Transferring Word documents into Pages projects

Here is a fast and reliable method of transferring Word documents to a Pages project:

- drag and drop the Word document onto the Pages icon in the Dock. Word doc opens in Pages with all the formatting, icluding objects (photos, graphs etc.) accessible via the Pages tools;

- open Word doc to check that nothing is lost in transfer and that visuals look the same in Pages;

- adjust/change fonts, visuals, sizes, remove or ad blank paragraphs.

- if you need only one element from the original Word doc (e.g. picture, chart, graph, text box), you can copy/paste it/them from your working Pages doc (Word doc opened in Pages) into the final Pages project.

Quite often my clients send in their files in Word format. Copy-pasting straight from Word doesn't work well. Graphs and tables pasted straight from Word could be difficult to resize. And there is often a risk of losing part of the artwork - when, for instance, a panel or a small graphic feature are done as a separate object in Word they could be 'missed' when copy-pasting.

Dropping the Word document onto the Pages icon gives me a 'synchronised' Pages file - I can immediately see all formatting as I would in a Pages project. For example, a small ad text box may not have the required dimensions in Word. Instead of changing the box in Word I now can do it easily in Pages. A picture pasted from Word could be resized, masked or moved around the Pages document.

Remember: Word files could be opened by many Apple applications. You DON'T need MS Office or Word to open MS documents. To check what's in a Word doc just drop onto TextEdit (simple text) icon - and it opens fine.

Likewise, Excel documents could be opened in Numbers and exported back into Excel.

Check these earlier articles on mastering workflow between Word and Pages:
- Sharing and teamwork in Pages
- Opening Word documents in Pages
- Importing Word documents into Pages
- Sorting out tables created in Word