Compatiblity concerns
Need to work with non-Apple users? No problem. Follow our handy tips to ensure you can share documents with colleagues using other productivity apps
Pages, Numbers and Keynote are free for most Apple users, and the iCloud.com versions are available at no cost for other people. However, much of the world uses Microsoft Office and Google Docs, so here are tips to ensure your docs work for other people.
1 Line management
When converting an iWork doc to an Office format, text reflow is inevitable. Stick to common fonts to mitigate this and, because Pages and Word interpret lines and paragraphs differently, you’ll get better results if you set line and paragraph spacing in fixed point sizes rather than relative measures.
2 2 Translation issues
Apple’s apps work well with Office docs – comments and tracked changes transfer seamlessly – but there are gaps. Macros are unsupported, linked text boxes and watermarks don’t transfer from Word, and Excel’s pivot tables are missing. Check what might be lost in translation by investigating the three tabs at bit.ly/pgscmpt.
3 Use PDFs
If the person you’re sending a doc to won’t edit it, consider exporting as a PDF. The original’s formatting is retained and PDFs can be opened
almost anywhere. Keynote transitions and builds are lost; if that’s a problem, an alternative is to export it as a movie.
4 Open on a PC
If you’re using a PC and have a doc in one of Apple’s formats, sign in to iCloud.com, upload the file to iCloud Drive, then open the doc in the web-based version of Keynote, Numbers or Pages and export it to an Office-compatible XML file.
5 Open Google Docs
To open a Google-created doc in Keynote, Numbers or Pages, download it from Google Drive: files are converted to Microsoft Office formats during download, which Apple’s apps can open.
6 Convert to Google
To open Pages, Numbers and Keynote files in Google apps, upload the relevant file to your Google Drive. ≈-click it and choose Open With > Cloud Convert. This converts Apple format files to Microsoft formats and saves the resulting file back to Google Drive. ≈-click the converted doc and choose Open With > Google Docs, Sheets or Slides as needed.
7 Large docs
If the Pages, Numbers or Keynote doc you’re working on grows to larger than 500MB, the app will ask if you want to save the file as a package. If you’ve run into the spinning beach ball or slowdowns while working on this doc, choosing ‘Use Package’ can improve the app’s performance. This collates all of the assets in one place.
However, if you’ll share it with someone using a service other than iCloud, choose Keep Single File. If you mistakenly choose that, or need to revert to a single file later on, go to File > Advanced > Change File Type.