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pages documents now com.apple.iwork.pages.alt-document

When I open a new pages document I get an error saying "Pages quit unexpectedly". Reopening takes me to the same page. AND I have noticed all of my pages documents now have com.apple.iwork.pages.alt-document as the format. I don't know how to reinstall pages, but what worries me more is are my documents safe and how can I rename/recover them as pages documents?

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 12.7

Posted on Sep 21, 2024 9:47 AM

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3 replies

Sep 21, 2024 10:24 AM in response to san_disk_download

None of the Pages documents that I have saved from macOS 12.7.6 (Pages v13.1) or later through Sequoia v15.0 and Pages v14.2 show com.apple.iwork.pages.alt-document as a content type. They remain com.apple.iwork.Pages.sffpages. The content type of a Pages document is not shown from the Finder and the actual Pages document should still have a .pages extension.


Your Pages quitting unexpectedly may be caused by something else. Reinstalling Pages won't make any difference. Is the file you are attempting to open on your local drive or on some cloud location?


If you have installed any anti-virus or so-called Mac cleaning tools, remove them per the vendor's instructions. Reboot your Mac. Then, press and hold the shift key while launching Pages, and use the File open chooser to select the same document as before. Any change?

Sep 25, 2024 10:56 AM in response to VikingOSX

I did as you asked thank you but there are no changes. I can open the document in Finder and it looks fine but it still has this weird file format. I restarted my computer and launched Pages holding down the Shift key and it is still giving me the error page. Have you another fix for me? I'm concerned about sending these documents to others, just in case there is a virus, trojan or other malware...? Thanks again!

Sep 25, 2024 1:24 PM in response to san_disk_download

None of my hundreds of Pages documents are saved in this com.apple.iWork.pages.alt-document content type. No version of Pages that I have used in 19 years produces this content type. Did you run some online converter to produce a Pages document from another document format that is not supported by your Pages version?


Something produced that content type but I have no evidence here that it was any version of Pages that created it.


No, I have no other suggestions other than to open that Pages document in the current LibreOffice Suite and then Save as… as a Word 2010 - 365 docx. Then open that .docx in Pages. If LibreOffice won't open it, then delete it as nothing is going to open it.

pages documents now com.apple.iwork.pages.alt-document

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