Pages keeps quitting. I have searched the forums but can't find a solution that works. I looked for the com.apple.iWork.Pages.plist file but couldn't find it - the closest is com.apple.iWork.Pages.LSSha.
Please can anyone suggest what to do?
MacBook Air, Other OS, It says OSX 10.9.5 in my Apple menu
Pages v5 does not store its preference files in the traditionally expected location. Copy/paste the following into the text input area of the dialog that results from pressing shift-command-G in the Finder, and then press return.
~/Library/Containers
Locate the com.apple.iWork.Pages icon (yellow). This is a package folder, so you will need to right-click on it and select Show Package Contents from the contextual menu.
Then, simply click the following folder hierarchy:
Data ▸ Library ▸ Preferences
Once you are in Preferences, just type Pages in the Finder's search window, and the com.apple.iWork.Pages.plist will be shown. Drag (move) that item to your Desktop. Press and hold the shift key when launching Pages again. Any change?
Thank you so much for this response and for phrasing it in a way I can understand (this kind of thing makes me hyper-ventilate). However when I tried all that it seemed to work beautifully to start with - when I relaunched Pages (holding down the shift key) it gave me a nice 'Welcome to Pages' screen, at which I thought 'hurray'. But then it just all disintegrated again - it let me briefly see one Pages document but then did the 'pages has quit unexpectedly' routine.
Have you got any further suggestions? Or is it all doomed?
Reboot your Mac, and see if Pages suddenly resumes correct behavior. Use the shift key again when starting Pages as it last crashed on you.
Have you added, disabled, or removed any fonts recently using Apple's Font Book, or any professional Font management tool? If Pages is deprived of font(s) that it expects, or encounters a corrupted font — this will also make it crash.
Thanks, but I did try re-booting a couple of times to start with, and also did the Shift + restart Pages bit. I haven't done anything with fonts.
Just a thought - when you said earlier to move the com.apple.iWork.Pages.plist file to my Desktop, should I also delete it from the Preferences folder?
Yes, delete it from the previous Preferences location — as the fix was dependent on that. I presumed that the dragging of the plist out to your Desktop from within the package folder would move it like it would with normal Finder operations — but it simply makes a copy.
Once it is actually removed, launch Pages again with the shift key tactic.
Oooo-kaaay .... I tried all that again but it didn't really seem to want to delete the plist document - tried right-clicking, dragging it to the trash-can, nothing. However by then I wondered if it was just a ghost version or something, so have tried opening Pages again and this time it worked! It has stayed open for 3 documents, and I deleted the document which I was working on when it froze and crashed the first time. (It's one I've used before so should have been fine, but I reckoned I might as well get rid of it anyway to see if it helped.)
Thank you so much for this - it's been time-consuming and rather scary but enlightening.
Yes!
Using Pages v5 is like watching Twilight Zone re-runs. Something strange is in the mix. 😉
com.apple.iWork.Pages.LSSha
