Convert Pages to PDF – The Complete Guide Step by Step

Nowadays, people save everything as PDF and share it through email. For this reason, the fax seems to vanish and people opt to use a more convenient way either PDF conversion or using online fax services. The user can copy or print the documents from the PDF files but cannot edit the text. It’s a non-editable format; that’s why it is so secure. But Sometimes, the users don’t know “how to convert pages to PDF.” If you want to learn the process, you are now at the right place. This text will recommend you several ways to convert pages to PDF.

I hope you will be with me from beginning to end to get a clear concept on converting Pages to PDF.

What is a Pages Program?

Pages is a word processing program developed in 2005 and has skilled changes, with a newer version released in 2020. Pages make part of the iWork productivity suites, and different operating systems developed by Apple supports it. The first goal for its development was to form concepts in Microsoft simpler. The Pages’ users get more than 140 templates to perform some everyday tasks, but it furthermore allows its users to develop their documents. Pages are designed such that it performs well with other programs and is usable with minimum attempt. The version created in 2007 assists DOCX and related files and so have different versions since then.

Pages Technical details

There are no official publications by Apple Inc. on file specifications. Somebody employed techniques like reverse engineering within the version released in 2009 to incorporate additional features. Files created using the past Pages version can’t be viewed using the newest versions, and it’s required first to convert them before use. Till 2012, Pages stopped supporting the open Document file type, and this is often to mention that the users can only view the documents using Pages, Jumpshare, and Google Docs. The users can not edit the files using Jumpshare or Google docs, but instead, the two allow viewing and saving the document. Google Docs enables conversion of the file to the PDF format for printing.

What is PDF?

In 1992, Adobe developed the Portable Document Format file, commonly referred to as the PDF. Portable Document Format (PDF) is an open file format used for exchanging electronic documents. It’s a non-editable format; that’s why it is so secure. PDF documents are usually exported from another format like Word, PPT, Excel. The users encoded forms, documents, web pages, and images in PDF to be correctly displayed on any device, including tablets and smartphones. If you distribute your reports in PDF, all of your colleagues and Clients can inevitably open and read them on their PCs, Macs, tablets, or Android smartphones.

PDF Technical details

PDF supports color models CMYK, shades of gray, RGB, and its technical formats for performing the exchange of finished documents. Any file contains a 2D or 3D document description with all the required components (scan-line, text, vector graphics, and more). The extension doesn’t encode data associated with the software or OS used to develop and view it.

How to Convert Pages to PDF

A Pages file is a document made by a word processor program on macOS and iOS called Apple Pages. A Pages document can be opened and edited in the Pages and the built-in app Preview on Mac computers. But how about other operating systems? How to open a Pages file on Windows? How can we convert a Pages document to the more cross-system compatible file format – PDF? Now let us find out all the answers.

Part 1. How to Convert Pages to PDF on Mac

Option 1. The Microsoft Word for Mac – Pages

Pages have been called “the Microsoft Word for Mac,” a powerful Word processor on OS system to create and manage text-related documents. Since Apple Pages makes the Pages files, the Pages app can surely open and edit this file type. Moreover, we can easily convert a Pages document to PDF in Pages.

Step 1. Double-click the Pages file you desire to convert, and the Pages app will automatically open it. If you don’t have the Pages app installed, go to the Apple App Store, search for “Pages,” and click “GET IT” to download and install it for free.

Step 2. Go to the “File” tab on top and choose “Export to” on the drop-down menu. Then select “PDF.”

Step 3. On the newly opened “Export Your Document” dialog, set the image quality and choose “Next.”

Step 4. Set a file name for the output PDF and select a location to save to, then click “Export.”

Tips:

1. If encryption is needed, you can choose the “Require password to open” option to protect the PDF in step 3.
2. To change the layout settings of the output PDF, go to “File”> “Print” instead.

Option 2. Preview

For those who don’t have Pages on the Mac computer, the built-in Preview app is a natural choice for opening and converting Pages documents to PDFs.

Step 1. If you haven’t installed Pages on Mac, double-click the Pages file, and you can see it in Preview. Otherwise, right-click on the Pages file, then choose “Open With”> “Preview.”

Step 2. On the top menu bar, choose “File”> “Export as PDF.”

Step 3. Set the saving location and click “Save” on the pop-up window. A warning prompt will show up reminding you to change the extension name to “.pdf,” choose the “Use .pdf” option, and thus you can save the file as a PDF.

Part 2. How to Convert Pages to PDF on Windows

Opening and editing a file type created from the Mac system on Windows is not easy, let alone convert it. In this part, we’ll introduce practical methods of opening a “.pages” format file in Windows and converting Pages to PDF with Microsoft Word and PDFelement.

