So, your Apple-enthusiast friend sent a document with “.pages” in the file extension. How do you open their Pages document if you own a PC? (Oops! Mac users, consider sending a PDF of your file, or use Google Drive. Many of your PC friends will have difficulty reading your file. However, I do have a solution for PC users…)

Apple’s  iWork software is equivalent to your Microsoft Office software on your PC. Pages is an Apple laptop’s document software; Word is Microsoft’s. A Mac’s Pages can open Word (.docx or .doc) files, but Word on your PC can’t open Pages’ (.pages) files.

How to Open a “Pages” Document If You Don’t Have a Mac

You have two options. Here’s the first:

1. Save your friend’s file somewhere on your computer. Let’s say “document” is the filename, and “.pages” is the Apple file extension.
2. Rename the file extension from “.pages” to “.zip”. The icon will look differently after you do this.
3. Double-click the icon, and the file opens up several folders and files.
4. Click on a file called “preview” (or maybe it has the name of the document)
5. If you clicked the correct file, you opened a PDF version of the document.pages file.
6. Voilà! Read on!

Or, if you prefer, open an account with iCloud and use their online site to open Apple documents (Pages), presentations (Keynote), and spreadsheets (Numbers). This article from eHow gives you the steps to do this.

How to Open Numbers and Keynote Files

Apparently, all of the iWork software has an embedded PDF or JPG version within every file. I just extracted the PDF from a Pages file. I haven’t personally tested the other extensions, but I’m confident either of the above two solutions will work for you.

So, a Numbers file (with .numbers as the extension) has an embedded PDF file and will work the same for you as the steps for the Pages file.

Slightly differently, a Keynote file (with .keynote as the extension) has an embedded JPG, or an image; follow the steps or use iCloud.