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View Word doc in Pages without converting to .pages

T

thefranko

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 24, 2010
3
0
I'm attempting to minimize my use of MS Word and use Pages as much as possible for reading/editing .doc, .pages, .rtf (etc.) files. Something I've come across, that is not really a problem but more of an annoyance, is that when opening a .doc file with Pages it is automatically converted into a .pages file. This is fine, but every time I do this Pages asks if I want to save the changes I made to the document before it will close -- I haven't made any changes, it's just asking because it's a new .pages file.

Does anyone know if there is a way to avoid this, particularly without disabling the feature that asks if I want to save changes before closing the document (I'm not even sure if this is possible)?
 
thefranko said:
...

Does anyone know if there is a way to avoid this, particularly without disabling the feature that asks if I want to save changes before closing the document (I'm not even sure if this is possible)?
Click to expand...
No, there is not. Pages is not another version of Word. It is a completely different app with a completely different native file format. To disable the warnings that you find annoying would require a skilled programmer to break the app. Very bad idea. It would fundamentally change the standard behavior of the app and cause you to lose some critical edits in your documents if not the documents themselves.
 
MisterMe said:
No, there is not. Pages is not another version of Word. It is a completely different app with a completely different native file format. To disable the warnings that you find annoying would require a skilled programmer to break the app. Very bad idea. It would fundamentally change the standard behavior of the app and cause you to lose some critical edits in your documents if not the documents themselves.
Click to expand...

I understand that Pages is not a version of Word. I was simply asking if it is possible to view a Word document in Pages without being asked if I want to save the document. I also understand the importance of the warning, which is why I asked if this is possible *without* disabling this feature. What I find annoying is being asked to save changes when no changes were made to the document, I just opened it to read it.

It would be helpful if someone knew about something along the lines of a script that does not have Pages treat a converted Word file as a new file unless it was edited by the user after the conversion.
 
I don't think it's possible to have Pages "look" at a .doc file as a .doc file... it needs to convert it in order to open it up. You also don't really "Save as" to .doc format - you "Share" then "Export".

This is different behaviour than NeoOffice where you can set it up to open and save .doc formats by default.

Depending on the kind of work you are doing you might find NeoOffice a viable alternative. I don't have experience with OpenOffice, or other word manglers so won't comment on them. I mostly use Pages... it does almost everything I need it to do. And when it doesn't I use NeoOffice... though now I find I use it so seldom it takes a long time for me to figure it out sometimes.

However, surf on over to the iWork section in the support section on the Apple.com site. Do a search first for the solution you are looking for, and if you can't find it then ask your question. The people there have an amazing depth of knowledge on using iWork. But can occasionally get a little impatient if you haven't done your homework first.

Good Luck.
 
Peggy: the TextEdit suggestion is a really good idea. The only problem I run into is that I read a lot of academic papers, which often include embedded graphs and charts. These figures typically don't show up well (if at all) in TextEdit.

berk: I do have experience with NeoOffice, but I'm trying to cut down on all of the office-type packages I use (I, like you, only use it sparingly, mainly for its spreadsheet program's ability to use macros that Excel doesn't support for Mac). I really like Pages and this is really the only problem/inefficiency I've come across when using it.

Thanks for all of the suggestions.
 
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