Collaborating With Others Using Pages

You can work with other people on a Pages document in real-time or at separate times. All you need to do is to share the document with them using the Collaborate feature inside Pages. This relies on iCloud, though the other person can use the Web-based version of Pages if they don't have Pages or even a Mac.

You can also watch this video at YouTube (but with ads).

Video Transcript: Let's take a look at using the Collaborate feature to work with somebody else on the same Pages document at the same time. Here I've created a new Pages document and the Collaborate button is really big and hard to miss up here. Now for this to work this document has to be saved to iCloud Drive. So you don't have to be using the document or Desktop's feature of iCloud Drive or anything like that but you do have to have it saved in iCloud Drive. I can see here if I click it is saved in the Pages folder in iCloud Drive. So that will work.
Now I can hit Collaborate and now I have to notify the other person at the same time as I add them. So basically it's one step. You add somebody and that will notify them that they have been added. I can do that by Mail, Messages. I can just get a Link and then send it to them some other way. I can use AirDrop. I can use a variety of other things depending upon what you have installed. So let's just do Mail right now. I'm going to look at Share options and I can send it to only people that I invite. So they have to login to be able to see that document and work with that document. They can Make Changes or Only View if I want. So that looking good I'll hit Share.
So now I get an email form. I want to make sure I send this to an email address that's an Apple ID. Not to some other email address that the person may be using. Then I just hit Send. So now you can see on my other computer here I'm going to get an email there that will contain a link in it which will allow me to share the document. So there's the email. If I just click on this link here it will automatically request Open Pages and then when it does it will open up the documents. Now I've got the document on both screens. You can see I get a little message that the other person has joined.
Now, look what happens. I'm here on the original machine and I type something new you're going to see it appear there on the other one. Likewise, you can see it appear there if the other person types. So you're actually working on the same document at the same time. But you don't have to be. This could be a way to collaborate in real time with somebody. But you can also close the document. Now I'm not working on it at all. You can see it gives you a little message here on the second Mac that the person has left but I can continue working on it. This person could even leave. So could even close this document here.
Now on my first machine here I can open up the Recent Documents there and I'll see the updates there from that person. This could be something where you can send it off to somebody to collaborate. You can leave. They can come in do some edits and add something to it. They can leave. You can come back and you can continue to work back and forth like that. So you can work in real time or you can hand the document back and forth as each person needs it.
To end access you hit the Collaborate button again. You can see the people collaborating there. Hit the three dots here and you can choose to make something View Only. You can Remove Access. So you have those options. Also on this end of things if you're in the document here you can go to Collaborate and you can do the same. You can see you don't have the ability to Remove the original person from it but you can remove yourself. You can also grab a copy of the link if you need it for something like going to another machine or something like that or saving for future reference. If I were to remove one of these, let's say let's remove right now while this is live, it'll prompt me for confirmation and you can see here this document is no longer available. 
So a few other things. If you Collaborate and you say just Anybody with a Link and maybe View Only you can share with anybody. They don't even need to have Pages. They can actually be even on a Windows machine because they can then see it in the web version of Pages. So you have that ability. Also you can do this in Numbers. There's a Collaborate button there as well and in Keynote. It works pretty much the same in all three apps.

Comments: 5 Responses to “Collaborating With Others Using Pages”

Terry Haddow

6 years ago

Two questions Gary.
1: If you share “link” with another person for editoring. Do they have to have an Apple ID or email ?
2: Could the link ( for editoring) be shared with someone not using apple or Pages ? Would they get the web version of Pages to work on ?
Thanks Gary

Gary Rosenzweig

Terry: No. You don't need an Apple ID or even to log in to anything. Try it. Create a document, save it, hit the Collaborate button. Set it to allow anyone to edit. Then copy the link. Then open a private browsing window where you aren't even logged in. Paste in the link. Yes, you would be using the web version of Pages.

Fantastic. Thanks for that.
I don't understand why a lot more people don't use Pages. Its certainly my first "go to" word processor.

Gene H

When you add a person to collaborate with a Pages doc, where do they go to open the doc? Each time they want to work on the doc do they have to open the doc from the original email that was sent to them or is a file stored on the HD?

Gene: You can keep using the same link from the same place you got it in the first place. Or, bookmark it or save the link elsewhere. It should also show up under File, Open Recent.

Comments Closed.

Collaborating With Others Using Pages

Comments: 5 Responses to “Collaborating With Others Using Pages”

Welcome to MacMost

Free Weekly Newsletter

MacMost Online Courses

Keyboard Shortcuts PDF

Connect with MacMost

MacMost Sections

Popular Tutorials

Information