Q: How do i stop the app store from prompting me to update Pages?

Not sure what you mean. Hopefully, the forum page has let you know that I'm trying to do this on a Mavericks iMac, since it asked me to designate all that stuff.

Anyway, I have not updated Pages to 5.2 and don't want to.

If I try to ctrl-click the Pages 5.2 title in the App Store, it doesn't give me an option to hide. Nor if I ctrl-click the Update dropdown button.

If I crtl-click the 4.3 version in my Applications folder, it doesn't give me a hide option there either.

Sorry, but I'm at a bit of a loss deciphering what you're suggesting here.

Ok, this sounds much more promising than the frankly scary impression I'd gotten from the many negative Pages reviews in the App Store.

I was also concerned because of an alert I got on my iPad a few months ago, which if I remember correctly, told me my iPad Pages document would not be workable on older versions of Pages, specifically 4.3.

But in other words you're saying that if I simply update, Apple won't rewrite my 4.3 Pages to the new version lacking many of the features I rely on, it will simply put my old version away and install the 5.2.   – but that I'll still be able to open and use the 4.3.

If that's the case, I'm entirely happy with updating.

Just as a matter of info, I did try control clicking – with two different keyboards – to no effect on either Pages, Keynote or Numbers.

Thanks for the debugging option too, but if I can keep my old Pages until they get the new version fully up to speed, I don't need to go there.

Yes, I'd uploaded a 4.3 document to Dropbox, worked on it on the iPad. I think I got the alert when I went to save. But your solution here is also reassuring. The disparities between the two versions make things a little labor-intensive, clunky-seeming, but hopefully the new Pages will soon have all the features of the old.

As a side note, the primary one I recall reading they hadn't yet worked on was the Sort Table menu in Text Inspector, which I use often. I thought well, if that's not available, what else won't I be able to do?

But I'm heading over now to update.

Ok, all is well. I've installed the new Pages and am happy to see I can also launch the old, all my documents from my last session loading intact.

I also see I can  open the Mavericks Pages side by side with '09, excellent as well!

So thank you so much! You've made my day. As a person who does a lot of writing, I was so relieved to escape the clutches of Word with the first release of Pages, that now when reviewers were suggesting that Apple was dumbing down in the march towards an iOS world, I thought it the end of an era. So not only have you solved my issue – several concerns really – you've restored my faith in Apple, though please don't tell them I said so!

While I use Scrivener for gigantic projects, Pages has become my go-to workhorse – much preferred to the quirky TextEdit – and now I feel confident it can remain so.

I'm going to hit every Solved button here on the page that I can.

Cheers!

Good to know. I'll look forward to checking it out. I probably would've ignored it otherwise.

I see that. I'll definitely keep it in mind for next time. Thanks again.