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

[MacDeac]

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.

I still have to disagree. The purpose of an icon is to tell you what type of file you are going to open and what program will open it. It should only be blank if you have nothing assigned to open it.

If things are supposed to work the way you describe, why do .wmv files show up with a Quicktime icon? Quicktime didn't create them. In fact, on its own its not even capable of displaying them. Yet, the icon displayed for .wmv files is a Quicktime icon. And, Quicktime is an Apple product. So, the logic is certainly not OS wide.

 

[ingenious]

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.

No, icons do reflect the default opener and not the creator. Case in point, the icons for .doc(x) files changes when the default opener is changed from Word to NeoOffice or, if it's the same as the PC version, when one uses Google Toolbar to set Google Docs & Spreadsheets as the default opener.

 

[IJ Reilly]

I still have to disagree. The purpose of an icon is to tell you what type of file you are going to open and what program will open it. It should only be blank if you have nothing assigned to open it.

If things are supposed to work the way you describe, why do .wmv files show up with a Quicktime icon? Quicktime didn't create them. In fact, on its own its not even capable of displaying them. Yet, the icon displayed for .wmv files is a Quicktime icon. And, Quicktime is an Apple product. So, the logic is certainly not OS wide.

Explained previously. Because QuickTime can play them natively (assuming the correct codec is installed). If the correct codec is not installed, .wmv files will have generic icons, or the icon of whatever application you may have that will open the file natively. The same is true of graphics files.

No, icons do reflect the default opener and not the creator. Case in point, the icons for .doc(x) files changes when the default opener is changed from Word to NeoOffice or, if it's the same as the PC version, when one uses Google Toolbar to set Google Docs & Spreadsheets as the default opener.

Explained previously. The exception is when the chosen application can open the file natively, and also previously explained, some applications try to fool you into thinking they can use a file format natively when they are in fact translating them.

This convention has never changed. You may not have noticed it before, and you may not like it, but it's never changed.

 

[Rohan Moore]

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?

Ryan Xottele nailed this on the Apple forums, at:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=5491917

From his message detailing the solution, I quote:

Show the Package Contents of Pages.app
Open the Contents\Info.plist file

I changed my DOC block to look like this:

<dict>
<key>CFBundleTypeExtensions</key>
<array>
<string>doc</string>
<string>docx</string>
<string>dot</string>
<string>dotx</string>
</array>
<key>CFBundleTypeMIMETypes</key>
<array>
<string>application/msword</string>
</array>
<key>CFBundleTypeIconFile</key>
<string>Pages_Doc</string>
<key>CFBundleTypeName</key>
<string>SLDocumentTypeMSWord</string>
<key>CFBundleTypeOSTypes</key>
<array>
<string>W8BN</string>
</array>
<key>CFBundleTypeRole</key>
<string>Viewer</string>
<key>LSTypeIsPackage</key>
<false/>
<key>NSDocumentClass</key>
<string>SLPublication</string>
</dict>

Save that file. Quit your editor.

Open Terminal.app and run this command:

/System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -f /Applications/iWork\ \'08/Pages.app

That will cause the finder to re-read the Info.plist file. Now go to force quit and relaunch the finder.

These adjustments need to be re-made after iWork updates are installed, but Ryan kindly uploaded appropriately edited plist files for each of the iWork apps, for easy download and install, to:

http://www.sparkeh.com/iwork_plists/

Rohan

 

[MBHockey]

that's freakin' sweet. Thanks for the link! Works great.

 

[richard.mac]

thanks! works great!

i couldnt get the terminal command to work so i just dragged the iwork apps to the desktop and then back to the iwork '08 folder and relaunched the finder. worked fine.

 

[Tedder]

Word Icons

.. So, I have just installed the new Office for MAc on a new MacBookPro, and none of the icons look the same as I remember them (Blue band at the top, with a little "w"). Is there any way to get all .doc files to look like they used to again, or not?