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jonoshling · Sep 24, 2008, 11:00 PM

is there any way of getting audio to work with "pages" export? i must be doing something idiotically wrong. how can they possibly release this program to the public with such a blatant flaw?! ive heard elsewhere as well that one cant export pages with "movie" files either... no surprise there. if anyone has any ideas of what i might be doing wrong id greatly appreciate your help. OR if anyone knows for a fact that those aspects of the program just dont work, well then ill at least be able to quit wasting my time with it.
-thanks in advance!

iwork 08 by the way.

AKcrab · Sep 24, 2008, 11:24 PM

What are you trying to export to? Word? PDF?

jonoshling · Sep 24, 2008, 11:27 PM

oh wow, thanks for the quick response AKcrab. ive been trying to export it as a pdf...

AKcrab · Sep 25, 2008, 12:53 AM

I don't think it's possible. Did some tests and some googling.. No joy.

jonoshling · Sep 25, 2008, 02:04 AM

agh! well thanks for your time and trying....
i really dont understand this though, how can they have these as features (movie or audio) in their program if they dont work at all?

ibook_steve · Sep 25, 2008, 07:55 AM

PDF? PDFs, as far as I know, simply don't have support for audio or video. If it's not in the standard for pdf, why would Apple have support for a non-standard feature? Maybe a little better description of what you're trying to do would help us understand.

Steve

TETENAL · Sep 25, 2008, 08:17 AM

PDFs do have support for audio and video, and they did have so for a very long time. As far as I know of Apple's software not even Preview supports them though, so it's no surprise that Pages doesn't export anything that can't even be read by Apple's own software.

Movies do work within Page's own file format as well as in Word exports, so it's not quite correct to say "they dont work at all".

jonoshling · Sep 25, 2008, 07:31 PM

this is all getting very interesting... ok then- if the application "pages" has those features then what program are they for at the end of the day? what application can/would open a pages file and be able to see/hear this stuff?

AKcrab · Sep 25, 2008, 10:47 PM

Umm.. Pages!

jonoshling · Sep 28, 2008, 04:34 PM

AKcrab, appreciate your help but i cant tell if your being serious with your reply "Umm.. Pages! "... that would be like saying the only way to open and listen to a song that was created on logic is if you had the logic application yourself. or to watch a movie created by final cut you must open and watch it only in final cut etc etc...

AKcrab · Sep 28, 2008, 06:11 PM

Originally Posted by jonoshling

... that would be like saying the only way to open and listen to a song that was created on logic is if you had the logic application yourself. or to watch a movie created by final cut you must open and watch it only in final cut etc etc...

This is exactly what I mean.

jonoshling · Sep 28, 2008, 07:04 PM

ah i get it AKcrab... i like that. laughing now. im gonna continue looking into this ,try to dig a little deeper, cause im absolutely fascinated with how the general consensus seems to be leaning with all this. which obviously doesnt favor apple in a very flattering light.ive pretty much given up on trying to make the program work that way, resigned? is that the right word? i just think its bizarre at this point so im gonna keep fishing around. anything meaty that turns up ill be sure to post the findings here.

Chuckit · Sep 28, 2008, 07:45 PM

I don't really see how this reflects on Apple at all. It's not like there's one standard format with well-supported audio embedding that Apple is somehow ignoring. Pages supports audio in Pages files. The PDF engine doesn't support embedding audio in PDFs (none do aside from Acrobat Professional, AFAIK).

jonoshling · Sep 29, 2008, 01:42 AM

alright lets look at it this way from the other end... whom (what program) is apple NOT ignoring as far as formats that are capable of receiving an export from pages with audio?....

DarkStarRed · Sep 29, 2008, 05:11 AM

Hello jonoshling I think I've found what your looking for! Not the best solution it's more software Mac compatible
it can open all types of files ether-way I don't think it can convert though?
Down side is that the other person you sending will need this to open up Pages .pages files even with embedded video it plays .mov & xml.gz

http://www.canto.com/products/suppor...ypes.php#audio

P.S. Windows & Mac compatible plus it's not free, but there is a free trial.

