Q: Pages won't open document

The answer is no for all of them...!

Aside my actual document was made on and iPad.. And won't open on my imac?

I am NOT transferring by iCloud..! The file was emailed from my iPad to my iMac! And I said 'aside' from the fact I edited it on an iPad :) sorry for any confusion I didn't word it in the correct manner.

My iPad is given to me by school it's an iPad air. I've had no other problems with it all connecting to the internet ok! My Pages app on iPad is fully up to date as is the one on iMac, so theoretically it should be able to open it. My dad has had a look at the file and claims it to be corrupt, but I'm not sure why? Or how to fix it!

Particularly relevant would be where and how the files were last saved.

All documents were made and stored on iMac, early 2010, Mavericks OS 9.2; Pages 5.1; Numbers 3.1; some documents on  Snow Leopard, then Mountain Lion until November 2013 then Mavericks.

I often have to go to lengths which I don't understand to open Pages 5.1 since the iCloud trial.  I just stumble around and try stuff until I get in.

Are they being transferred or backed up to iCloud?

I tried iCloud hoping to have access from the Android smartphone, particularly contact information when away from the office.  It screwed everything up so bad immediately, especially Mac Mail Ver. 7.2 so that I couldn't receive mail, would hang up frequently, block the shut down process  and would need force quit.  Even force quit commonly would not work and I would have to pull the plug from the wall.  I have disabled iCloud the best I can, sacrificing any potential collaboration in favour of getting the Mac back.  My son-in-law has an up-to-date iPhone and I cannot receive mail from it. 

Are you using 3rd party syching or backup solutions like DropBox?

I have DropBox installed but don't use it.  No synching of any type.

Are they being re-edited on iDevices, iWork for iCloud beta or back and forth from Word .doc?

Most everybody that I work with used .docx and I can translate back and forth perfectly between Pages and Word. I don't use any other device or editor.

Were there any preceeding warnings or difficulties of any kind with the document?

It is very common upon opening documents that have not been opened since Mavericks was installed - I don't remember the exact terminology - but  the effect of which means that 'this document was made in an older version of Pages. Do you wish to update it to Pages 5.1?'  I tried for a while to avoid 5.1, preferring 4.3, but have given up and do a lot of head-scratching but make Pages 5.1 do what I need.

I am very satisfied with my internal network and connections through FibreOp.

Thanks for your very great efforts Peter.  Forums can be critical and nasty; I prefer to be positive and complimentary when deserved.  You desrerve it.

Irwin Judson

Canada

I use the Apple Mail that comes installed on the iMac:  Mail Ver. 7.2 (1874)

This is the address of the sender of the iPhone messages     902xxxxx07@txt.bell.ca

The body of the messages is a series of adjacent touching boxes, each with the blue square with a '?' inside and a blue thin frame areound it.

I cannot open them although with a swipe of the mouse I can bhighlight the overall containing box.  I've copied and pasted the whole body of boxes and pasted into Pages which simply shows a facsimile.

I emailed the file using mail on my iPad however I opened the

File on my iMac using Yahoo Mail.

MacBook Air 10.9.2.

I just emailed a Pages 5.1 document to a Yahoo email account and saved the attachment on my MBA via the Yahoo mail web interface.  It opened fine.  Not a definitive test of course as even certain content within the document could be the cause.  Just thought I'd mention it.