Option 1. Rename as a Zip File

The “.pages” extension is unreadable by most Windows built-in apps by default, including Microsoft Word. Pages documents are essentially compressed files. Pages Files can be easily opened, edited, and converted to PDF in Microsoft Word and other Microsoft apps with a simple modification to the extension name. Let’s learn the trick together.

Step 1. Right-click on the Pages file you want to convert, and choose “Rename” on the drop-down menu.

Step 2. The file name will become editable. Now change the extension name from “.pages” to “.zip.” Then your Pages file will be opened as a Zip archive.

Tips –

“If you can not see the file extension of your document after entering the “Rename” mode, maybe that’s because your computer has set the file extension invisible. To make the file extension visible, please go to “Folder Options”> “View” and unselect the “Hide extensions for known file types” option.”

Step 3. Extract the Zip file to a replacement folder with any Zip program on your computer.

Step 4. Open the extracted file and go to the “QuickLook” folder. In this folder, you’ll see a “preview.pdf” file. There, you’ve got your Pages file converted to a PDF document.

Option 2. PDFelement Pro

Converting Pages to PDF by renaming file extensions is a bit complicated. Now we’re going to introduce a relatively simple solution with a third-party professional PDF creating, editing, and converting program – PDFelement Pro.

Step 1. Download PDFelement Pro according to your operation and install it on your device. Then launch the software.

Step 2. On the main interface, choose “Create PDF.” Then select the Pages document that is needed to convert on the File fixing window.

Step 3. Now your Pages file is opened in PDFelement. Next, go to “File”> “Save As.” On the newly opened “Save As” dialog, choose “PDF Files(.pdf)” as the “Save as type,” and then hit the “Save” button.

That’s it. In simple three steps, you can successfully convert the Pages file to a PDF. With PDFelement Pro, you can also edit, compress, split, and merge PDF, etc. It’s your all-in-one PDF solution on desktops.

Part 3. How to Convert Pages to PDF Online

Whether you’re on a Windows, Mac, iOS, or Android device, you can always rely on online solutions to convert Pages files to PDFs. It will set you free from the restriction of the system and the troublesome of third-party program downloads.

Option 1. iCloud Pages

Most Apple services are developed as web apps and can be accessed on iCloud.com, such as Photos, Notes, and Pages. Therefore, when we can’t directly open and convert a Pages document, we only need Pages Online. Here’s how to do that.

Step 1. Open a web browser, navigate to iCloud.com and log in with your Apple ID. If you don’t have one, click the “Create Apple ID” link at the bottom.

Step 2. Select “Pages” on your launchpad.

Step 3. Click the “Upload” icon to open and upload a Pages document on your device.

Step 4. Click on the uploaded Pages file, then click the three-dot icon at the bottom-right corner of the file preview image, and select “Download a Copy.”

Step 5. Choose “PDF” as the download format.

Then you’ll get a converted PDF document on your downloading folder. On iCloud.com, you can convert a Pages file to a PDF and download it as a Word document.

Option 2. Zamzar

Finally, you can also convert Pages to PDF with an online document converting platform called Zamzar, enabling you to convert documents, audios, videos, images, eBooks, etc., to various formats in seconds.

Step 1. Open the Zamzar online platform and click the “Add Files” button to upload a Pages file. You have the option to drag and drop the file to the interface.

Step 2. On the “Convert to” section, choose “PDF” from the drop-down format list.

Step 3. Click the “Convert Now” section to begin the conversion.

Step 4. Seconds later, Zamzar will successfully convert your Pages file to a PDF. Click the “Download” section to save the converted file to your local device.

Now you’ve got six different ways to convert your Pages documents to PDFs. Have you got your solution already?

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1. Can you download pages on a PC?

Ans: Pages files to Windows PC by clicking the Tools (wrench) icon on the top right corner of the Pages to Download a replica as Microsoft Word, and then you can open the Pages on Windows PC natively. All you require to do is to create an iCloud account.

2. Can I install pages on Windows 10?

Ans: Pages is the Apple version of Microsoft Word, and unfortunately, trying to open a Pages file on a Windows 10 computer directly won’t work. To open a Pages file and be able to edit it on the Windows 10 computer, you’ll require to use a third-party app like CloudConvert to convert it.

3. Do Apple Pages cost money?

Ans: Apple has decided to no longer charge for iMovie, GarageBand, Pages, Numbers, and Keynote on iOS and macOS, according to MacRumors. Before this change, Apple offered these apps free for customers who purchased a new iOS device or Mac computer.

4. Do Pages save automatically?

Ans: Pages automatically save your document as you work and give it a default name. At any time, you can rename the file or create a copy of it with a different name.

Ending Speech

One thing is clear that PDF has become a vital document format in the office. The above is about the way to convert Pages to PDF.  The above methods include not only online methods but also offline methods. Therefore, I feel I could remove all of your tension about how to convert Pages to splitter for PDF.