TETENAL · Sep 29, 2008, 10:57 AM

Originally Posted by jonoshling

alright lets look at it this way from the other end... whom (what program) is apple NOT ignoring as far as formats that are capable of receiving an export from pages with audio?....

As I already mentioned, video also works if you export to Word format.

jonoshling · Sep 29, 2008, 09:56 PM

so heres what all this pretty much boils down to overall- at least as far as i understand it... apple has created its counter to microsoft's word called pages... some of the neat aspects of pages can only be opened in microsofts word...
word up! makes a whole lotta sense!

- DarkStarRed thanks for the canto thing though, i really dont mean to come across as disingenuous here. as i said earlier ive pretty much given up on the hope of finding a way for all that to work- on the other hand, this discussion im really enjoying. i am wondering though why nobody really seems to see this as much as an oddity as i do.-once again that apple creates a program in which the end product can not be used to its fullest unless you open it with apples leading competitors software.

Chuckit · Sep 29, 2008, 11:07 PM

That's not really the case. It can be used to its fullest in Apple's own software. It's not like Pages creates documents that it can't read itself.

Gunner1954 · Sep 30, 2008, 09:20 AM

" some of the neat aspects of pages can only be opened in microsofts word..."
The BEST aspects of Pages only work in Pages. Pages is a page layout (and word processing) application while MS Word is a word processing application that many people TRY to turn into a page layout application. When you export a Pages document to MS Word you have to dumb it down. MS Word doesn't allow leading or kerning, two of the better aspects of Pages. When converting (exporting) a Pages document to Word you lose the precision of the document you created. Same goes when converting to PDF! You will always lose something in the translation. Likewise if you convert an MS Word document to PDF; you lose the tracking, Exchange compatibility and other capabilities of Word. Apple wants you to share Pages documents with other Pages users, most likely within a single organization. There is so much you can do with Pages that you just CAN'T do with MS Word (and vice versa). Same goes with Keynote vs PowerPoint and Numbers vs. Excel, Mail vs Outlook etc....

" i am wondering though why nobody really seems to see this as much as an oddity as i do."

The oddity is that you are hooked on MS Word. Why? Do you work in an enterprise environment? Do you not know how to use the full capability of your Mac? MUST you play into Microsoft's hegemony? WHY are you so set on using MS Word? These are questions you should be asking yourself. If the answer is 'Yes, I MUST have 100% MS Word for Windows compatibility,' then you are obviously on the wrong platform! However, if you want and like the ease of use and creative ease of Apple's Mac and Pages, then send your clients the Pages document and the dumb down MS Word export file with an explanation that they can get the best experience by viewing your document with Pages on a Mac!

Remember this, until recently PDF has been considered a 'printing' format. It's hard to hear anything when reading a PDF unless you're crumpling the paper. Word has been the same way. Word is a 'document' format for printing. MS has always considered PowerPoint as their multi-media presentation app, not Word.

Apple's Pages was conceived as a multi-media presentation app in the manner of Keynote (which came first) and created with the concept that the 'average joe' can easily make great looking page-layout documents for print AND WEB without too much fuss.

Long story short, when converting to a different format (export to PDF, Word, Text, etc) you will ALWAYS lose some capability in the translation. The oddity is that you EXPECT full compatibility with MS Word, which is NOT a worldwide standard.

