Pages error message “can’t be opened right now. Pages couldn’t read the file.”

If you launched /Applications/Time Machine.app, that would give you a series of stacked Finder windows and sidebar full screen where you can go back in time, select the candidate file, and restore it. The Finder Quick Look and Spotlight work in this mode of Time Machine panel. It is not however, for launching applications, but selections for Restore.

It is somewhat puzzling that Time Machine ran a couple of days ago and yet only a three-year old version is found on Time Machine.

So, did you reboot your Mac and there was no change with this manuscript not opening? Is the most recent version on that Time Machine panel only from 3 years ago?

I cannot emphasize the combination of using Pages and Time Machine together as there have been more than one report of a Pages document becoming unusable literally overnight. I haven't personally experienced it, but once Pages decides it is not going to open a Pages document, that is the end.

Here's what I suggest. Download and install the current LibreOffice 7.6.2 Suite, and see if it will open that Pages manuscript document from its Open panel. LibreOffice is not a Pages editor, it will open it read-only, but from there, you should be able to save it as a Word .docx and hopefully recover your content. If successful, make a copy of that Word document, and then open the copy in Pages again to convert it to a Pages document. Manually save it. Force a Time Machine backup at that point.

One normally backs up critical documents and Apple provides that capability with Time Machine to an externally mounted and dedicated Time Machine drive. On your Mac, and if you have Ventura 13.* or later, you should also have Pages v13.2.

Reboot your Mac and try opening this document again.

Apparently you aren't being successful in your effort to browse all versions, and that "right now" clause may suggest that this document is either already opened on another device in Pages, or it is on a filesystem that Pages cannot access. If the latter is true, put the document on your Desktop and try opening again.

If you have closed all other iOS/iPadOS/iCloud accesses to this document and Pages still refuses to open it, and you have no Time Machine backup, or the file is no where else to be found, then you are probably prematurely done with your manuscript with no means to recover its contents.

One other thing. Has this document at any time been on Microsoft's OneDrive and you are attempting to open it there, or have dragged it back to your Mac from OneDrive without using the OneDrive application? Or is the file stored on DropBox?

Yea! I use Monterey and pages so it seems and sounds as if the Time Machine backed up files saved before you updated your icloud storage - so then it could be a residue file remaining after the file disappeared. So then it be that cloud storage although having cloud charges it remains the best place to backup and save hence why the importance to update regularly as per storage usage. Let’s see if that helps.