After updating to yosemite, pages won't open older documents, it says,the document "xxx.pages" couldn't be opened...any help would be appreciated.

Pages 5 will not open Pages '08 documents.

Pages '08/'09 should still be in your Applications/iWork folder, use that.

Peter

I've got Pages '09 in the iWork folder. It won't launch. I right-click a file (which I’d opened just last month!) and try to open it with Pages 4.3 (one of the options) and it won't open. This is so messed up because Numbers documents of the same age open and convert just fine. My question for you is whether you have any other ideas. I would delete 5.5.1 and revert to 4.3, but I’ve already created/modified too many documents to the new version of Pages that I would have the same problem with reverting: not being able to open documents. If I could run both versions of Pages, that would work, but it's not happening now, even if I quit one version and try to launch the other.

P.S. Peter, thank you for helping others. I’ve found your comments valuable across threads. I will go rate the latest Pages now at the app store as you suggested elsewhere.

I agree, this is one unholy mess.

You have to be conscious of what has created what, because Apple gives no clues, all files are .pages files.

None of the Pages versions can open later version files, even down to the minor Version 5 upgrades and Apple has switched and changed all the formats multiple times. All of which is compounded by the incompatibilities with all the OSes, the different versions of OSX and iOS.

Pages '09 is the most compatible, it will run on everything from OSX 10.6.8 to OSX 10.10.2 so is the version to go for. It also has the most features and greatest ease of use, so if you choose one format this is the sensible one. The only problem is Apple will eventually cut it loose.

Pages 5 is useless IMHO as it has so few features, has an extremely clumsy and ill thought out User Interface and headed for exactly the same scrap heap everything else Apple heads to. In short: Avoid!

Use Pages '09 v4.3 for now and Export any Pages 5 files back, until something better (not from Apple) comes along, which should be soon.

Meanwhile let Apple know what you think (and that you still do) by rating/reviewing Pages 5.5.1 in the App Store.

Peter

Thank you for this - I have been avoiding going to Yosemite because of all the bad reviews. But a really big concern is Pages - I use the PAGE LAYOUT program extensively - have published several books using it. And it seems clear from your comments that keeping iPages 9 -4 .3 is what I will do. I am getting pretty tired of Apple "dumbing down" programs. Thanks for you help - I will avoid the nightmare of "upgrading" only to get something worse.

I also think Apple does a very bad job of distinguishing between the IPages - word processing versus page layout - and the help section is totally confusing to most people.

Word and its file formats will have greater life because they are so widely used.

LibreOffice [free] and several other programs including Word and TextEdit can use Open Document Text (.odt) format which is designed for long term durability.

Anything by Apple will suffer the fate of Pages. Apple ignores its users and repeatedly trashes its software and their file formats. What made Pages 5 offensive was that it damaged previous files and was sold as a huge improvement, whilst being pushed onto users' desktops often without their knowledge. Also it has become increasingly incompatible and full of problems.

Apple seems to not be concerned as it is giving the software away and therefore users can't demonstrate their feelings by asking for their money back.

Further Apple now has a cohort of customers who are amazingly ignorant and have next to no idea of anything on their computers. They do whatever they are told and blithely remain unaware of what is happening, it just does.

Peter

I had the same problem, could not open certain files with Pages version 5.5.2 (2120) on my MBPr after updating to Yosemite. Did not have the old version of Pages anymore either. However, I noticed I was still able to open the document on Pages on my iPad (I had stored it on iCould Drive).

So what I did was I opened the document on iPad, selected and copied all text, created a new document and pasted all text in there, saved it under a new title and sent the new document in an email to my own email address. I then went back to my MacBook, opened my email with the new document and this time I was able to open it with Pages again. After that I just saved it under the new name on my iCloud Drive. Works fine for me now.

Hope this is of help to anyone.

N.B.: My iPad is asking me to update the Pages app (which I will hold off), so not sure if this method would still work once you have updated iPad Pages too. My current version is 2.5.1 (1716)

Changing the file extension of an old document without its application installed (the black icon with green exec) will not change the content. If you have old ClarisWorks/AppleWorks documents, install LibreOffice, and drag/drop them on it. Depending on the complexity of those CW/AW documents, it may open them just fine, or compromise.

Update: Just noticed when I later try to open the document from Pages - iCloud Drive I once again receive the same old error message. However, when I open the file from my Mail as described above, and then save the document to my Desktop (instead of iCloud Drive), I am able to open it again later on.

Update: After rebooting my MacBook, I can now also open the new documents from Pages - iCloud Drive.

This is a cache problem. Apple Support just helped me. Open a new FINDER window. Click on the GO dropdown menu at the top. Press the OPTION key on your keyboard and a LIBRARY option will appear in the dropdown list. Click on LIBRARY. Find the CACHE file in the LIBRARY folder and open it. EDIT>SELECT ALL>DELETE. You will need to RESTART your computer after this is done. This worked for me. I hope it does you as well.