Pages import

[davidem]

I was going through the Scrivener Tutorial document, when I noticed the following:

(Note that the one main file format we are unable to support is the Apple Pages format. This is because Apple does not make the .pages format publicly available, and so it is not possible for developers or companies outside of Apple to read and write files in the .pages format.

I also noticed that PDF’s are supported by Scrivener.

As far as I know, a pages file is simply a zipped container with a PDF version in it, together with separate images and some other stuff. Try replacing the .pages extension with .zip, unzip it and you’ll see

This might help to import pages files without having Pages itself nearby.

Cheers,

David

[KB]

Hi David,

That’s not what a .pages document is, I’m afraid. A .pages document is indeed a renamed .doc file, but the PDF it contains is just a Quick Look preview (and if you turn off “Include preview in document” in Pages, either in the preferences or in the Save dialogue, then the PDF file will not be included at all). The information about the actual document you see in Pages is stored in an XML file inside the .zip - in several XML files, actually (each one covering a different part of the document). This is very similar to the structure of the .docx format (although nothing like the implementation). Apple does not document what goes into the XML file, and has stated that it has no intention of publishing this information. The only way to import the information would therefore to spend many months reverse-engineering it, with no guarantee that it won’t change completely with the next Pages update.

Thus, we do not support the .pages format, as Apple makes it the most difficult word processing format to support. But it is very easy to save from Pages as .docx and import that into Scrivener.

All the best,
Keith

[howarth]

@KB

Thus, we do not support the .pages format, as Apple makes it the most difficult word processing format to support. But it is very easy to save from Pages as .docx and import that into Scrivener.

Our novel-writing process is to begin with a large Pages file of random information. My partner types these notes up without worrying about order.

I use the Pages outliner to put the notes into a series of groups. Then I export that file in RTF. The resulting file goes into Scrivener’s research folder without any problem.

We do not include any special elements, like footnotes, that would not export easily. My point is that Pages makes a sound prelude and postlude to the symphonic qualities of Scrivener.