[iWork] Why is it so hard for anyone else to create a Pages/Numbers/Keynote reader?

[izzy0242mr]

These apps have been around for a while. Why has literally no one succeeded in making an app that converts these formats to something more common? I remember the olden days when to "read" a Pages doc on a Windows computer you had to dig into the .zip folder and extract a PDF of the Quick Look preview. I haven't tried that in a while but presumably it still works. At any rate, how has no one figured out how to convert these proprietary formats into something else?

 

[bogdanw]

LibreOffice
https://books.libreoffice.org/en/GS262/GS26210-FileFormatsSecurityExporting.html
Apple Pages (.pages)
Apple Numbers 2 (.numbers)
Apple Keynote 5 (.key)

 

[izzy0242mr]

LibreOffice
https://books.libreoffice.org/en/GS262/GS26210-FileFormatsSecurityExporting.html
Apple Pages (.pages)
Apple Numbers 2 (.numbers)
Apple Keynote 5 (.key)

Whoa! Is this a newer development?

Interestingly, the official LibreOffice viewer app on mobile (Android) does NOT support opening these documents.

 

[Fishrrman]

Thanks for the info about LibreOffice being able to open newer Pages/Numbers documents.

I realized it could open -older- files (such as AppleWorks), but not "the latest".

I tried launching LibreOffice and then opening a Pages WP doc and a Numbers Spreadsheet. It opened both, but the fonts were "off". For the Numbers spreadsheet, all the data and formulas came through, but again, some formatting was off (for instance, numbers needed commas at the "thousands", etc.).

But it DOES get "most of the job" done...