Q: How do I make pages 4.3 default instead of pages 5.0

Agreed, thank you Prekrish!  This workaround is fantastic!!  Hooray!

This is offensive.

Basically, Apple ruined iWork, and they also broke the Default App selection for apps of the same name but different version (or it never worked to begin with), making having both versions a dangerous affair (because the new version will damage many documents and save them that way).

As a person planning to buy a Mac Pro in a few months, i'm wondering if this whole "move everything to Macs" plan is still a good idea or a pile of foolishness.

I forgot to mention, that you should rename the apps in the new iWork folder (eg. pages 5, numbers 3 ...)

Prekrish

That will cause problems with updates.

Peter

Hi,

I am having another problem. I do not know if it has to do with the new sytem or the new version of pages, but on my macbook I cannot open any pagesfile by doubleclicking it. I removed pages 5, but still I cannot open them. Only through the open-command from within the program. I installed maverics.

Anyone?, this is annoying.

Hey Jo!  My recommendation is …

1) Reinstall Pages 5.0.  I know, I don't like it either.  But it's just a step to let you open your files again.  I often got a pop-up message saying I couldn't open my old files that I created in 4.3 just because I had once opened them in Pages 5.0 (didn't even change them).  So, reinstall.

2) Follow the instructions Prekrish outlines.  His method works – and it should allow you to open up your files again.

If you reinstall Pages 5.0, follow Prekrish, and still have trouble, repost on this board.  Hopefully someone can help get your files straightened out again!

Prekrish, had to stop and say THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!!! As another user for whom Pages 5 is USELESS, your 'Option 4' worked perfectly on a problem that has been bugging the **** out of me for ages. You are a star!

This has been a bad few months, Apple-wise, so I am not surprised that Option 4 does not work for me.

I get an error message when I try to open an older Pages document, in the older (and, oh, so great) version of Pages. I followed the steps carefully, but there has been so much mess-up between versions on my new Mac, that it is probably hopeless.  The message, which I have received on several ocasions, is that I cannot use that older version of Pages (4.3) on the new machine.  As it is, I am now using Open Office to create rtf files so that I can avoid the latest version of Pages (great fun!) .

I am using Mavericks, in OS X 10.9.1, on a late-2013 MacBook Pro 15" Retina display machine that has already had one logic board replaced by Apple, and is still acting like it has a flawed logic board--I'm into the 4th month of no satisfactory resolution after purchasing it.  After 13 years and 7 Macs (six of which were grand machines), I feel like I have gone back to the 1990s and the PC/Microsoft traumaverse.  How could Apple be so stupid as to dumb-down a great software package?

So, it looks like OpenOffice will be the new kid in our office (unless I choose to use my most-expensive-Mac-ever as the paperweight it seems destined to become, and go back to my slow-but-reliable 2008 model--which does have the REAL Pages still working nicely.

On the plus side, I was heartened by all of your contributions to resolving a problem that should have been workable on my machine, but isn't.   But, then, my new machine sometimes fails when I attempt to save a file . . .

If you have multiple failures with the same Mac, insist that Apple replaces it.

You don't have to put up with it.

Peter

Brilliant - just what I have been looking for. Many thanks

What I don't understand is why Apple have made this so hard when Pages 5 doesn't do all that 4.3 did - especially, for me, linking text boxes. Pretty basic on Apple's word processing package I would have thought.

You were right about that, Peter.  Apple has replaced it.  I expect to get the replacement machine before the end of this coming week. 

With luck, it will be the machine that I had expected when I purchased it.  

With respect to my Pages issue, the AppleCare Senior Advisor who worked with me through most of the problem period has provided me with a replacement disk for the older version that will, I hope, get me back into 4.3.

With that--and this overall discussion, I am optimistic about getting back to work properly.   Givne that I have been trying  to finsh a novel for publication--and the new "Pages" had been impossible--that will be much appreciated.

It took far too long, but that is a significant difference between my Apple experience and my PC experience:  Apple stays with it, takes it seriously and, if possible, helps me to get through the morass and back to work.  Faster would be great, but getting there is also great.

This is genius! Thank you, thank you, thank you, Prekrish.

Update by Wordspinner, actually:  It appears that the new MacBook Pro Retina is working--at least, it is accepting the addition of my preferred software, five days or so since its arrival.   Thanks to Prekrish and Peggy, I am FINALLY using the good version of Pages on the new machine.  I still have a phone appointment with the Apple Senior Advisor who has stayed with me throughout the lengthy ordeal, to get my Mail accounts correctly installed in the new machine. If that goes well, it will be back-to-real-work time.  (The "Yeeee-hah!"  will probably be heard far and wide.)

@Prekrish,

thanks SO MUCH!!! Great solution.

Hoping someone can help with this. I installed the new iWork apps. I created a folder on my hard drive and dragged the new apps into that folder, as Prekrish suggested. However, the apps are not *moved* into that folder, they are *copied"—which means the new apps are all still in the Applications folder. I gather this isn't supposed to happen because there are no instructions above for deleting the iWork apps in the Applications folder.

???