Anduril2012

Q: Help! The document does not have a valid format.

Thursday, 8 September 2016

 

I made an all-text document in Pages 09 Version 4.1 (923) and saved it on my external back-up hard drive only. I use Mac OS X (version 10.6.8 - Snow Leopard). Everything was going just fine as I would update the document periodically. One day, out of the blue, the document would not open because “The document does not have a valid format”. That leads me to ask three questions:

 

What in the world caused that to happen?

 

How do I get the document to open?

 

And

 

How do I prevent this from happening again?

 

Right now the document will not even show itself in Preview, except as an icon with the Pages logo of the pen and inkwell.

 

Thank you.

Mac mini (Mid 2010), Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Sep 8, 2016 10:20 AM

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Q: Help! The document does not have a valid format.

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  • Helpful answers

  • by VikingOSX,

    VikingOSX VikingOSX Sep 8, 2016 1:12 PM in response to Anduril2012
    Level 7 (20,809 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 8, 2016 1:12 PM in response to Anduril2012

    If you right-click on that Pages '09 document, does it offer a menu item, Show Package Contents?

  • by PeterBreis0807,

    PeterBreis0807 PeterBreis0807 Sep 8, 2016 9:53 PM in response to Anduril2012
    Level 8 (35,658 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 8, 2016 9:53 PM in response to Anduril2012

    What size is your Pages document and have you verified your external Hard Drive with Disk Utility?

     

    Peter

  • by Anduril2012,

    Anduril2012 Anduril2012 Sep 13, 2016 10:58 AM in response to VikingOSX
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Desktops
    Sep 13, 2016 10:58 AM in response to VikingOSX

    Tuesday, 13 September 2016

     

    Dear VikingOSX

     

    Thank you for your reply. So sorry that this reply has taken this long in coming. When I right-click on the document icon in Pages 09 Version 4.1 (923), all I get are the usual options to open the file like, Open, Open With, Show View Options and Quick Look. I do not see Show Package Contents.

     

    Anduril

  • by Anduril2012,

    Anduril2012 Anduril2012 Sep 13, 2016 11:03 AM in response to PeterBreis0807
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Desktops
    Sep 13, 2016 11:03 AM in response to PeterBreis0807

    Tuesday, 13 September 2016

     

    Greetings Peter,

     

    How is it Down Under? Thank you for your reply. So sorry that it has taken me this long to reply. The size of the file is 348KB and I have not tried, as yet, to verify my external Hard Drive with Disk Utility. Should I do that? Would that fix the problem?

     

    Anduril