| Description |
Files with a .pages file extension are word processing documents created by Apple's "Pages" application which forms part of Apple's iWork office suite, a set of applications which run on the Max OS X and iOS operating systems, and also includes Numbers (for spreadsheets) and Keynote (for presentations). Pages is a hybrid application, first released by Apple in February 2005, that allows users to perform both word processing and page layout tasks. A direct competitor to Microsoft Word (part of Microsoft's "Office" suite) it originally aimed to take a more simplistic approach to document creation and editing than Word, stripping out many of Word's more complex features. Pages includes over 140 Apple-supplied templates to allow users to create common documents such as posters, newsletters, certificates, reports, brochures and formal letters - iWork '09 added support for a further 40 new templates. Pages can used to create custom documents which include charts, tables, images, text boxes, shapes, equations and graphs. It incoporates most of the key features found in modern word processors, including the selection of fonts based on WYSIWYG ("what you see is what you get"), the use of headers, footers, page-breaks, footnotes, bulleted lists and support for automatically generating a table of contents. Pages also comes with the standard spelling and grammar checkers, and provides support for ditching the keyboard to use the dictation capabilities of OS X Mountain Lion. Pages provides tools for collaboration through change-tracking and advanced commenting and feedback features. Pages integrates well with other Apple applications - Since iWork '08 a media browser has been incorporated which allows users to drag and drop photos, movies and music from iTunes, iPhoto, Aperture and iMovie, and it is possible to link charts produced in Numbers to .pages documents so that they update when that data is changed. Since the release of version 4.2 of Pages (in July 2012), it also supports the auto-syncing of documents through iCloud The key advances in Pages are summarised below:
| Version | Date | Key features |
| 1.0 | February 2005 | First version - basic features - tables, columns, headers & footers, and some formatting. |
| 2.0 | January 2006 | Released in iWork '06. Includes 3-D graphing, inline searching, page management, comment support and new table tools. |
| 3.0 | August 2007 | Released in iWork '08. Introduced a contextual format bar, change tracking, grammar checking (via "Proofreader"), support for Microsoft Office 2007 .docx files (Office Open XML) and image masking features. |
| 4.0 | January 2009 | Released in iWork '09. New features such as a running word count, full screen editing, equation support (via MathType), support for iWork.com, outline mode, improved support for Microsoft Office documents. |
| 4.1 | July 2011 | Support added for Mac OS X Lion, full screen document editing, auto saving, resume, document versioning, better compatibility with Microsoft Office. |
| 4.2 | July 2012 | Support added for Mac OS X Mountain Lion, document syncing via iCloud, retina display support, voice supoprt via Dictation. |
|
