Two Drifters

What are .pages files?

They are files created with Pages, a part of the iWork productivity suite for Mac OS X.

How can I open them?

There is no known software which can open .pages natively on Windows or Linux.

But, there's a kind of a workaround which lets you access the content of the .pages files.

The workaround

The file is actually a .zip archive! If you have 7-zip right-click the file to extract it. If not, you may rename the file to filename.zip and extract it with your favorite ZIP application. (Windows can do it from Windows XP upwards).

The folder / files which you obtain from the .pages file contains different files and folders.

• index.xml – if you are truly desperate, the text is in here and can be extracted with a lot of patience, I guess. Also theoretically someone could write a parser for this file sometime.
• QuickLook – this folder contains preview versions of your .pages file. If it is present – sometimes it is not (if the creator of the file did not include a preview!)

What about QuickLook & the preview files?

There's two types (I know of):

• PDF files – you're lucky, it contains your .pages in a format suitable for reading and further processing
• JPG images – this is a low-resolution screenshot of the .pages file, you can still read it, but … well no copy'n'paste here.

What about Free Opener from freeopener.com?

The guys over at fileinfo.com claim that Free Opener can open .pages. Well, it's just doing the preview files thing from above. Meaning – if you only have a low-res JPEG preview image, that's all you get from Free Opener. No text, I'm sorry to say.

I like the installer – I think more installers should be built like theirs, BUT – it seems to install along with it many programs which you actually did not want in the first place, if you are not careful. Also there are rumours about it installing Adware (see WOT).

I would at this point advise against installing Free Opener to open .pages files. Use the manual method.

Are there other solutions to open .pages files?

• Google Docs is supposed to be able to open them
• Ask your friend / colleague / … to send you a PDF file, or to export to Word-readable formats (formatting may be lost with the latter option)
• Buy a Mac.

Can InDesign access .pages files?

Not on Windows to my knowledge. Tested with InDesign CS5 + Windows 7 64bit without any extensions, by trying to place a .pages file. "No filter could be found".

Falls Adobe Reader die PDFs aus XMind direkt nicht öffnen möchte:

In Adobe Reader muss der "Geschützte Modus abgeschaltet werden"

Unter dem Menü Bearbeiten->Voreinstellungen->Allgemein

Häckchen bei "Geschützten Modus beim Start aktivieren" weg

After Georg (below) commented, I felt inspired to polish the code into usable Alpha state.

IdeaDay PDF Generator (v3.0 Alpha)

This Concrete 5 package encapsulates mpdf and makes it easy to create PDF versions of your pages.
It was written by ideaday.de
Contact: http://www.ideaday.de/kontakt

mpdf was written by Ian Back (it makes itself heavy use of other OSS projects).
We use Version Version 4.4, released 24/03/10

See the other files for Licensing and Version information. (This blog entry is just a formatted README.txt)

Download

Get your package here:

• Download the newest version from my download page

Installation

1) download the ZIP
2) unzip it
3) upload the folder ideaday_pdf_generator in your packages folder
4) install it using the Dashboard

Usage

Add an Icon / link to the page(s) you want to generate the PDF from, including the query parameter ?ipg_mode=pdf
i.e. http://www.example.com/this/is/a/page/?ipg_mode=pdf

Feel free to edit the default settings in /helpers/pdf.php:
$options['ipg_filename'] = 'website.pdf';
$options['ipg_mode'] = 'I';
$options['ipg_header'] = ";//'{PAGENO}'; //You could set up your own header here.
$options['ipg_footer'] = ";

To modify the way the PDF is shown (streamed / forced download) you currently have to edit the line
$pdf->showPDF();
and change it to the appropriate function.

Functions

public function getHTML()
Returns the actual HTML used to build the PDF.

public function getPDF()
Returns the PDF as a string.

public function streamPDF()
Streams the PDF.

public function showPDF()
Displays the PDF in the browser

Known limitations

• Floating images are rendered on top of the text instead floating beside it. If you specifically set the image size in pixels (IMG width / height), it will render correctly.
• I have exposed only a very limited subset of the MPDF package, i.e. it renders in DIN A4, instead of letter, etc.
• You have to add the icon/link, and tweak the source to change settings. I plan to add a block which will display a link and allow you to set up settings on each page individually.

To release a nice PDF helper, I want to include some fonts. As I want to leave the option open to SELL the PDF Helper, I have to make sure that the font licences allow me to do so.

For instance, the Microsoft Web Core Fonts package does not allow to package the fonts with a commercial product, thus increasing the value of the product.

First some file extensions demystified:

afm: Adobe Font Metrics file. Adds information to PostScript fonts (size, distance of individual characters, etc.) [German explanation]

pfb: PostScript Font Binary. (Postscript Type1) Includes outline information for the font. Goes with the pfm files.

pfm: PostScript Font Metrics file. Both files (pfb and pfm) are needed for Windows.

ttf: True Type Font. Developed by Apple Computers as an alternative to Postscript Type 1 fonts. They additionally support hinting (a technology to optimise screen viewing), thus they became the dominating standard.