jonoshling · Sep 30, 2008, 02:07 PM

Gunner1954 , yowza whatta reply. im not going to counter you on all these points/questions that youve made because it seems id be defending myself a lot and i dont want to digress into pettiness but ill touch on a few things...ive got no love for microsoft or office/word im only running with bits and pieces from comments posted above. im clueless to all this and thats why ive been asking. i love my macintosh computer to a point of contention between me and my girlfriend. so if your looking for aligance towards this platform ya got it. "Do you not know how to use the full capability of your Mac? "you ask. hell no i dont! obviously. im loving every minute of learning about it though...
Gunner1954 you may be missing my point, lets quit harping all over windows for a sec, in fact just for some clarity lets toss windows out the window for now... you say "Pages is a page layout (and word processing) application", well yes and to further that- word processing is used for the production (including composition, editing, formatting, and possibly printing) of any sort of printable material. ---< im looking for answers as to the presentation of the END product, not the product in production.
im not sure how i can convey what ive been asking more clearly. i hope that doesnt sound snotty but im serious. for lack of a creative example im going to once again pose this messy question by equating it with a situation using final cut.
-one creates movie using final cut, its done, pollished, fini...
-then one brings it to friends house and says "hey you gotta see this movie i just finished!"
- then friend says hang on a second, ill open final cut on my computer so we can watch it! yay!
- ???

Chuckit · Sep 30, 2008, 02:26 PM

The answer is, Pages can export to several formats, but not all of the end formats necessarily support all the features Pages does. It's more like this:
"Hey, you gotta see this great movie I finished! I know you don't have a DVD player, so I recorded it onto a VHS tape."
"Wait, how come there's no menu screen on this tape so I can select language and special features?! Damn Final Cut Pro!"

jonoshling · Sep 30, 2008, 06:50 PM

great Chuckit! laughing...

ok i gotta challenge for anyone thats as curious about this as i am and has 10 min they can spare...and it would finaly put a cap on the whole subject.

-the challenge being ultimately simple- im asking of anyone to go ahead through the process of creating a pages document ,no text necessary, but to add an audio file (really simple- just drag an aif or mp3 from itunes and drop it into the blank pages document, a speaker looking symbol should appear on which if you click twice it will play back your audio) then export it to ANY format (except microsoft word) and have it actually work. i double dog dare ya!!! !

TETENAL · Sep 30, 2008, 07:57 PM

The only other format of those that Pages exports to and that theoretically can support audio and video is PDF. And we already established that Pages does not support audio and video in PDF. So what's the point of your challenge?

Listen, I agree that it would be really nice and useful if Pages could do this, but I doubt that even Microsoft Word on Windows does support this feature without the help of Acrobat. And if you also consider that Preview does not support watching movies and listening to sounds embedded in PDF documents, it's on the brink of being unreasonable to expect that Pages exports them. Again, it would be nice to create multimedia PDF documents with Pages, but that's not the main task Pages was designed for. It was mainly made to create documents for the purpose of printing, and it does so quite well.

Instead of whining about the lack of an obscure feature, I suggest you tell us what it actually is, that you want to do. That way maybe we can suggest something, another software or a workaround, that will help you achieve that goal. You might for example export to PDF from Pages and manually add sound and/or movie annotations with Acrobat.

Cybersparrow · Sep 30, 2008, 07:59 PM

I'm confused. Why would we do all that if we, having read the thread, already know that it doesn't work? In fact, I'm confused about what you're even trying to accomplish here. You've already been told it doesn't work and the reasons why, so...

rubaiyat · Oct 1, 2008, 01:05 AM

Support for audio & video has existed in pdf files since waaaaay back. I seem to recall using Acrobat for exactly this when it was just a pup.

In OSX .rtfd files also support links, audio & video, so you get it in TextEdit, iText Express, iText Pro, Bean and all similar programs.

So why hasn't Apple, which claims advanced features for nearly everything in OSX, done the obvious and made all the multi-media, links etc work when saved to .pdf which also supports them?

Chuckit · Oct 1, 2008, 05:32 AM

As I said, I don't think any PDF implementation other than Acrobat supports embedded video. I can't think of one — certainly the OS X engine does not. It's not just a matter of flipping a switch and suddenly your implementation supports video. And quite frankly, it's such a fringe need that I can't blame Apple for not cutting other features to get it in any more than I blame most Web designers for not making sure their sites work well in Netscape 3.