Office documents do not have iWork '08 icons, normal?

[MBHockey]

I'm not sure why, but all my MS Word documents have the generic file icon and nothing that makes me think Pages '08 is going to open that file. This goes the same for .xls documents. Even though both file types are set to open in iWork, they retain the generic blank icon.

Is this normal? Shouldn't they have Pages/Numbers icons respectively, even if they were created in Word?

 

[aspro]

It's always been this way for me with both iWork '06 and '08 so I'd say its normal behaviour, though it's not what I'd like.

 

[MBHockey]

I see.

 

[Kelmon]

The annoying thing for me is that I had the same problem when I started using Parallels v3 so that Windows Office 2007 applications would be launched when I opened .doc and .xls files from the OS X Finder. In this situation it was discovered that you could set the icons for these files in a relatively convoluted manner but the job could be done (at least until the next time you updated Parallels). Now that I've installed iWork 08 and set these applications as the defaults for .doc, .xls and .ppt files I now find that I'm back in the same situation as before, and that's annoying.

Looking at the problem I believe that the problem can be resolved by adding a key to the relevant iWork application plist files. The plist file for each of these applications contains elements that describe the document types that the application can open and some contain child elements that tells the OS an icon file to use for these types of files. For example, for a "pages" file the Pages plist file contains the following elements:

<key>CFBundleTypeIconFile</key>
<string>Pages_Doc</string>

This references the file "Pages_Doc.icns" that is located in the Pages Resources folder. Adding these elements to the section in the file for MS Word documents does allow you to set the Pages_Doc.icns file as the icon for a single .doc file but if you use the Change All option from the Finder's File Info dialog for a file so that Pages is used to open all .doc files the generic icon is used again. I don't know why this works for an individual file and not when Change All is used.

Anyone else a bit more knowledgeable on how "Change All" works in Finder for associating files types with applications who knows why hacking the plist file for Pages doesn't work?

 

[Kelmon]

Tell Apple

It's just been brought to my attention that all the iWork applications include a "Provide Feedback" option under the application's menu. I'd suggest making use of this to ask Apple to provide icons for the Office document types as I have done. The more requests for this the more I am sure they will implement this since it's trivially easy to do.

 

[IJ Reilly]

I'm not sure I see why this is a problem. First, it would be non-standard for an application other than the creator to automatically open documents. Second, if you don't own the creator application, it should be easy enough to set another to open all of the associated documents using the Finder settings.

 

[Kelmon]

I'm not sure I see why this is a problem. First, it would be non-standard for an application other than the creator to automatically open documents. Second, if you don't own the creator application, it should be easy enough to set another to open all of the associated documents using the Finder settings.

It's a problem if you have folders of Office-created documents and don't have Office installed - all the damned files look the same, plus ugly to boot. If I want Pages to open Word documents by default (and that's the point here, Pages is the default application to open Word docs on my Mac) then it should provide a document icon for Word documents. Other applications manage to do this (even TextEdit) but Apple seems to have forgotten this with iWork. Kinda perplexing...

 

[MBHockey]

I'm not sure I see why this is a problem. First, it would be non-standard for an application other than the creator to automatically open documents. Second, if you don't own the creator application, it should be easy enough to set another to open all of the associated documents using the Finder settings.

I'm not sure where you are getting that it would be "non-standard".

Any other document's icon changes with the default app you pick...

 

[Manic Mouse]

This wont be an issue in Leopard with quicklook, so I doubt Apple are too concerned.

 

[IJ Reilly]

It's a problem if you have folders of Office-created documents and don't have Office installed - all the damned files look the same, plus ugly to boot. If I want Pages to open Word documents by default (and that's the point here, Pages is the default application to open Word docs on my Mac) then it should provide a document icon for Word documents. Other applications manage to do this (even TextEdit) but Apple seems to have forgotten this with iWork. Kinda perplexing...

I'm not sure where you are getting that it would be "non-standard".

Any other document's icon changes with the default app you pick...

I understand the point, but here's the problem. If you don't have Word installed on the Mac, OSX does not have access to Microsoft's icon. Also, by design the icon is supposed to represent the creator of the document. The Word format is not "native" to Pages -- it translates Word into Pages format, so it would be incorrect to show Word documents which you have set to open with Pages as Pages documents, because they are not Pages documents until you save them as such. You'll notice also that even though TextEdit opens Word documents, switching the opening application of a Word document does not change the icon of the Word document to a TextEdit document, because (for the same reason) it's not a TextEdit document. So this convention is not unique to Pages. If fact, I don't think it's ever changed with the MacOS, that I can recall.

 

[Krevnik]

This wont be an issue in Leopard with quicklook, so I doubt Apple are too concerned.

