Do you use iWork instead of Microsoft Office? And do you need to open those Microsoft Word files other people send you? Not only can you open them, in just a few steps you can set up your computer so that Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files open up in your Pages, Numbers, and Keynote programs automatically from now on!
To set up Pages to open Word files invisibly, follow these steps:
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Save the Word document to your computer.
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Look at the icon in the Finder or on the Desktop.
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Right click on the icon (if you’re on a laptop, hold down the Ctrl key and click).
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Hold your cursor over “Open with…”
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At the bottom of the flyout menu, choose “Other…”.
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A dialogue box will open. First, click on the checkbox at the bottom left that says, “Always Open With.”
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Click on your Applications folder and click on iWork, then Pages.
- Click Open.
Not only will the Word document open in Pages, but from now on, all you have to do is double-click on ANY Word file and Pages will open.
You can do the same thing with Excel/Numbers, PowerPoint/Keynote, Adobe/Preview, or any other application you want to substitute!
To save a Pages document back into Word, in the Save dialogue box, put a check in front of Save copy as: Word document. A second copy will be created with the extension “.doc” instead of “.pages.” You can send it to PC and MS Office users!
Hi,
I followed your directions and it works, of course, but I get a window that says the file can’t be opened. Any idea why? It has the “.doc” extension.
why does pages ruin the document, make blank pages and put boxes all over the place.
Do you mean when you open a Word document in Pages? It depends on how your Word document was constructed – very complex documents can be a challenge, or there may be something else going on. Are you using Pages ’09, and what version was the Word document?
Hi Roger, I’d have to see it happen to be able to diagnose that. Give me a call at 971-235-7119 to make an appointment, or you can bring it in to MacPac and see if someone there can help.
I’ve been using pages like this on my mac book pro, but have just bought a new iMac, and I can no longer open word documents in pages. Any reason for this you can think of?