Pages document to OpenOffice

It was recommended to me, here in this community, to upload a large Pages document with many B&W photos into OpenOffice, so that I can create a .pdf version I can upload to Amazon's Create Space, without the formatting change.

However, when I attempt to open the document in OpenOffice a file list appears that is as long as my arm and having guessed at a few possibilities none were able to open the document.

Any suggestions as to which file I should use? And thanks.

Posted on Jun 11, 2016 8:59 AM

Loading page content

Page content loaded

I haven't used Open Office if awhile but the last time I did it would not directly open a Pages document. The solution was to open the document in Pages and use the ages File menu Export to export the document to a Microsoft Word format and then use Open Office to open that.

Thank you, I did try that as well. Again the drop down list of files to use was daunting, even though I tried a few and also attempted to drag the document into OpenOffice, at which point the program crashed. Can you tell me which file will open the Word document?

I don't have Open Office available to confirm but I do have the very similar Libre Office on a Windows 10 computer and if I open it and then choose Open from the File menu, it defaults to "All Files" and if I click on that I get the long list of possible file types; however I can just leave it at "All Files" and it will open a file saved in Word format. In other words, when opening a file there is no need to first select what type of file it is that you want to open. My memory of Open Office is that with it I never needed to first select the type of file I wanted to open.

If you can't replicate that, another approach would be to use Finder, select (single click highlight) the file that you exported from Pages to Word format, then use the command i key combination (or File menu Get Info) and in the "Open With" section of the Get Info window, set it to Open Office Writer.

MDQ wrote:

. so that I can create a .pdf version I can upload to Amazon's Create Space, without the formatting change.

What happens if you click command-P to bring up the Print pane, and then click 'Save as PDF' from the PDF menu at bottom left of the pane?

Export your Pages document to Word, and then just double-click that Word document to open it in OpenOffice. Then in OpenOffice, simply export to PDF (you might consider embedding the fonts by choosing the PDF/A checkbox.

If OpenOffice is not working, and you do have the latest release, I can tell you from firsthand experience that LibreOffice will do the job. As for Amazon's CreateSpace, doesn't it require Word documents as input?

Thank you all. I have tried each of your suggestions and none of them work. When I attempt to download LibreOffice it has failed three times.

When I go to open the Word document in OpenOffice it crashes and closes; this repeatedly.

And yes, Creative Space accepts Word documents. I have saved my Pages doc. to Word doc. and uploaded it to Create Space only to find the formatting a mess, EXCEPT for the one issue that was off when I uploaded as a Pages .pdf. Go figure.

So, does this mean I should purchase Microsoft Word for my iMac as there is no other alternative?

No version of Pages is a Word clone, and Apple offers no apology, or guarantee that exporting (translation) to Word is entirely accurate, or even intelligible to CreateSpace. So yes, using Word would eliminate any mystique from Pages, and CreateSpace may find the document more compliant with its input expectations.

What part of the following two paragraphs did or did not occur in those three failed attempts to download LibreOffice?

When you download LIbreOffice from their site, it will go directly into your Downloads folder. I have never had it fail to download. If you click on the Dock icon next to your Trash, that is an alias for your Downloads folder, and it will show a list of recently downloaded files. The file at the bottom is the last download. Click once on LibreOffice_5.1.3_MacOS_x86-64.dmg, and the installer will open on your Desktop. Drag and drop LibreOffice into the Applications folder. Eject the LibreOffice Installer icon from your Desktop.

Open a Finder window, locate your /Applications folder, and the single LibreOffice icon. Right-click on it to open it, and choose the Open button. Because it did not come from the OS X App Store, the operating system will put up a brief progress bar to verify the application. It will pose another dialog box . just click that Open button, and LibreOffice will launch. You only have to go through that ritual once, and afterwards, the application will launch normally.