APA 6th Edition Paper Template for Apple Pages (iWork)

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This entry was published at least two years ago (originally posted on October 28, 2010). Since that time the information may have become outdated or my beliefs may have changed (in general, assume a more open and liberal current viewpoint). A fuller disclaimer is available.

As I’ve been writing papers for my class assignments, I’ve been working on fine-tuning an APA 6th Edition template for Apple’s Pages. I based my template on a Microsoft Word template provided by Dr. Paul Rose of Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.

For Pages ’09 (v.4.0–4.3)

Feel free to download and use the template (314k .template file) for your own papers. Just download, decompress, and then (for easiest use), place in your ~Library/Application Support/iWork/Pages/Templates/My Templates folder.

For Pages ’13 (v.5.0+)

An initial cursory check seems to indicate that the template works just fine under Pages 5.0, so feel free to download and use the same template file. If anyone does note any problems with the template under Pages 5, please leave a comment here and I’ll look into making corrections.

The easiest way to add the template to Pages 5, according to Apple, is to open the template file, then click Add to Template Chooser.

For the more technically-inclined, Apple has changed where template files are stored. If you want to dig down to add or remove them manually, the new location is ~Library/Containers/com.apple.iWork.Pages/Data/Library/Application Support/User Templates. Note that com.apple.iWork.Pages is a package, not a directory; to continue along the path you’ll need to right-click on the package and choose the “Show Package Contents” item.

For Microsoft Word

I’ve also created versions of the template file for Microsoft Word in both .dotx (for Word 2007 or later) and .dot (for earlier versions of Word). Feel free to download both in one .zip file (35k .zip file) or individually (.dotx for Word 2007+ (36k) or .dot for Word 2003 (55k)).

For easiest use: On a PC, place the templates in your C:\Documents and Settings\(user name)\Application Data\Microsoft\Templates folder; on a Mac, place the templates in your ~/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/Office/User Templates/My Templates folder.

Version History

  • 2010.10.28: First upload.
  • 2010.10.29: Corrected double-spacing of reference page, added appendix, table, and figure pages. Added Word versions.
  • 2010.11.9: Corrected third-, fourth-, and fifth-level headings to use standard sentence capitalization and to be paragraph-level headings.
  • 2010.11.29: Corrected first-level headings to be truly centered.
  • 2013.10.25: No change to the template; updated blog post to include Pages 5 information.

159 thoughts on “APA 6th Edition Paper Template for Apple Pages (iWork)”

  1. a BRILLIANT man!!!! OH THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!! So happy to have this template! Wish I’d have had it the whole time I’ve been writing my papers!!! :D :D :D

  2. Hi!

    Thanks so much for this template. I, too, have APPLE Mac and need word for APA writing. Question: I saved it on my desktop BUT it converted it to text edit. Help!!

    :>) Kim*

  3. I am new to the iPad and found your site. I was unable to download the template. Message said that download failed. – safari could not download this file – do you have any suggestions? Thank you so much.

  5. Thank you so much! I have been looking for hours and you have made the only template worth downloading! I am very new to this and I do not know how to remove page 2, the abstract page. Since I do not need it for this assingment, how do I just remove it from the template? Thank you!

  7. Hi Mike! Wow- Googled for APA 6th Ed Template for Dissertation and this popped up- oh how I wish I had this years ago!!!! Am new to Mac recently- and just upgraded to Lion- so my head is swimming as I look at trying to start and complete a dissertation in less than 7 months…… riiiiight. Anyways- do you have a specific dissertation template floating around- or are you aware of a reliable version anywhere? Am trying to save as much time as possible with these things as I hit the ground running.

    Oh, and I enjoyed your page about you- I really got a feel for you and your sense of humor- awesome.

    Best, Andrea

    • Hi Andrea — thanks for the kind comments! Unfortunately, I don’t have anything set specifically for dissertations. This template came about because I needed it…and I haven’t needed to write a dissertation yet. Check back in a few years. ;) Best of luck!

  8. thank you mr. stranger! I think I love you! I am new to mac and new to grad school…bad combination…but you are saving me!

  9. Thanks need to write everything in APA and I’m not very familiar with the format. Much appreciated!

  13. So many good reviews, but i am having trouble . I downloaded the file okay, but Templates folder isn’t there. I clicked Macintosh HD\Library\Application Support\iWork\Pages and i just view the icon. No template choice. I am using OS Lion 10.7.3. Can you help me please?

  14. Bless you! I have been using this template for my APA papers at University and I’m so happy to have it. Thank you for taking the time to build and freely share. Open source makes the world a much happier place.

