The document could not be opened

Hello Frank,

I have looked through the files and found the following problem. The files have received the right authority, but not the contents in the packages, i.e. the files like index.xml.gz etc. do not have the same r/w or ownership as the pages "files". I have no idea how to correct this one only using the possibilities of mac - seems like a terminal one again.

Gerald,

what kind of error message do you get from Pages?

Frank.

Frank,

the message is not having sufficient rights to read the file "index.xml.gz" which is true. The actual pages file has the correct rights needed to open it, but the contents of the package (that is the files in the package amongst others the index.xml.gz) have not received the changed authority. I can change the authority right down to all files in a folder, this is no problem, but it never goes to the "files" in a package. I hope this is clear the way I have written it.

Gerald

Gerald,

with which tool do you change the permissions? I know that the info window of the Finder is not in every situation the appropriate one. Have you used the Terminal to change the owner/modus?

Frank.

Hi Frank,

no I havent used the terminal commands. As I only use these very seldom I will have to look them up again. I have tried using the server commands (manager) but they do not go down to this level, they only propagate to the level of the pages "file", not the contents of the package.
Do you know the command off hand, would save me looking everything up again.
Thanks

Gerald,

for the Terminal app, there exists no package file. It sees only files and folders.

The command for the owner is: chown -R <owner> <folder>
The command for the modus is: chmod -R [u|g|o]+[r|w|x] <folder>

I think you know it, but here are a few reminders for all the options in the brackets:
u=owner, g=group, o=other, r=read, w=write, x=execute (this is importand for the permission to open folders). The upper case -"R" is required for this kind of terminal order.

I hope with this your problem is solved.

Frank.

Frank,

I will try using the terminal and get back to you during the next week. Have already started my weekend.

Thanks very much for your quick help.

Same problem here, some older files are not available to open, neither with pages 1.0 (which was the creator) or with pages 2.0.
And same problem i found with some other files in keynote... maybe iWork suite is a flop???
I have all of those files on a server with a couple of disks in mirroring mode... maybe something wrong happens when they copy files each other?
Thanks for any help, all of those files took me lot of time to create them!
Marco

Hello mjf,

I can't say that Pages is a flop. I am working in a Mac-Linux-Windows mixed network (the server is a Linux system) and all goes fine here. I think you have read the posts here and you have checked the permissions of the files.

Have you copied one file back to your local Mac HD and tried to open the file in Pages or have you only tried to open the document from the server HD?

Can you describe the circumstances more detailed, please? What server platform etc.

Frank.

Hi Frank,
Thanks for your support.
Yes I've already tried all the procedures posted above, but nothing's changed.
The only old files i'm able to recover are those stored on a backup HD (previous versions).
Same problem with Pages and Keynote: some files (not able to explain why some yes and some no) are not valid when i try to open them. Sometime appears a message "file is damaged", other times "Pages is not able to open...".
In fact, all this files are stored on a G4 PowerMac with MacOSX Server 10.4, double HD in mirroring mode.
When i opened some packages i saw a strange permission allocation: while the original creator was me (mjf), files and folders were assigned to the server administrator account (abcIT), group same, other no allowed to any changes.
Obviously i changed this setting, allowing everyone to read and write to those files... but nothing happened!
I've tried to copy those files on local machine as you suggested me... same result!
Thanks anyway
p.s. even i hate Microsoft and found Pages and Keynote as a good tool for my everyday work, even those are not a flop, sure i cannot trust in them for my documents (fortunately i always do a pdf copy of them)

Frank,

sorry to get back to you so late. Yes, using the terminal commands everything is working again. It is a problem with the settings of the privilleges of the files and this can only be corrected using the terminal.

Hello mjf,

bad to here that nothing helps to get your documents back to work. I know this is nothing that should be done because it should be unnecessary, but try to zip or gzip the files and move them forth and back. Would that help or do you have to use the documents from the server (because it is a data server, not a backup server)?

Excuse me, but I have no other suggestion at the moment.

Frank.

Hello Gerald,

nice to see that your problems are solved.

Frank.

Thanks anyway Frank,
Nothing works with the damaged files.
My only doubt now is: the new Pages 2.0 has improved the way to save files or it's still "unstable" as the older version is?
Should i continue to use and trust on Pages or should i go back to MS Word?
Whit this amletic doubt i thank you again...
Ciao
Marco

mlf, are other files saved to the various hard drives having the same problem?

I have had image and corruption occur when saving to hard drives which are not in a usual configuration. One was on an old G3 B&W computer with two hard drives, and another was to a USB hard drive which was awkwardly supported with an out of date self-created driver.

Do a thorough scan of your system setup using Diskutility on both hard drives. Not just a permissions check, but a verrification as well (boot from the system CD as you cannot verify the boot drive)

You may find that more than just your Pages documents are having problems.

Message was edited by: Gerry Straathof