How to open a .pages, .numbers or .key file on Windows (and convert it to Word, Excel, PowerPoint or PDF)

Why these files will not simply open on Windows

Pages, Numbers and Keynote are Apple's word processor, spreadsheet and presentation apps for Mac, iPhone and iPad, and they save in Apple's own formats: .pages, .numbers and .key. For a Windows PC, Apple's own route is the web versions of the three apps at iCloud.com, which Apple says work in a supported browser on a Mac or a PC. Some older documents are stored as a folder rather than a single file, and may arrive zipped by Mail.

Option 1: ask the sender for a Word, Excel, PowerPoint or PDF copy

If you can reach the person who sent the file, this gives you a copy made by Apple's own app. Apple describes the steps in Convert Pages, Numbers, or Keynote files to Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF, and more:

1. On a Mac: open the file, click the Share button in the toolbar, click Export and Send, and choose a format.
2. On an iPhone or iPad: open the file, tap the Share button, tap Export and Send, and choose a format.
3. Save or send the copy. Apple says the original file stays as it is.

Pages can export to Word (.docx), PDF, EPUB, RTF, plain text and images; Numbers to Excel (.xlsx), PDF, CSV and TSV; Keynote to PowerPoint (.pptx), PDF, images, animated GIF and movies. If the original has a password, Apple says it also applies to an exported Word, Excel, PowerPoint or PDF copy, unless the sender changes or removes it in the export options.

Option 2: Pages, Numbers and Keynote at iCloud.com

Apple's web versions of the three apps run in a browser on a Windows PC. Apple lists the latest versions of Safari, Firefox, Chrome, Edge and Opera as supported.

1. Sign in at iCloud.com with an Apple Account. If you have none, Apple's page on how to create an Apple Account shows how to make one on the web, or in the Apple Music or Apple TV app on Windows.
2. Open Pages, Numbers or Keynote, then drag your file into the file manager, or click the Upload button and choose it.
3. Click the More button on the file, choose Download a Copy and pick a format, such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint or PDF. The copy goes to your browser's download folder.

Apple's software does the conversion and you need no Mac. But the file is uploaded to iCloud, an account without an Apple device has web-only access with 1 GB of free storage, and Apple's steps cover one file at a time.

Option 3: open the file in the free LibreOffice

LibreOffice is a free, open-source office suite with a version for Windows. Its Getting Started Guide lists Apple Pages files among the formats Writer opens, Numbers files among those Calc opens and Keynote files among those Impress opens. Apple's formats are not in its list of formats it can save in.

1. Download LibreOffice from libreoffice.org and install it.
2. Start LibreOffice, choose File, Open and pick the .pages, .numbers or .key file.
3. For Word, Excel or PowerPoint, choose File, Save As and pick the Microsoft format (.docx, .xlsx or .pptx). For a PDF, choose File, Export As, Export as PDF.

Nothing is uploaded. LibreOffice reads Apple's formats with its own code, so the result can differ from the original (see What to expect below), and you open and save each file yourself.

Option 4: Foliowright ($6.99)

Foliowright is a Windows app from Karelia Labs for these files. Drop a document on its window and it shows the preview the Mac stored in the file at once, without any other software: a full multi-page preview for many older documents, a picture of the first page or slide for newer ones, and the slide pictures of a presentation. You can save that preview, and every picture, film and sound stored in the document, exactly as it was put in.

To convert, Foliowright needs the free LibreOffice from Option 3. It finds it and runs it hidden in the background with its own settings folder, so your own LibreOffice settings are not touched. The conversion itself is done by LibreOffice, the same engine as in Option 3. What Foliowright adds:

• Several formats in one step: Pages to Word and PDF, Numbers to Excel, CSV (one file per table) and PDF, Keynote to PowerPoint and PDF, and any of them to a PNG picture of each page or slide.
• Side by side: the stored preview and the converted result next to each other, so you see at once what came through.
• A note per document on which app version saved it and what to expect.
• Whole folders, sub-folders included: the folder structure is kept, your originals are never changed or moved, documents already converted are skipped, and a CSV report lists every file with its result.
• Zipped and older folder-style documents, also when Mail zipped them.

1. To convert, install LibreOffice. Previews need nothing else.
2. Drop a file or a folder on the Foliowright window, or use Open.
3. Choose what to make, press Convert and compare the result with the preview.

Foliowright costs $6.99 in the Microsoft Store and runs on Windows 10 version 2004 or later and Windows 11, 64-bit. Its built-in sample shows how it works. Get it from Microsoft Store.

Which way to choose

What to expect from the conversion

Foliowright converts with LibreOffice. We tested it with LibreOffice 26.8 and real files saved by Pages and Numbers from iWork '09, and by Keynote from version 1, up to version 15.3.1 of all three:

• Pages: text, tables and pictures came through. The layout can change (in one file a table moved above a picture), fonts, spacing and page breaks can differ, and charts can be missing or come out as a black box.
• Numbers: tables and their values came through. Charts can be missing and cell formatting can differ. Where a column is too narrow for its dates or numbers, the PDF and the Excel file show ###. The value is kept, so widen the column in Excel to see it.
• Keynote: slide text, tables and pictures came through. Positions, fonts and theme backgrounds can differ, and charts and animations can be missing.
• Password-protected documents cannot be opened or converted. Foliowright recognises them and says so.
• The stored preview is what the Mac saved. Most documents carry one: many older ones with every page, newer ones with a picture of the first page or slide.
• The version label needs the build details a Mac or iPhone writes into the file. For files saved elsewhere it shows only 2013 or later.
• Files saved by versions after 15.3.1 were not part of our tests.

Always compare the result with the preview before you rely on it.

Apple's steps, formats and account details are from Apple Support, and LibreOffice's file formats from its Getting Started Guide 26.2, all checked on 15 November 2026. The conversion results are from our own tests with LibreOffice 26.8.2 and 36 public test files (LibreOffice's own iWork test files and Apache-licensed sample files), saved by Pages and Numbers from iWork '09 and by Keynote from version 1, up to version 15.3.1.