Exporting to .doc- "why so hard"?

Question

I realize Apple wants to do everything not to encourage the use of the .doc format- but this is somewhat unrealistic.
I love Pages, but I still have to share 50% of what I create/revise to others who live in the MS-Word world.
So I cannot understand why it takes so many steps to export a pages document to .doc.
You do not have the option of adding an Export button to the toolbar, there is no short cut key to export, no script (that I found). It all has to be done with multiple mouse clicks and pull down menus.
Is anyone aware of a script that can easily convert a pages document to a .doc- without having to go though so many mouse clicks and pull downs?
Unlike other WP which can directly save documents as a .doc- Pages makes it really difficult to share with my PC collegues. (Keynote has the same problem- but I do not have to share as many presentations with collegues, but I am sure others have this issue).
(this was part rant and part question-thanks)
Powerbook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.5)

Answer 1

You do not have the option of adding an Export button
to the toolbar, there is no short cut key to export,
no script (that I found). It all has to be done with
multiple mouse clicks and pull down menus.
You're using Mac OS X 10.4, so you can easily add a shortcut key for the File > Export menu item:
* Start System Preferences,
* choose the Keyboard pane,
* select the Keyboard Shortcuts tab,
* click the + button,
* choose the application Pages,
* enter a menu title of Export… (the ellipsis is typed by pressing Option+;),
* enter a Keyboard Shortcut (eg Cmd+E), and
* restart Pages
Now choosing Cmd+E displays the Export box and it's just a matter of selecting Next and naming the file.
Is anyone aware of a script that can easily convert a
pages document to a .doc- without having to go though
so many mouse clicks and pull downs?
There's a Pages add-on at the iWork Community web site which converts a document to a Word document and prepares an email for sending it to someone:
<http://www.iworkcommunity.com/modules.php?name=Downloads&d_op=viewdownload&cid= 11>
As well, this simple script demonstrates how to save a file as a Word document to your Desktop:
<pre>
tell application "Pages"
-- Get front document's name.
set docName to name of front document
-- Remove .pages extension.
set prevTIDs to AppleScript's text item delimiters
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ".pages"
-- Add .doc extension.
set docName to first text item of docName & ".doc"
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to prevTIDs
-- Save file to Desktop.
set docPathAndName to (path to desktop as string) & docName
save front document as ".doc" in docPathAndName
end tell
</pre>
You could also automate the process by using GUI AppleScript to script clicking all of the menus, buttons, etc and prompting for a file name. PreFab's UI Browser helps to do this:
<http://www.prefab.com/uibrowser/screenshots.html>
Unlike other WP which can directly save documents as
a .doc.
Well that's not correct.
For example, in both Lotus Word Pro and NeoOffice you can't just select File > Save to automatically save into a Word format. Instead, you have to choose File > Save As > File type: Microsoft Word > Filename: whatever.doc > click Save button.
This is the same as Pages' procedure of selecting File > Export > click Word > Filename: whatever.doc > click Save button.
I think you meant to complain about Pages' (and AppleWorks') feature of opening Word documents as an Untitled document, forcing you to save them into a specific format. Apple has a reason for doing things this way which I won't waste time explaining (this is a long message already).
If you're going to complain to Apple about this issue you first need to be able to explain it correctly to them, and then explain a better way of doing it for both new and experienced users. If you don't, you'll miss out on the opportunity to influence Apple and Pages' development.
<http://www.apple.com/feedback/pages.html>
Dale