Ubuntu ships with LibreOffice, a robust open-source office suite adaptable with files composed in other productivity applications, namely Microsoft Office and Apple’s iWork.
Although LibreOffice can manage documents produced in Apple Pages (a typing application that saves in .pages format) and Numbers (an application for spreadsheets that stores data in .numbers format), the shared-mime-info bundle in Ubuntu 22.04 LTS misidentifies both formats as ZIP files.
This leads to a situation in which, if an Ubuntu 22.04 user tries to open either type of document in the file manager, the Archive Manager tool will emerge instead of LibreOffice.
Somewhat troublesome, isn’t it?
Thankfully, the bug was fixed upstream last year, and in the shared-mime-info 2.2 release that followed. That version also made it in to both Ubuntu 23.04 and Ubuntu 23.10, meaning anyone on those versions can double-click on an Apple Pages, etc document to open it in LibreOffice:
The accompanying Launchpad bug for the quirk appears to have only been marked as “fix confirmed -> fix released” at the end of November. As such, those subscribed to issue were only told it had been fixed recently.
Among them, OMG! reader Flimm, who e-mailed me to let me know (which I super appreciate; tips readers send in let cover and feature and mention and showcase a much wider range of developments than those I’d learn about myself, organically) to say:
“Here’s a minor correction that’s been made in Ubuntu 23.10: you can now double-click on .pages or .numbers files (belonging to Apple Pages and Apple Numbers respectively), and they’ll open using LibreOffice Writer and LibreOffice Calc respectively.”
Without a doubt, I wouldn’t have realized this was an issue. I don’t utilize any office suite, except for penning updates about them, and I’m sure I’ve never included an Apple iWork document in my “test folder” of files that I use to confirm mime type coverage in icon themes that I occasionally write about.
Nevertheless, I understand how infuriating it might be for those who frequently handle documents sourced from Apple’s office suite in Ubuntu. It might not seem unusual considering both Pages and Numbers are available on iPhones and iPads, which are widely used.
While this correction hasn’t been retroactively applied to Ubuntu 22.04 – where it might be the most beneficial since a majority of Ubuntu users operate LTS versions – it’s still worth noting, right?
So I figured I’d pass on word, however belatedly.
That way, those affected will know they can double-click on .pages and .numbers to open and edit them in Ubuntu 23.04 and above, as devs intended — which may add another item to the ‘pros’ column when it comes to deciding whether to upgrade to Ubuntu 24.04 LTS next year.
Props to Adrian in the comments for the title!