pages file is missing its index.xml file?

I had the same problem so I sent the file as a PDF. Problem solved. Copy and paste it back into your current version of pages on your computer. You can also send as word and open it in open office on your mac and other options. I don't think you need to say bad things about apple because of this. They offer options.

I am also having this problem as I was writing on pages5 on my laptop and then tried to open the docs on my iMac. I decided to export to Word as you suggested and discovered that I could actually export the doc to pages9. This seems to work as I could then email it and open the docs on both computers. Annoying waste of time but the problem is surmountable. Thanks for the tip.

Thanks for explaining this SIMPLY!

I've been through this and similar threads, and I'm still stuck. I (stupidly) moved some old Pages files from iCloud over to Dropbox (via the finder window, I just moved them over. Stupid, I know that now). I can't open them at all. When I try to open in Pages 5.6 it tells me it 'can't be opened for some reason'. When I try to open in Pages 4.3 it tells me the required index.xml file is missing. I tried using the cloud convert site to convert them to docs, but that doesn't work (Error: could not open file). Any suggestions? Or did I just completely screw myself? (FYI in case it's relevant, OS X 10.11.1)

Thank you very much for your suggested work around for the xml problem. It worked! The appearance of the onerous "xml file missing" message often seen absolutely random as does its disappearance. Fortunately I also had saved a docx version of the document that I have been working on for two years. This opened without a problem. Then I tried your method for Pages and it worked fine. That was yesterday. Today I went straight to my pages file icon on the desktop and it opened immediately. I have not done any updating in the meantime so the question is why did it not open yesterday but today? I am convinced something strange goes on in iCloud. I never had these issues before I decided to use the Cloud. The inability to open a file on my Mac sometimes occurs when I have saved a document on my iPad and sent it to myself as an attachment to an email. This whole issue is infuriating. I cannot understand why Apple has not been able to fix a problem that can be quite stressful to their customers.

Useful response. Does anyone know if Apple is going to revise it's idiotic decision to cripple Pages? I get round things by continuing to use the previous version, having come to the conclusion that Pages 5 is a prime example of what I call "upgrade degredation"!!

By the way, the link to the freeforum101.com seems no longer to be working.

The freeforum101.com is sadly no more.

The people who set up the freeforum site did not pay their bills and the whole kit and caboodle and the massive amount of work in the iworktipsntricks forum was overnight inaccessible and totally lost without warning.

Think on that long and hard when you see Apple offering you free software that trashes all your precious work, time and effort.

Think long and hard about putting your work on Apple's iCloud when Apple has demonstrated time, after time, after time that they do not consider your work, investment in software, hardware and training important enough to give even a passing thought.

I look at the enormous amount of time and money I have spent over the years replacing all the hardware, software and work that I have invested in simply because Apple can't get it right, or when things don't work out as Apple has sworn it would, they have just cut you and all yours adrift.

I am currently trying to move a massive Aperture library to somewhere safely out of reach of Apple.

Peter

Here is what I do. It seems to open anything documents that don't open. Hit control and click on document. click on "open with" .... here I have the option of choosing "Pages (default) (5.6.1)" and presto the document opens. Note to APPLE. We your customers should not have to do this or any of the other rig-a-mah-roll fixes posted here to open a simple document. People like me who are not computer experts have enough trouble navigating the world of computers without having to figure stuff out stuff like this. Also it is us who have been with you a long time who have gone thru all the older versions who suffer the most with these type problems.

RECOMMENDATION: PUT YOUR MONEY AND YOUR BRAINS BEHIND THIS PROBLEM AND GIVE US A FIX SO THIS ISN'T AN ISSUE. USING PAGES IS A MAJOR APPLICATION THAT WE ALL NEED TO USE EVERYDAY! THANK YOU FOR YOUR PROBABLE ATTENTION

There is a reason the Apple Pages product team placed that Provide Pages Feedback menu item in the Pages application menu. So that you could communicate directly with them. This is a user-to-user support community comprised of international volunteers — not Apple-badged staff — and the product teams do not participate in the community, or read open requests to them. You are just preaching to the choir.

As you have discovered, a Pages v5 document can only be opened by Pages v5.

Exactly what we have already told everyone to do. Long ago.

Peter

PS As Viking says no point appealing to Apple, especially here. Apple is not listening, especially here.

I can not tell you how much grief you just saved me by reading your post !!!

Thank you !!

Thank you - your simple fix solved my problem too, although it doesn't make sense as I was using the latest edition of Pages when I created the file only yesterday.

I'm on an iMac with mouse...

1. Right click mouse...drop down is displayed

2. Click on "Open With"...2nd drop down is displayed

3. Now Click on "Pages (default)"

4. Document that could not open now opens

At this point, I suggest...

5. Copy this document

6. Now go to Pages and open a new blank document

7. Paste what you saved to the new document

8. Give new document a name and save

This worked on my iMac with Yosemite 10.10.5...hopefully it works for you

When a person uses Pages '09, and clicks the red traffic light believing they are both closing their document and quitting Pages '09, they have only closed the document window. Pages '09 continues to run, and will intercept any double-click on a Pages document icon, and attempt to open it.

Since Pages v5 documents are an entirely different document architecture, and do not contain the internal index.xml file present in all Pages '09 documents, Pages '09 pops that missing index.xml dialog. The solution is not copy/paste between documents, it is to quit Pages '09 properly, and then double-click the Pages v5 document so that it will open in Pages v5.

All my files do the same thing if I open Pages first and then open a file from it. But if I just use the finder and navigate to the document and double click it, it opens pages and the document every time.

If this isn't messed up, I open pages 09 and create a document. Then after that I can't open it until I double click the file in the finder and then the pages version is 5.6.1

How could they make a program that can't open files that were created with it?