Importing and Exporting Documents in Pages for iPad
- Moving Files Using iTunes
- Moving Files Using Email
- Sharing Files Using iWork.com
- Printing iPad Documents
- Putting It All Together
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
There are three ways to get documents in and out of Pages for iPad. You can use iTunes to shift files from your iPad to your Mac over the included USB cable. You also can email the documents. Or, you can share them with other iWork users logged into the iWork.com public beta. How best to pass documents back and forth from your iPad remains in flux, so check this book’s companion site for updates: www.waywest.net/pages4ipad/.
Moving Files Using iTunes
Just as iTunes is your main method for syncing your iPad and computer, it’s also the primary way to move documents between the two. The first time through, the steps seem needlessly complicated. After that, however, it makes sense and quickly becomes second nature.
To export from the iPad to your computer
- Swipe through your documents in the My Documents view until the one you want to export is centered on the screen. Tap the
arrow button below the document and choose Export in the popover
.
- In the Export Document dialog, tap one of the three available formats: Pages, PDF, or Word
. A progress bar tracks the export 
.
- Connect the iPad to your computer and open iTunes. Select your iPad when it appears in iTune’s left column
.
- Click the Apps tab, scroll down to the File Sharing section, and click Pages in the left column
.
- The right column lists all the Pages-created documents on your iPad. Select one and click the Save To button
. Navigate to the folder on your Mac where you want to copy the document and click Open 
. The document is exported to that folder.
- Open the Pages for Mac program, choose File > Open from the Menu bar, and navigate to the exported document to open it
.
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To import from your computer to the iPad
- Connect the iPad to your computer and open iTunes. Select your iPad when it appears in the left column of iTunes.
- Click the Apps tab, scroll down to the File Sharing section, and click Pages in the left column.
- Click Add at the bottom of the right column, which lists all the Pages-created documents already on your iPad
.
- On your computer, navigate to the document you want to import to the iPad and click Open
. Your choice is added to the list of documents on the iPad 
.
- On your iPad, switch Pages to the My Documents view and tap the folder button at the far right of the toolbar
.
- In the Import Document dialog, tap the document you added in step 4
. A progress bar tracks the import and, most likely, a Document Import Warnings dialog lists any changes made during the import
.
- Review the list of changes, and tap Done. When the imported document opens, take a look to see what was lost in the translation.
In many cases, the changes are minor
. (For more information on dealing with format translation issues, especially Microsoft Word documents, see “Plays Well with Others?” on page 41.)
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Plays Well with Others?
When it comes to shuttling Pages and Microsoft Word documents between the iPad and a Mac, perfect back-and-forth translation has not yet arrived. But perfect’s not necessary for a lot of word processing, and Pages for iPad does introduce new options for working beyond the office desk. As Pages for iPad is updated, surely some of the bumps will be smoothed out—at least between it and Pages for Mac. In the meantime, you can sidestep some problems by knowing where the translation process stumbles.
Fonts: With support for more than 40 fonts and font families, the iPad does a decent substitution job when it encounters a document
using unavailable fonts. But it’s not letter perfect. For example, the iPad supports Arial, perhaps the most common font family
on the planet. But as you can see with items 4 and 5 in 
on page 39, there are wrinkles for individual fonts, such as ArialMT and Arial Black. Symbol fonts, such as the commonly
used Wingdings, get swapped out as well .
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Revisions, Comments, Bookmarks: Pages for iPad cannot read the revision-tracking features used by Pages for Mac and Microsoft Word. As a result, revisions are stripped out in the iPad version of the document. The same goes for the comments/annotation and bookmarking features. The revisions workaround is simple but cumbersome: use a unique name for each version of a document and keep the past versions on hand. Comments are tougher precisely because they’re essential for collaboration on complicated documents. Word’s revision, comments, and bookmarks are preserved by the strong-selling app Documents To Go, from DataViz. Hopefully, that puts extra pressure on Pages for iPad to work out these kinks quickly.
General Gremlins: You have to keep an eye out for the unexpected. For example, a Word document moved from the iPad back to a Mac might look
nearly identical in Word’s Normal view but not in the Page Layout view , .
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