I would almost say Apple left things blank BECAUSE of Quicklook which is just gonna replace the icon with a preview of the file with "XLSX" or whatever over it in antialiased type.

 

[Anonymous Freak]

Install the Office trial (should have come with your computer, or you can download from MS' website.)

Launch each Office app once to allow it to 'register' itself, and assign as the app for each file type.

Install iWork, open each to set the file types.

Remove Office.

You'll keep the Office icons, even though Office is gone.

 

[IJ Reilly]

I would almost say Apple left things blank BECAUSE of Quicklook which is just gonna replace the icon with a preview of the file with "XLSX" or whatever over it in antialiased type.

No, it's always worked this way (see above post).

Install the Office trial (should have come with your computer, or you can download from MS' website.)

Launch each Office app once to allow it to 'register' itself, and assign as the app for each file type.

Install iWork, open each to set the file types.

Remove Office.

You'll keep the Office icons, even though Office is gone.

No, that won't happen. Whether you've got Word installed or not, when you change the Open With setting in the Finder, the icon of the document will become generic (for reasons which are explained in the above post).

 

[Krevnik]

No, it's always worked this way (see above post).

I haven't been in 10.4 in quite awhile, so I haven't actually used iWork in 10.4, but does it actually display the live preview, or just a thumbnail-sort-of-thing generated when it saves? One of the big things about Quicklook is that plugins can let you override the Finder icon with a 100% scalable preview icon rendered live, no thumbnails required.

 

[IJ Reilly]

I haven't been in 10.4 in quite awhile, so I haven't actually used iWork in 10.4, but does it actually display the live preview, or just a thumbnail-sort-of-thing generated when it saves? One of the big things about Quicklook is that plugins can let you override the Finder icon with a 100% scalable preview icon rendered live, no thumbnails required.

Live preview? No. Hardly any application does this in OSX today.

Again, the way this works isn't specific to Pages, and I don't think it's even specific to OSX. Leopard may mark the first major change to how document icons have been handled since the early days of the MacOS.

 

[ingenious]

I understand the point, but here's the problem. If you don't have Word installed on the Mac, OSX does not have access to Microsoft's icon. Also, by design the icon is supposed to represent the creator of the document. The Word format is not "native" to Pages -- it translates Word into Pages format, so it would be incorrect to show Word documents which you have set to open with Pages as Pages documents, because they are not Pages documents until you save them as such. You'll notice also that even though TextEdit opens Word documents, switching the opening application of a Word document does not change the icon of the Word document to a TextEdit document, because (for the same reason) it's not a TextEdit document. So this convention is not unique to Pages. If fact, I don't think it's ever changed with the MacOS, that I can recall.

Yes, but many times applications have different icons depending upon the file type, like QT or iTunes with icons for .mp3, .aiff, and such.

It would be easy enough for Pages to have a .doc(x) icon...

 

[un1ty]

This is the only problem I've found with Pages so far. I wish someone could come up with a simple solution to make .doc's have the pages icon. Although I would imagine this would be easy for Apple to fix. Since I only deal with a small number of .xls files on a consistent basis I just resaved them as Numbers documents.

 

[IJ Reilly]

Yes, but many times applications have different icons depending upon the file type, like QT or iTunes with icons for .mp3, .aiff, and such.

It would be easy enough for Pages to have a .doc(x) icon...

This has already been explained in full above, but simply, no. Pages translates Word files into Pages format. It does not use the Word file format or .doc files. The other applications you mention read those file formats natively, they do not translate them. Get it?

This is the only problem I've found with Pages so far. I wish someone could come up with a simple solution to make .doc's have the pages icon. Although I would imagine this would be easy for Apple to fix. Since I only deal with a small number of .xls files on a consistent basis I just resaved them as Numbers documents.

It can't be "fixed" because it's not broken.

 

[Kelmon]

Yes, but many times applications have different icons depending upon the file type, like QT or iTunes with icons for .mp3, .aiff, and such.

It would be easy enough for Pages to have a .doc(x) icon...

Yes, absolutely correct. If Pages is able to open the document format then it should provide an icon in case I wish to default the application to open them. TextMate, for example, provides its own icon for the various document formats that it supports regardless of whether it created the document so I see no reason why Apple can't provide icons for the document formats that it supports in the iWork applications.

I understand the point, but here's the problem. If you don't have Word installed on the Mac, OSX does not have access to Microsoft's icon. Also, by design the icon is supposed to represent the creator of the document. The Word format is not "native" to Pages -- it translates Word into Pages format, so it would be incorrect to show Word documents which you have set to open with Pages as Pages documents, because they are not Pages documents until you save them as such. You'll notice also that even though TextEdit opens Word documents, switching the opening application of a Word document does not change the icon of the Word document to a TextEdit document, because (for the same reason) it's not a TextEdit document. So this convention is not unique to Pages. If fact, I don't think it's ever changed with the MacOS, that I can recall.

