iWork '09: The Missing Manual

Sharing, Exchanging, and Buying Templates

You can share templates with other Pages fans and let them take advantage of your hard work (and creative brilliance) by sending a template as an email attachment, burning it on a CD, copying it to a USB flash drive, and so on.

But first you have to find the template file you want to share. One way is to dig deep into your hard drive to find Pages’ template storage vault and make a copy of one of your templates. They’re in [home folder] → Library → Application Support → iWork → Pages → Templates → My Templates.

A much easier way, however, doesn’t involve any hard-drive excavation at all. Open the Template Chooser and create a new document from the template you want to share. As soon as it opens, choose File → Save as Template. You have to rename the template, and then choose an easy-to-find destination—say, your desktop—and click Save. You’ve created an exact clone of the template which you can now easily share with others.

Tip

Templates can be a bit hefty in the file-size department. If you want to email a template, compress it first. Control-click the template icon and, from the pop-up menu, choose “Create Archive of [filename]”. Your Mac creates a compressed .zip archive of the file.

Templates Online

If you’ve created a fabulous template, consider sharing it with the world by submitting it to www.iworkcommunity.com or http://iworktemplates.blogspot.com. These websites offer an ever-expanding collection of templates created by Pages aficionados ...