Hi Peter,

I have been suffering from the very same problem as of today. Here is what I have observed so far:

1. I saw an excessive CPU usage by the process "WindowServer" and decided to save my document and quit Pages. CPU usage dropped.
2. File does not open. [document can't be opened]
3. Emailed the file to my Gmail account and saved on desktop. [document can't be opened]
4. Checked the fonts workaround. [document can't be opened]
5. Tried deleting the .plist files. [document can't be opened]
6. Tried openning file on Pages iCloud beta. [document can't be opened]
7. Tried openning file on Pages logging from guest account. [document can't be opened]
8. Tried changing the extension to .txt and then back to .pages. [document can't be opened]
9. Uninstalled and reinstalled Pages from server. [document can't be opened]
10. Tried sending a .doc copy on Pages iCloud beta. [there was an error exporting document]
11. Tried sending a .pdf copy on Pages iCloud beta. [there was an error exporting document]
12. Tried deleting the image files in the containing folder. [document can't be opened]
13. Tried openning file with Preview and copying content to a new document in Pages [all pages copied but no text is selectable, it sees them as images]
14. Tried openning file with Preview and printing as .pdf [weird layout, zoomed to the top left of the page with as it is 75% zoomed]
15. Tried openning file with Preview and exporting as .pdf [weird layout, zoomed to the top left of the page with as it is 75% zoomed]

Hope these help. Mind you, I can still see all the contents of the file in Quicklook mode. I can zoom in on text in Preview and no pixelation occurs so the data is text data not just some thumbnail. No data is lost as far as I can see. My last changes are applied on the document. Pages opens previously saved & edited files, both on drive and iCloud.

The discussion below describes a problem with Numbers 3.x files that can't be opened.  This particular problem is apparently due to third-party sync software renaming some of the package files.  Don't think that's the case here as Peter has examined some damaged files and would have noticed this immediately.  Just another iWork issue that may or may not be relevant.

https://discussions.apple.com/message/25232402#25232402

Hi, I just discovered today that I cannot open certain Pages files (with Pages). I have two types of files I create frequently in Pages, worklogs with a table that I use to record my time and invoices which also have a table in them. I thought it was just the invoices that wouldn't open (I edit these to reflect my client's payment and resend as a receipt), but after finding this discussion I tried to open several worklogs and, as of today (and I'm not sure quite how long this has been the case), I cannot open any Pages-created file in Pages. I've had several open for a while to keep track of my time for ongoing projects, and I'm not having any trouble editing those, but now I'm afraid to close them. However, I did close one earlier this morning and was just able to open it. Others that have not been opened recently but were modified as recently as mid-February cannot be opened.

I do not use iCloud and since these files are client-specific and I email invoices directly, I have not placed any of them in sharing boxes like Dropbox, etc. Aside from the tables, I don't have a lot of additional information about the contents, aside from the fact that the invoices do have calculations built into some of the table cells, and both types of documents contain one or more free fonts that are not "typical" i.e. arial, times, etc. I had a problem once a while back (sometime in 2013) with a worklog file not opening after using (accidentally) a font called "Gabriola" in one cell, but this has not recurred until now. The main fonts I use for these files are Optima, Alexa, and Americana. Some of my files are one page and many of the worklog files are many pages long. The one I closed this morning and was able to re-open just now is a long one using the Optima font.  I can view them in Preview, but to do any editing they have to be opened in Acrobat Pro. Editing this way takes forever, and the tables themselves cannot be edited at all. Major time-consuming pain-in-the-you-know-what!

Hmmm, what other info can I give you? Oh, the most recently modifed files that I cannot open, but were no problem when last accessed, are dated 2/23/14, 2/25/14, 3/4/14,   it's a little touch to tell just when this started, as I've been really busy, so i haven't time do do any invoicing and have had several worklogs open for a long time...Thankfully! Or else I'd be in real trouble, which I will be as soon as I close these, I have a feeling. And now I have to re-create my invoice files...incidentally, though I've created templates for these, I usually open an older one and edit it to make new ones. For a long time, and as recently as a couple of weeks ago, Pages would open a dialog when I opened files from 2013 or earlier asking if I wanted to upgrade the files, and I always told it to upgrade them. To test a template file, I just chose file>new and chose one of my invoice templates, and it opened with no trouble.

Think that's all I can offer. Thanks so much for collecting information about this very disturbing issue that began impacting the administration time I have to spend on my business today!