Should Pages 4 be retained after installing 5?

Question

Level 1

94 points

Should Pages 4 be retained after installing 5?

I upgraded Pages as part of my upgrade to Mavericks last November, and it recently updated itself to version 5.1 of course. I just assumed that the installation of version 5 would have over-written and uninstalled version 4.

But yesterday I happened to hover my cursor over a text document in Finder after right-clicking it, and I was surprised to see that there were TWO versions of Pages given in the list of 'Open with...' options. They were shown as 'Pages (5.1)' and 'Pages (4.3)'.

Out of curiosity I chose '4.3', and sure enough it was version 4.3 that opened, complete with it's purple icon and it's toolbar at the top instead of along the right hand side as in version 5. In fact I was able to open the same document with both versions of Pages simultaneously.

Is this normal? Shouldn't version 4 have disappeared from my Mac?

It isn't causing a problem having both versions, but version 4.3 doesn't show up at all in my Applications folder, and so I'm a little puzzled as to how I would uninstall it if I wanted to.

MacBook Pro (15-inch Mid 2010), OS X Mavericks (10.9)

Posted on Jan 30, 2014 6:48 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Jan 30, 2014 7:16 AM in response to Steve Zodiac

Version 4.3 is much, much more robust. Need to bookmark various passages in your document? You can't in 5.1, but you can in 4.3. Need to use mail merge for a mailing? Ditto. Maybe instead of wanting to create a one-page poster forEddie Cue's next concert, you want to create a book or booklet. Such documents have different margins, headers, and footers for right and left pages. pages 4.3 handles that elegantly. Pages 5-5.1 cannot do it. Maybe you want to see all comments at a glance. You could in 4.3, you can't in 5.1. Nor can you print comments. You can't even set the default zoom , which means that if your eyes are not as good as the young techs who foisted this misbegotten travesty upon us, you will need to reset the zoom and resize the window every time you open a document. You can't even have rulers display by default. Maybe you want to know how many pages are on your document or what page you are on? You have to go through several clicks to discover that in 5.1. In 4.3 there was a discreet status bar that told you all that, and the word count, at a glance. There are more subtle things too. Perhaps you need to search for hard returns or other I visible characters. Pages 5.1 lacks that capability. You can't select non-contiguous text, as you could n 4.3, or open a document you created in TextEdit because Pages no longer supports RTF files. And remember all those nifty Applescripts you wrote for Pages: they won't work with Pages 5.1 because AppleScript support has been neutered. Believe me, you want to hold on to 4.3.

Reply

Answer 2

Jan 30, 2014 7:25 AM in response to Steve Zodiac

Pages 5 is in your Applications folder.

Pages '09/'08 is in your Applications/iWork folder.

Pages '09/'08 can not open Pages 5 files and you will get the warning that you need a newer version.

Pages 5 can open Pages '09 files but may damage/alter them. It can not open Pages '08 files at all.

Once opened and saved in Pages 5 the Pages '09 files can not be opened in Pages '09.

Anything that is saved to iCloud is also converted to Pages 5 files.

All Pages files no matter what version and incompatibility have the same extension .pages.

Pages 5 files are now only compatible with themselves on a very restricted set of hardware, software and Operating Systems and will not transfer correctly on any other server software than iCloud.

Note: Apple has removed over 90 features from Pages 5 and added many bugs:

http://www.freeforum101.com/iworktipsntrick/viewforum.php?f=22&sid=3527487677f0c 6fa05b6297cd00f8eb9&mforum=iworktipsntrick

Peter

Reply

Answer 3

Steve Zodiac Author

Level 1

94 points

Jan 30, 2014 8:27 AM in response to PeterBreis0807

Quote:

Pages 5 is in your Applications folder.

Pages '09/'08 is in your Applications/iWork folder.

Ahhh. That answers my query about where to find it.

(I have no intention of uninstalling it.)

Thinks... It's a pity iTunes 10 didn't similarly get left behind when '11 was foisted upon us. 😉

Reply

Answer 4

Peggy

Level 8

41,601 points

Jan 30, 2014 10:36 AM in response to Steve Zodiac

Installing new versions of iWork has never replaced existing versions. This is nothing new. The only thing new is that the '09 apps are moved to an iWork '09 folder if they were purchased from the Mac App Store. If they were installed from disk they should already be in a separate folder in Applications.

Reply

Answer 5

Feb 1, 2014 11:39 AM in response to Peggy

So here is a slightly different situation. When I got Pages 5, (and Keynote and Numbers) I dumped the iWork folder that had Pages 4 in it.

THEN... I found that Endnote X7 did not work right with Page 5 - at least under Mavericks.

So I tried to reinstall Pages 4 from a disk, and when I tried to run it, I got the error mesage saying that it would not on my machine. (MacBook Pro mid-2012).

Parentheically I found a MBP in my center that had not been upgraded to Mavericks, it had Pages 4 on it, so I installed Endnote X7, and got back to work on a proposal I have to have ready on Tuesday. (AND breathed a huge sigh of relief)...

Of course this arrangement to have one machine devolved for working with Pages/Endnote is brain dead. The ultimate solution should be that X7 and Pages 5 become compatible. But that is like waiting to see how long it takes for H to freeze over...

Anyone have an interim solution?

Thanks,

---jon---

Reply

Answer 6

Feb 1, 2014 4:44 PM in response to JonSticklen

iWork '09 does run on Mavericks and your Mac.

Did you update the installation to v4.3:?

http://www.freeforum101.com/iworktipsntrick/viewtopic.php?t=432&mforum=iworktips ntrick

Peter

Reply