Recovering my Numbers Files after downgrading back to Mavericks

Question

Recovering my Numbers Files after downgrading back to Mavericks

First thing to be known: I CANNOT upgrade to Yosemite. I did that several weeks ago and my computer became so sluggish that it was unusable. I own an iMac 07. I wiped my computer and got it back to Mavericks, however I cannot open any of my Number files. I keep all my files on external drives. It keeps telling me I have to upgrade to Numbers 3.5, but to upgrade I have to go back to Yosemite. All of my orders and commissions information are being held 'hostage' so to speak and it's brought my business to a grinding halt, which is terrible considering this is the holiday season and many of my orders are christmas presents.

I don't have Time Machine so I can't retrieve anything that way. Is there any work around to get my files that were upgraded 3.5 to open again using Numbers 3.2.2?

Posted on Dec 1, 2014 6:09 PM

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Answer 1

Yellowbox

Level 7

20,383 points

Dec 1, 2014 6:23 PM in response to PaperRedemption

Hi PR,

Numbers 3.5 will run on Mavericks.

Does App Store give you an option to download 3.5? (Don't allow Update All or you will get a Yosemite download.)

Regards,

Ian.

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Answer 2

Yellowbox

Level 7

20,383 points

Dec 1, 2014 6:28 PM in response to Yellowbox

Another thought, use Spotlight to search for Numbers. Just a chance you already have 3.5 somewhere, but your Dock icon is pointing to 3.2.2.

Ian.

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Answer 3

Dec 2, 2014 6:44 AM in response to Yellowbox

In my updates section, Numbers 3.5 is listed under 'Incompatible App Updates' along with Pages and Keynote and it doesn't give me the option to download or upgrade it. I also checked to make sure that Numbers 3.5 wasn't already installed and it's not.

When i try to upgrade from Numbers in the App Store I get this alert:

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Answer 4

Dec 2, 2014 7:54 AM in response to PaperRedemption

PD,

You are in a proverbial pickle. You need the later version of Numbers to convert your files back to the earlier version.

There is an easy way and a hard way. The easy way would be to take your files to a friend or to an Apple store where you may have access to Numbers V3.5.1, open them and Export them back to V2 (iWork '09). Here's the hard way. You seem to be very capable of working with upgrades and downgrades, so I'm not afraid to make this rather drastic suggestion. Get an external drive of a size equivalent to your internal drive. Do a full backup to a Bootable external drive, then Boot from the external drive, update the external copy of your system to Yosemite, and if necessary, Update Numbers since you think it is gone.

Then you are in a position to Open your Numbers documents and Export them back to iWork '09 and use them with Version 2 as the other helpers have mentioned.

There is a possible middle ground. I think you really only have to go back to Version 3.0 of Numbers running on Mavericks to get back in business, and if you can do that you won't have to do the export to iWork '09 / Version 2. The way this would be possible would be for you to make sure that Numbers V3.5 is really gone. I know you said it is gone, but there may be traces of it that are causing the warning about incompatibility. The proper way to dispose of an app is via LaunchPad.

In Launchpad, see if the Numbers app is present as an icon. If so, click and hold until all the icons vibrate. An X will appear for deleting any delectable apps. It will look like this:

If that works, you can delete the Numbers V3.5 and then you will be able to re-download version 3.0.

Jerry

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