeg previews not pdf, so you cannot copy/paste any data.

    the icloud method is the best.

  67. Mark says:

    Thanks!

  68. SashaJ says:

    Help me. It isnt working. I’ve been trying all these things you guys have suggested and all Im getting is either a blocked page (thanks a lot education queensland :/ ) or a jpeg in the file.

  69. larry p says:

    I guess I’m missing something. It flat out didn’t work. I have Word 2010. I could “extract” the .zip file and got a .jpg preview of the document, but that’s pretty useless, as it only shows a picture of the first page. What am I missing here? Why haven’t Mac people learned to use some universal format, like .rtf?

  70. Dan says:

    Okay, that’s way too simple.

    Thank you my friend.

  71. Lucy Sawyer says:

    Brilliant! Saved our bacon on the last day of recruiting. Oh the wonders of the internet.

  72. Marta Wetmore says:

    This worked so well! Thanks so much!

  73. Brad says:

    I tried the .zip extension trick but all I get are .jpeg previews (and only of the first page). I do not see a .pdf preview anywhere.

  74. Tim says:

    This works awesome for Windows 7. Saved me quite the hassle.

  75. apm74 says:

    This does not work. Windows 8.1, MS Word 2010. 7-zip.

  76. Laslo Frischmann says:

    **Open Pages files in Windows?**

    Use Google Docs and Cloud Converter. FANTASTIC – Just working.

    Step 1. Open or register your Gmail account.
    Step 2. After you have signed in, go onto Google Docs (link underneath).
    Step 3. Upload your file to Google Docs. (it`s your private storage)
    Step 4. Then click “Open with” and then choose “Cloud Converter”.
    Step 5. You are happy…

    **Links**:

    https://mail.google.com
    https://docs.google.com

  77. Joh says:

    Please I need help. What do I do if the person I have sent the files to uses pages but for some reason cannot open the files. Could there be any solutions to that? Urgent help please

  78. shaza says:

    I manage to find it thanks

  79. shaza says:

    Hi
    I tryed it and it came with PDFI do need it in Word can you please explain to me how to export the page file to doc ?

  80. Max says:

    Wow, so many people not understanding the need for this.
    Yes, Pages exports as Word, WE get that but there are many Mac users out there that may not. It may be the case that you forgot to change the format, or didn’t know you needed to.

    A PDF. Genius. What if you’re sending someone a file so they can edit it?

    Again, wow at 75% of these comments.

    A very useful trick.

    • Grey says:

      No, it’s not “so many people not understanding the need for this” — rather so many people not understanding that unless the recipient needs to be able to edit the file, it should always be exported to PDF, regardless of whether it was authored in Word or Pages. Always. I work with Windows and OSX people every day in my tech support business, and I can testify from that experience that this simple procedure, and its value to obviate all of this application- and / or platform-compatibility bullshit, is something that never occurred to the vast majority of them. This is largely due to the fact that almost everyone, ‘PC’ or ‘Mac’, is habituated to Office — but also because PDF is mostly a foreign object to them…they really don’t understand what it is, nor appreciate its inherent value as a universal filetype.

      • ap says:

        In a perfect world, sure, but this world (and its inhabitants) are far from perfect. Regardless of why people don’t use .pdf, the fact remains that these workarounds are and will continue to be required.

        • suavenico says:

          I can’t stand when I get documents as pdfs, because I cannot edit them or use text from them easily. I actually tend to find it annoying — unless they’re being shared with me so that I can print or share them and the formatting needs to stay exactly the same. Otherwise, I would far prefer to get documents in editable form.

      • CharlieD says:

        A bit late joining this discussion! But I agree PDF is best for compatibility. Formatting, even in Office documents produced in different Office based applications (eg. Documents-to-Go) or when saved from other Office Suites in .docx , does not always produce the desired effects. Especially with any text boxes or diagrams. I use LibreOffice as my preferred Suite on Ubuntu but if I have to send a document I save as PDF. This is also better for version control.

        If a team are working on a document that needs editing they can agree on what format to use. I know too many Apple fans who like to send documents in Apple formats just so they can prove how trendy they are.

    • natasha says:

      I love PDF docs. but my boss who travels a lot and uses her mac, often sends files (to edit) in the middle of the night to me on my PC. Sometiems she forgets to change the format so that I can do this, and I have the need for workarounds like this.

  81. Robert Petersen says:

    I must be missing something here. Wouldn’t it be simpler just to export the Pages file to Word? I work in an all Windows office and I don’t have MS Office for Mac installed on my MacBookPro and I use Pages for word processing and Numbers for spread sheets without problems.

    After I save a document in Pages I then export the file (either as a PDF or a DOCX file) using the File command menu.

    • Paul says:

      Yes absolutely that is the ideal solution, but often users are stuck working with a .pages format file without having the option to have it saved again from the Pages app to a more compatible format. This is really a workaround intended for the latter situation.

  82. Carlos Bernardo says:

    Just for curiosity I’ve tried but didn’t work (MS Word 2010).
    Is there a specifique MS Word version to make this work?

  83. Andrew says:

    7-Zip (and presumably others such as WinRar) can open the .pages file as an archive without any renaming shenanigans.

  84. Chris Cheng says:

    I like RTF for this reason, compatible and portable on everything. Formatting has to be simple though.

  85. Darragh Kasakoff says:

    PDF was created to deal with this very problem!

  86. ryan says:

    You can also use iCloud.com and open the file in Pages on the web, then save it or copy/paste the data from Pages in iCloud to Word in Windows. I’ve had to do that before, but I didn’t know about the zip trick.

    Pages can also just save and export the file as .docx too, which is a more compatible file format than pages format saved from Mac OS X.

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