saving pages, Keynote or Numbers files to cloud services

[RabbieBurns]

We currently run google docs and onedrive for our students and staff, all nicely synced with AD

 

one of our facilitators is saying that the only way for staff to save pages, Keynote or Numbers files to the cloud is through dropbox as this is the only cloud storage that supports these files.

 

"Onedrive & Google Drive allow you to successfully export iWork files from the iPad. When you view the file in a web browser you can download it and view on a desktop. However, one drive won’t allow you to upload an iWork file from your desktop to save. Meaning teachers couldn’t save Pages, Keynote or Numbers files on their computer so students could retrieve them from the iPad. "

 

Does this make sense? a file is a file surely?

Is this just to do with file associations?

 

I dont really want to have to introduce a 3rd cloud product

[Arthur]

a file is a file surely?

Nope. iWork '13 documents use a bundle-based format. To OS X and iOS they appear as a single file, but to other OSs and apps they appear as a folder full of files (as shown in the example below).

 

Photo Essay.key/
   Data/
       143917994_2881x1992-small.jpg
       143918632_1620x1622-small.jpg
       154121867_2447x1632-small.jpg
       154146989_2880x1920-small.jpg
       ...
   Index.zip
   Metadata/
       BuildVersionHistory.plist
       DocumentIdentifier
       Properties.plist
   preview-micro.jpg
   preview-web.jpg
   preview.jpg

 

I imagine the reason Apple did this was to prevent your Pages, Keynote and Numbers documents leaving their eco-system.

[RabbieBurns]

looks similar to the contents of a .docx file if you open it up in a zip editor...

 

so what would you suggest is the solution? Do i get my mac and ios users to use the new office apps instead or do i buckle to use dropbox which seems to recognise these file formats, or do i contact MS to try to fix onedrive ?

[Arthur]

looks similar to the contents of a .docx file if you open it up in a zip editor.

It does, except Apple forgot to zip them up in the latest version of iWork.

 

IIRC, iWork '09 documents used a single-file .zip-based format. However, there isn't any point in exporting documents from the Mac version of iWork '13 into this format because the iOS apps do not support saving back to the old formats.

 

www.macworld.com/article/2063353/how-to-work-with-iworks-new-file-formats.html

 

so what would you suggest is the solution?

Could the documents be kept entirely in the cloud? i.e.

 

• Microsoft Office Online / OneDrive + the new Office iPad apps
  
• Google Drive + the new Docs, Sheets and Slides apps (for iOS and Android)
  
• Apple iCloud + iWork '13 Mac and iOS apps
  

Since a lot of iOS apps support Dropbox I suppose that would be another solution, but like you say, users will have yet another set of usernames and passwords to remember.

 

do I contact MS to try to fix onedrive?

You could do this as well, but I doubt it's going to be a quick fix or whether MS cares enough to fix it.

Edited May 17, 2014 by Arthur

[rdk]

Any passing of iWork files here is done as pdfs - from Pages export as pdf and upload that to the recipient. Can't work on it of course, but you can see it. Between Macs airdrop also works. Alternatively, to get a Pages document into Google Docs format you need to export the file as .doc or .docx and then upload and convert that. But I agree with Arthur and just work as a Google Doc/Slides/Sheets to start with.

 

As an aside, I thought the new file structure came with the last OS update when iWork files became completely interchangeable between OSX and iOS. The "file" is effectively a container of separate files for each operating system: OSX opens the Mac version and iOS opens the iPad version, and there is some magic to keep the "other file" updated in the container when you edit the document you're working on.