What is a PAGES file
Word documents created by Apple’s “Pages” program (under the Apple iWork Office Suit) have the file extension PAGES. Created in 2005, these documents can contain text and page layout tasks. The goal when developing this file format was to simplify the concepts in Microsoft Office. The Pages program contains over 140 templates for various types of commonly used documents but also allows users to start from scratch. Working well with other Apple programs, users can often drag-and-drop various media elements into their documents with little work. Much like Microsoft Word, users can create tables, columns, headers, footers, spell and grammar check, word count, equation support, auto-save, and more. As of 2007, Pages supported DOCX and related files.
Apple has not officially published the file specifications, but with work from those with reverse engineering abilities, iWork ’09 Pages files contain an archived ZIP file container with: index.xml file, buildVersionHistory file, and a “QuickLook” directory with thumbnails and/or PDF preview. The index.xml file contains the metadata and format data. PAGES files from older versions are not compatible with newer versions, meaning conversion may be the only solution to opening older files or opening files with the PAGES extension on Microsoft programs. Since 2012, Pages does not support the OpenDocument file format, meaning only Pages, Google Docs, and Jumpshare can open the files. Neither Jumpshare or Google Docs can edit the files, but both can save and view them and Google Docs can convert it to a PDF for printing.
Here's a small, but not exhaustive list of programs that can open PAGES documents:
- Pages 4.0
- Pages 4.1
- Pages 4.2
- iWork '09
- Google Docs
- Jumpshare
