h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I have neither, but am occasionally called upon to post output of iWork to the web, and it's annoying me.

I am sent the doc in PDF formatted for print, so it's usually huge: @12MB

The client wants to 'publish' each page to be viewable online, and as the document is a rather hideous example of bad layout and design, I refuse to even contemplate re-editing it to html, so the simple solution is to convert it to a web-viewable image format.

So, I import it as separate pages into Gnu Image Manipulation Program, then export each page as an optimized jpg, which can simply be pasted into a Wordpress multi-page post.

The document must also be available as a downloadable file, so I re-export each page as a high-quality png, for re-import into Scribus, so I can then finally export it as a much smaller web-optimized PDF.

I would dearly love to bypass this nonsense, by having the client do the web prep.

Note the client is a luddite who seems incapable of understanding both how and why html documents are superior to print for web application.

Anyhoo, is the iWork app capable of doing web-optimized output, and/or jpg or other web-friendly image files? If so, what's the procedure?

Hi, Taliesin. I've asked around (I don't use iWork myself) and without actually seeing one of these documents the best suggestion I can make is for you to ask your client to save the docs as .RTF rather than as PDFs, since there are many free apps and websites where you can convert a printable RTF to an HTML web page with automatic optimisation of image sizes etc.

Pages can export things as PDF, Word doc(though it's a bit dodgy if you've got things like tables), RTF and plain text. Pages 09 will also export as ePub, which can be read in iBooks (no idea).

Surprisingly, the mac's free-with-the-box TextEdit programme can save documents as:

PDF
Rich Text Format
Rich Text Format with Attachments
Web page (.html)
Web archive
OpenDocument Text (.odt)
Word 2007 Format (.docx)
Word 2003 format (.xml)
Word 97 format (.doc)

I've hardly ever used TextEdit for anything (in fact I only just discovered it could do the above) so I've no idea how good it is.

What you could get your client to do, once he's saved his iWork thing as a PDF, is to open it in Preview, select File>Save As.. and choose from the following options:
GIF
ICNS
JPEG
JPEG-2000
Microsoft BMP
Microsoft Icon
OpenEXR
Photoshop
PNG
TGA
TIFF

For all of which you can select no. of pixels/inch.

Don't know if any of that helps.

Thanks, friends, for your suggestions.

Sadly, I believe they are much too complicated for the client, who is of the 'point & click' persuasion, and who seems to have real problems learning anything new.

Also, since the target is a Wordpress site, HTML coded pages are out.

I was hoping iWork could at least export PDF optimized for web display as well as for print, which would save me having to do the two-step Gnu I M P -> Scribus -> PDF shuffle. I just can't believe the app doesn't have fine-grained control over the output

hygenicdispenser, I use TextEdit all the time. I'm typing this in it, actually.
It's an amazing little app. Unfortunately it doesn't feature fine-grained control over the various output formats.

I've already suggested using the Preview -> File -> Save As, which was received with a blank look of incomprehension. Also, the px/inch thing isn't terribly intuitive, and would require the client to, (shock, horror!), experiment…

I suppose my best strategy is to convince them to install Gnu I M P, or purchase Photoshop

Or simply start charging extra for each conversion

I've only ever really used TextEdit as a note pad. It was only when I looked at it more closely yesterday that I realised how much it can do. I don't do any web based stuff myself, so that's all a bit of a mystery to me.

I use Pages mainly for one thing - producing an annual report for a charity that I'm involved with, which takes up most of my spare time every January. For that, Pages is ideal - simple to use page layout stuff, produces a 72 page booklet in a format which the printers like.

I think iWork is aimed at simple home use. Numbers is a handy enough spreadsheet but with a lot less power than Excel. I'm told that Keynote is superior to Powerpoint. I've never used either.

As for your client, I reckon give up on the "It's easy, you just do this..." approach, and go for "It's very, very difficult, but given enough time and money, I think I should be able to sort it for you."

Yeah, I suppose that's what I'll just have to do.

I'll start invoicing per my standard hourly rate. Maybe that'll motivate the client to learn how to do the thing