How to extract text from corrupt PAGES file

If this is actually a Pages v5 document, and it won't open in Preview, or open in Pages v5 while holding the shift key down — then you are done. The internal content in Pages v5 is in an unreadable/undecipherable, scrambled document format that nothing on earth can read except Pages v5.

If this is a Pages v5.5.2 or later document version, then it is by default in a single file format (compressed/renamed zip file), and no version of Pages v5 thru v5.2.2 on Mavericks was designed to read single file format documents that are not of Pages '09 origin. If it is a Pages document from Yosemite or El Capitan, you will need Pages v5.5.3 or later to change the file type to package format — which can be read by Pages v5+ on Mavericks.

If this is a Pages '09 document, there is a good possiblility that your attempting to open/modify/etc this document with all of those mentioned applications has damaged the document beyond repair. Try Preview, or the free LibreOffice (v5 or later) that can open very simple Pages '09 single-file format (not package folders) documents, sometimes with images. No guarantees though.

There is another possiblity. Inside every Pages '09 document there is an index.xml file. It is mostly xml styling commands that are interspersed with the text content of your Pages document. To get at your actual text will require some Terminal commands, and the free TextWrangler. The latter will open the index.xml file as color coded text, where black text is the actual content that you want to copy/paste into a new Pages document. The Terminal commands are necessary to isolate the index.xml file outside of the Pages document, so you can open it.

The usual caveats exist. If your damaged Pages document is an archive, and the archive is damaged, then you are likely done before the following steps would apply. If for some reason, the index.xml file is damaged, the same applies.

1. Get TextWrangler v5.0.2 (or later) from the vendor site, not the OS X App Store.
   1. Reason: The vendor site version has a command-line tools installer on the TextWrangler menu that Apple prevents them from uploading to the App Store. Once the command-line tools are installed, you can invoke TextWrangler from the Terminal as edit index.xml.
   2. Launch the TextWrangler installer and install it.
   3. Launch TextWrangler from Launchpad, and when you get that unrecognized developer dialog, just click open.

      From the TextWrangler menu, choose Install command line tools (edit, twdiff, etc.) These go into /usr/local/bin.

2. In Finder, just drag your "damaged" Pages document to the Desktop.
3. From Launchpad, click Other, and then click Terminal.
   1. In Terminal, type the following to make your current directory the Desktop
      cd ~/Desktop
   2. Now, determine if that Pages document is a zipped file, or a folder
      file ./damaged.pages
   3. If it is a directory, then type the following to uncompress and open the index.xml file in TextWrangler:
      gunzip -c ./damaged.pages/index.xml.gz | edit -

      Document images will be inside of the damaged.pages directory, and can be copied to the Desktop.

   4. If it is a Zip Archive then type the following to extract the index.xml file and open it with TextWrangler:
      unzip -p ./damaged.pages index.xml | edit -
      1. To locate document images in the archive:
         unzip -l ./damaged.pages
      2. And to extract multiple images to the Desktop:
         unzip ./damaged.pages "*.jpg"
         
   5. Select and copy only the black text of your original content to your new Pages document. You will have to reformat it as needed.
4. When you are done, use the File menu : Close Document in TextWrangler, or it will open that file the next time you launch TextWrangler.

Change the filename from Lionproblemversioncopy/damaged.pages to Lionproblemversioncopy_damaged.pages. The Finder could care less about that forward slash, but in the Terminal, it signals a directory path, and will fail. Resume with my instructions once you have made this filename change.

Follow the instructions more closely. Because the Desktop is not in your Terminal search path, you must tell the file command that the file is in the current directory with a ./ before the filename. I did not use that notation by accident.

FSG-L30456:Desktop julianraby$ file ./Lionproblemversioncopy_damaged.pages

Did you use the Finder to put that file on your Desktop? The file command is not finding it in the current (Desktop) location.

You typed the wrong filename. There is no index.xml.gz in a Zip Archive Pages '09 document. Should be the following:

unzip -p ./Lionproblemversioncopy.pages index.xml | edit -

Had it not been a damaged zip file, you would have been able to recover the text in that index.xml file. Tough break. Bookmark this post, so you will have access to the instructions should this happen again.