How to Convert Pages to PDF

A Pages file is a document created 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's find out all the answers.

Further Reading: What is a Pages File and how to Open it

Part 1. How to Convert Pages to PDF on Mac

Option 1. The Microsoft Word for Mac - Pages

Being a powerful Word processor on OS system to create and manage text-related documents, Pages has been called "the Microsoft Word for Mac". Since the Pages files are created by Apple Pages, 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, just go to the Apple's 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".

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, just double-click the Pages file and it will be opened 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", just choose the "Use .pdf" option and the file will be saved as a PDF.

Part 2. How to Convert Pages to PDF on Windows

To open and edit a file type that is created from the Mac system on Windows is not so easy, let alone convert it. This part we'll introduce practical methods of how to open a ".pages" format file in Windows and how to convert 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, so with a simple modification to the extension name, Pages files can be easily opened, edited, and converted to PDF in Microsoft Word and other Microsoft apps. 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.

Step 3. Extract the Zip file to a new 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 choose the Pages document that needed to convert on the file selecting 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, the Pages file is successfully converted 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

No matter you're on a Windows, Mac, iOS or Android device, you can always rely on the online solutions to convert Pages files to PDFs. This will set you free from the restriction of the system and the troublesome of third-party program downloads.

Option 1. iCloud Pages

Most services of Apple 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 the help of Pages Online. Here's how it's done.

Step 1. Open a web browser, navigate to iCloud.com and log in with your Apple ID. If you don't have one, just 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 not only convert a Pages file to a PDF but also download it as a Word document.

Option 2. Zamzar

Last but not least, you can also convert Pages to PDF with an online document converting platform called Zamzar, which enables 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 can also 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" button to start the conversion.

Step 4. Seconds later, your Pages file will be successfully converted to a PDF. Click the "Download" button to save the converted file to your local device.

Now you've got 6 different ways to convert your Pages documents to PDFs, have you get your solution already? Do you have better ideas on this topic? Please share with us by leaving a comment or contact us via email.