  15. Help! I am a Mac user with the latest ( I think it is the latest… purchased it just this past summer) Word program added on. So, not sure where to start, but I have a document that has to have a cover sheet in portrait, then it has to have the following 10 pages in landscape orientation with a header that identifies the columns. I have figured out how to get the first page in landscape and omit the header from the first page, and get the following 10 pages in landscape with a header.
    However I cannot figure out the following two items:
    1). How to change the reference pages at the end of the document back to portrait, while keeping the previous pages in landscape, and
    2. How to get the header off the final reference pages without removing it from all the pages. Thanks !!

  16. Thank you very much, and much everyone else has said before, you have saved me tons of time through your own efforts and hard work. Again, thank you.

  17. Probably should change the template to Times New Roman (12) and Running Head to Running head. Other than that it looks good! Thanks.

  18. I am starting my doctorate program and have Office 2011. I could open Dr. Paul Rose’s template, which says it was last updated November 29, 2010. When I try and open your version it says it is not in the right format. I looked at Pages separately and iWorks. I would like to use the most up to date version of the template. If I purchase Pages will this be enough or do I need to purchase iWorks and get Pages through it. I noticed the address to get to the template had iWorks in it.

    ~\Library\Application Support\iWork\Pages\Templates\My Templates\

  19. I do not have Page so I used the Word version. It worked well except , the spell and grammar check turned off.

  21. Thanks for this! I downloaded it for my first semester of grad school and have gotten great results in class!

  23. Thanks for this info. I was also banging my head trying to do the APA in pages, I’m new to the Mac and is just like trying to do everything in a foreign language.
    Appreciate the help!

  24. Thanks so much- just began Doctoral studies and this helps immensely. It’s very kind of you to be this magnanimous.

    • Hi DW,

      I don’t know of any reason why the template would be asking for access to your contacts. My best guess is that the request is not coming from the template itself, but from Pages, probably as it tries to automatically fill in the “Firstname Lastname” text on the cover page. Mac OS X tries to help by pulling the information from your personal address card; unfortunately, the dialog box that appears doesn’t give a good description of what the program is doing, or why it is asking for access to your contacts.

      For more information, please see this Apple support webpage or this weblog post. Rest assured, I’ve not done anything underhanded with this template. Just trying to help people out! :)

  28. I just found this blog today and i was able to successfully open and download the template..Thank you for posting this. But I’m wondering why there are sections of the template appearing in Latin? Is there a way to fix that problem?

    • Hi Agnes,

      The “Latin” is basically just dummy text that you are free to delete and replace with your own text. I did this so that my template wouldn’t have one of my own class assignments included as the text. :)

      The text itself is a famous piece of pseudo-Latin, known as “lorem ipsum” after its first two words, that has been in use in the printing industry for hundreds of years. The practice of using false text in for dummy layouts is called “greeking“.

  29. The information in the centre of the title page is centred but its suppose to be centred and left justified if thats possible. thats what my instructor wanted.

  35. HI! This may be a silly question, but once I download it and put it in the folder, how do I access it from pages?

    • Hi Katie,

      Once it’s in the Templates folder, you should be able to start a new document (File > New) to open the Template Chooser, then look under “My Templates” at the bottom of the column on the left.

  42. Thanks in advance! I’ve never used APA before, and 100+ people seems like a good endorsement. Just a quick question- I’m running Mountain Lion and I can only get to the ‘Application Support’ section. I can’t seem to find anything that looks like iWorks, Pages, or Templates… am I missing something?

    • Hi Ben,

      I think (though I’m not 100% positive) that those folders are usually created by the applications on an as-needed basis. If they don’t exist already, you should be able to create the folders manually and place the template file inside them; when Pages launches, it should recognize the folder pathways and find the template file.

  44. Hi there – this is great. I have two questions. When I use the template as the basis of a new document, when I click in the document it highlights large sections, then if I type it deletes it all. What am I doing wrong here?
    The other question is, have you tried to generate a table of contents which includes level three headings and higher? When I set up my own template, I couldn’t figure out how to exclude the sentences that follow the level three heading from the TOC (as these sentences are seen as part of the heading level 3 by Pages). Any suggestions gratefully received!

    • Hi Melissa,

      You’re not doing anything wrong. When I set up the template, I designated that text as “placeholder” text — it’s there to give an idea of the look of the final document, but as it’s not intended to be used as-is, Pages automatically removes it when you start to replace it with your own content. Nothing to worry about there, that’s exactly what’s supposed to happen.

      As far as the TOC goes, no, I’m afraid I haven’t. Honestly, I never produced any papers that actually needed a TOC; I added it to this template to try to be inclusive, but I didn’t do much beyond the basics. Sorry I can’t be of more help there.

  50. This is great – I don’t suppose you feel like tackling a TOC? That’s the part I’m struggling most with!
    (side note: i automatically generate one, but left aligning the text, right aligning the numbers, and putting ellipses in between is proving too problematic for me, despite doing what I think is the correct procedure!)

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