A triplication puzzle

8 Nov 2007 21:17:53

Alan Cox

I emailed my brother recently to see what would happen to a Pages '08 text document when received by a Windows XP machine (he'll never learn!).

I attached two files to my email. One was my original '08 Pages file. The other was the same Exported as a Word document to my Desktop.

To our mutual surprise, he received three attachments. The file Exported as a Word document was 'perfect' and could be edited like any text document. Then, the second attachment was an 'empty' file in a Windows app called Notepad which I think is the rough equivalent of our Textedit. The third attachment was the original Pages file; when 'opened' we were faced with all sorts of icons of files and folders too numersous to bother describing. One of them did provide a 'humbnail' version of the original but you could do nothing with it ad it was so small you could scarcely read it; the others were just rubbish.

Is this to be expected and can anyone explain it?

Re: A triplication puzzle

8 Nov 2007 23:50:45

Thomas Maude

Hi Alan - yes I've exited a lot of pages stuff in all the different formats provided and Word seems to be the closest match to the original - it may be interesting to exit and send as a PDF from pages to see how that is opened by your brother - I've created sample chapters of text and high resolution photo's in pages and I found the best exit format for publishers to access it was a PDF - would be fun to know what happened in that format to -
Tom

Re: A triplication puzzle

10 Nov 2007 21:43:30

Alan Cox

Thanks Tom. I sent my brother a Pages text file exported as a Word file and as a .pdf file. Both arrived in excellent condition although the .pdf file could not be edited which I believe is to be expected. Intriguingly both files arrived on his Windows machine with a Notepad file to keep it company. I wonder why?

The other rather surprising feature was the KB size of te files. The original Pages file was 72 KB and it was really quite a short letter. When exported to become a Word file, it was a mere 20KB file, and the .pdf version was 32 KB. Seems Pages spreads itself around rather a lot.
Alan

Re: A triplication puzzle

10 Nov 2007 23:52:03

Nigel Coke-Woods

The extra "Notepad" file could be because of the way Apple has traditionally sent attachments with additional Mac info in a separate file. Under OS 9 and before this was called the Resource Fork. Make sure in Mail, both in Tiger and Leopard, that you select "Always send Windows-Friendly Attachments" which you will find in the Attachments item of the Edit menu.

Pages files are so big because they are not simply flat files like Word or PDF, they are a special kind of folder called a Package. In the Finder you can select the Pages file, right click and select "Show Package Contents". Inside are all the other files which go to make a pages document. It is all this extra stuff that adds to the size.

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