Understood but I don't care. Pages can "open" and export (i.e. create) Word documents so I don't see any reason why it can't provide a document icon. As noted, other applications do this and all Apple has to do is provide an icns file. Do this and everything makes sense to the user and they're happy. Just seems damned lazy from my perspective.

The plist files evidentially differentiates an application from being a Viewer or an Editor for a given supported document type and this seems to control whether the application sets a document icon. However, no icon and the Finder just looks messy. As far as I am concerned this is a design/usability issue.

 

[IJ Reilly]

Understood but I don't care. Pages can "open" and export (i.e. create) Word documents so I don't see any reason why it can't provide a document icon. As noted, other applications do this and all Apple has to do is provide an icns file.

Actually, no, they can't. I've already cited an another example, and the reason why they can't, and showed you how to prove it to yourself. I've also pointed out several times that this is the way the MacOS has always worked. Again (and again, and again), this has absolutely nothing to do with how Pages works.

There's not much left to be said. At this point, either you're going to get it or you won't.

 

[MacDeac]

This has already been explained in full above, but simply, no. Pages translates Word files into Pages format. It does not use the Word file format or .doc files. The other applications you mention read those file formats natively, they do not translate them. Get it?



It can't be "fixed" because it's not broken.

NeoOffice translates the files, but you still get the NeoOffice icon on .doc files if you have it set to open them. NeoOffice's native format is .odf. In fact, you also get the NeoOffice icon on Word Perfect files. This is exactly what he is asking for with iWork '08. So, contrary to many of your messages in this thread, it is possible.

 

[IJ Reilly]

NeoOffice translates the files, but you still get the NeoOffice icon on .doc files if you have it set to open them. NeoOffice's native format is .odf. In fact, you also get the NeoOffice icon on Word Perfect files. This is exactly what he is asking for with iWork '08. So, contrary to many of your messages in this thread, it is possible.

Possible, but only if the method was handled improperly, which was my first point. Some applications will try to fool you into believing that they open file formats natively, when in fact they import and translate them. You will notice in the case of Pages that it doesn't even allow you to Save As... to a Word document. An export is required. The generic icon is telling you something useful about the document. Once you recognize what it means, you will understand why it's been done on purpose, that it's not a mistake, and that it's certainly not unique to Pages. Try this exercise with TextEdit. I think you'll find that it behaves in precisely the same way.

 

[MacDeac]

Possible, but only if the method was handled improperly, which was my first point. Some applications will try to fool you into believing that they open file formats natively, when in fact they import and translate them. You will notice in the case of Pages that it doesn't even allow you to Save As... to a Word document. An export is required. The generic icon is telling you something useful about the document. Once you recognize what it means, you will understand why it's been done on purpose, that it's not a mistake, and that it's certainly not unique to Pages. Try this exercise with TextEdit. I think you'll find that it behaves in precisely the same way.

Here's the thing, though. If you download an Excel Spreadsheet or Word file, the icon you get is an OS X generic "Word" or "Excel" icon. When you save files in iWork, you should get the same icon. Having one file type display two different icons in the OS is confusing. Two files of the same type should display the same icon no matter what application created them.

 

[ingenious]

This has already been explained in full above, but simply, no. Pages translates Word files into Pages format. It does not use the Word file format or .doc files. The other applications you mention read those file formats natively, they do not translate them. Get it?



It can't be "fixed" because it's not broken.

Yes, I understand what your saying. I'm saying, however, that since Pages is the default "opener" of Word documents, it is therefore the creator, whether or not it translates them. Word documents on a computer with Pages set as the default opener for .doc(x) documents without an install of Word should have Pages icons.

Just to clarify
I understand what your saying; Pages, of course, does not natively edit or create Word documents. Therefore, by your logic, those types of documents should not have a Pages icon. However, since Pages is marketed as being Word-compatible, it should either a) have an icon for Word documents if it is set as the default opener or b) in a software update add native editing functionality and have a proper icon.

 

[IJ Reilly]

The default opener of a document is not the creator. Only the creator is the creator. Apple's "marketing" has nothing to do with it. As I have pointed out probably four times already, this is not a characteristic unique to Pages, it's OS-wide. And always has been. It's not my logic, it's Apple's logic -- you just haven't picked up on it before.

I think some of us are losing track of the purpose of icons. They are not there to create pretties. They are supposed to tell you something useful quickly and visually -- in this case, that the document with the generic icon belongs to an application you don't have installed on this computer. It may not be especially pretty, but it's accurate.