How to Open PDF in Pages on Mac

Apple provides the native Preview application to open PDF files on Mac. However, if the Preview application is not working properly, you can still open PDF in Pages, another native application to Apple. Pages can open file types such as .pages, .rtf, .docx, etc and in order to open a PDF in Pages, you will have to convert the PDF file into another file format that is supported by Pages. If you are wondering how to open a PDF in Pages, there are a few converter programs to convert PDF to Pages while retaining the same formatting. One great tool is PDFelement for Mac.

Apple Pages cannot directly open a PDF as an editable Pages document. Apple's current Pages guide lists Pages, Word, RTF, TXT, and related document formats for opening, and explicitly notes that PDFs cannot be opened. If you need editable text, convert the PDF to a Pages-compatible format first; if you only need a visual reference, insert PDF content as an image; if you need to edit the actual PDF, use a PDF editor instead.

How to Get PDF Content into Pages on Mac

Choose the route based on what you need to preserve. Conversion is best for editable text but can change layout; inserting a PDF/page as an image preserves appearance but is not text editing; opening the file in a PDF editor preserves the PDF workflow and is the better choice for forms, annotations, signatures, or page-level changes.

Pages does not open a PDF as an editable Pages document. If you only need the PDF page as a visual element, insert a compatible graphic or export the PDF page to PNG/JPG first; if you need editable text, convert the PDF to a Pages-compatible document format before opening it.

Step 1: Open a Pages Document

Open Pages and create a new document or open an existing one. If you are placing a PDF page as a visual reference, prepare that page as an image first, then insert the image from the media/choose-file controls available in your Pages version.

Step 2: Insert the PDF Page as a Graphic

Select the exported PNG/JPG page (or another supported graphic). This preserves the page appearance, but the content remains an image; it is not editable PDF text.

---

Can't Open a PDF in Pages, How to Fix?

If you can't open a PDF with pages, you can convert a PDF file to Word format (.pages), a format that can later be opened in Pages.

PDFelement is a powerful, professional PDF editor for Mac, designed to make working with PDFs fast, intuitive, and efficient. With PDFelement’s smart features, managing PDF documents becomes as simple as working in Word:

• Edit PDFs like Word – Modify text, images, and links directly with precision and ease.
• AI-powered PDF tools – Instantly summarize or translate PDF documents to save time.
• Split View mode – View multiple PDFs or different sections of the same document side by side.
• Continuity Camera & Sketch support – Scan documents using your iPhone and continue viewing and editing them instantly on your Mac, without interruptions

Step 1: Load a PDF

Open the required PDF in PDFelement. You can either drag and drop the PDF file into the program or click on the "Open File" or the "Open" button from the main screen. Select the PDF file and click on "Open" in the pop-up window.

Step 2: Convert PDF to Pages

The next step is to convert the PDF file into a format that is supported by Pages. Click on the "File" menu on the top, and choose "Export To" > "Word", "RTF", "Text" or "Pages" button to start the conversion process.

Step 3: Open PDF in Pages

After the conversion, go to the output folder to find the converted .pages format file and right-click it. Select "Open with" > "Pages" from the drop-down list.

Open PDF in Pages vs in PDFelement

---

What is Pages and Tips for Opening PDF in Pages

Pages is a professional word processing application created by Apple which is an alternative to Microsoft's famous "Microsoft Word". Recent updates to Pages allow users to open PDF documents, Word docs, text formats, and even ePub formats. Pages will let you create and edit documents similar to Microsoft Word, and there are no major differences between both applications. However, it has the unique ability to store documents on the cloud service, iCloud, So, users can easily access the document at any time on any Apple device such as an iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad.

• When opening PDF files in Pages, you'll need to convert them into the appropriate format. Don't forget to enable the OCR feature for scanned documents.
• You can also save word or text documents to PDF using the Pages application.

PDFelement has the ability to open, annotate, edit and convert PDF files, but if you want to open PDF files in Pages on Mac or your iPad or iPad, you can use this tool to convert the PDF to Pages supported document.

With a user-friendly interface, this program can open any type of PDF file from single-page documents to hundred pages book or complicated excel sheets. The formatting of the PDF file will also remain intact and you can even annotate the document. It has powerful annotating features such as the ability to add objects to a page, highlight text, or underline text in the PDF file.

The editing features will let you edit any text or image within the PDF file. You can replace the already existing text with new text or change text formatting. You can also change the size, alignment of text, and more. Similarly, this tool can also be used to crop, resize or rotate images in the PDF file.

Another beneficial feature of PDFelement is the conversion tool. You can effortlessly convert PDF files to other widely-used formats such as HTML, Doc, Docx, PPT, XLSX, or Pages. During conversion, you can choose to convert the entire document or select specific pages that you want to convert only.

Free Download or Buy PDFelement right now!

Free Download or Buy PDFelement right now!

Buy PDFelement right now!

Buy PDFelement right now!

---