I am writing my memoirs in Apple Pages. I do not have another word processor on any of my Apple devices. So far I cannot find a self publishing company that will accept a manuscript in Pages, or a PDF saved from Pages, or a DOCX saved from Pages. Does anyone know of a self publishing house that will accept Pages?
iMac 24″, macOS 14.6
Don't rule out the free online version of Microsoft 365 by signing into a created Microsoft account. Then you can generate a Word .docx or PDF from there for the commercial printer. No one accepts native Pages documents.
If the commercial printer is expecting a proper PDF/A or PDF/X standard document, it cannot be generated by Apple's PDF frameworks. One can tell Apple's Preview to do that but it is not a validated PDF/A document. Usually, these commercial printers stipulate what specific source of documents they require.
Pages only generates PDF v1.3 documents and if the printer wants newer (e.g. v1.5, 1.7) PDF documents for features exclusive to those newer versions, then they will reject the submitted PDF from Pages.
PDFs created by Apple's Pages have the PDF Metadata Creator set to Pages and the Producer set to Apple's Quartz PDFContext. No hiding that fact from a commercial printer.
On the subject of Word documents, Pages exports Word documents that are a translation from the Pages content. This will not have all of the styling or internal document contents that MS Word (or LibreOffice) would write into Word documents saved from these applications. Apple omits the saving application name, and MS Word and LibreOffice write "Microsoft Office Word" and "LibreOffice/24.8.4.2$MacOSX_AARCH64 LibreOffice_project" respectively. LibreOffice saves yet a different internal Word document format than does Pages or MS Word though MS Word can open either.
Don't rule out the free online version of Microsoft 365 by signing into a created Microsoft account. Then you can generate a Word .docx or PDF from there for the commercial printer. No one accepts native Pages documents.
If the commercial printer is expecting a proper PDF/A or PDF/X standard document, it cannot be generated by Apple's PDF frameworks. One can tell Apple's Preview to do that but it is not a validated PDF/A document. Usually, these commercial printers stipulate what specific source of documents they require.
Pages only generates PDF v1.3 documents and if the printer wants newer (e.g. v1.5, 1.7) PDF documents for features exclusive to those newer versions, then they will reject the submitted PDF from Pages.
PDFs created by Apple's Pages have the PDF Metadata Creator set to Pages and the Producer set to Apple's Quartz PDFContext. No hiding that fact from a commercial printer.
On the subject of Word documents, Pages exports Word documents that are a translation from the Pages content. This will not have all of the styling or internal document contents that MS Word (or LibreOffice) would write into Word documents saved from these applications. Apple omits the saving application name, and MS Word and LibreOffice write "Microsoft Office Word" and "LibreOffice/24.8.4.2$MacOSX_AARCH64 LibreOffice_project" respectively. LibreOffice saves yet a different internal Word document format than does Pages or MS Word though MS Word can open either.
Ricocha wrote:
No. They are telling me that their equipment has problems with a manuscript written in Pages and saved in PDF or DOCx formats which is my only alternative. They advise me to subscribe to inDesign or MS DOCx, I only want 50 books for gifts so no go!
You can get a Microsoft 365 subscription for less than $15 a month. Get a subscription, create your documents then cancel it.
Or try LibreOffice. It's free.
Have you tried sending them a document from Pages printed to pdf without telling them the original source? I question whether they would be able to tell.
I wouldn't spend any money right now.
Your profile shows you are on macOS Sonoma 14.6. Why not take advantage of the free online Microsoft Office capability that I mentioned, export your current Pages document to Word (docx), and open it with the online MS Word? Then you can save the online Word content as .docx and send that to the commercial printer.
You could even export that Pages content as a PDF since Microsoft Word can open and convert the PDF to Word .docx format for you.
No. They are telling me that their equipment has problems with a manuscript written in Pages and saved in PDF or DOCx formats which is my only alternative. They advise me to subscribe to inDesign or MS DOCx, I only want 50 books for gifts so no go!
Thank you VikingOSX. At least I now know why I cannot use Apple Pages. The writing has ceased until I decide my course of action. I was thinking of purchasing an Apple laptop but may re-think my reason and purchase a Windows laptop with the 1 year free MS office. The best of both worlds?
Thanks again to all of you that replied.
I will certainly look into the online version of MS365. I just received an answer to a ticket I opened with Lulu Press who published a book for me in 2008. I have an older computer with MS word 2008 for MAC that I used to published that book. Lulu informed me of the following: Yes, you can use Word on the Mac to create your PDF. Here is a guide on how to create your PDF with Word. How To Create a PDF Using Microsoft Word
It is Mac Quartz that can cause problems.
Regards and thanks,
Rick
Are they telling you they won't accept PDF or Word docs? If that's the case, what formats do they accept?
I am investigating free online version of Microsoft 365 as you suggested. I didn't make that clear in my previous reply.
Regards
Ricocha
Self Publishing Company that accepts Apple Pages manuscript
