Updated Pages and have a major problem

Hi Leslie,

Thanks for using the Apple Support Communities! I'm sorry to hear that you are having these issues with the iWork applications on your iMac; I know how frustrating that can be. I'm a bit unclear on exactly what you are seeing or describing with regards to the application icons and your files (for example, are you still seeing the file icons in Documents, or wherever you normally save them?), but with regard to why your previous applications were not simply updated, that is actually normal behavior. With the 2013 release of iWork, all of the included applications were completely rewritten, as noted in the following page and article:

Apple - Press Info - Apple Introduces Next Generation iWork and iLife Apps for OS X and iOS

About the new iWork for Mac: Features and compatibility - Apple Support

To use documents created in iWork '09 with the new applications, you may also find this article helpful:

Working with iWork '09 files - Apple Support

Regards

The current (downgrades) of Pages v5.6.1, Numbers v3.6.1, and Keynote v6.6.1 are not based on the superset features found in their prior iWork '09 named counterparts. The upgrades to the iWork '09 applications ended in Dec. 2012. The current applications' document format has changed, and are now not backward compatible with the iWork '09 applications. If you open an iWork '09 created document in the new applications, and allow them to convert it, any unique features to iWork '09 applications will be removed, or mangled in the new document that just overwrote your original — if you haven't taken precautions.

Any iWork '09 applications that were installed in the Applications folder will be silently moved to Applications : iWork '09 folder on installation of the new applications. If the iWork '09 applications were installed from DVD, then they were installed into the Applications : iWork '09 folder originally, and no move is necessary. The original iWork '09 version numbers are unchanged, as they are entirely different applications.

If you had a Pages '09 Dock icon before the update, I would remove it from the Dock, locate your individual iWork '09 applications, and drag the ones that you want back to the Dock.

Additionally, the new application installation process looks in the old iWork '09 templates folder and if any templates are forwards compatible, they will be converted into the new document template formats, and placed in the new Pages, Numbers, and Keynote template location. The new applications do not support nested folders of templates.

Despite what you say, a proper OS X upgrade (not clean install) will leave your user folder contents unchanged — and that includes any iWork '09 documents that you had located there. We always recommend performing a full backup beforehand as a precaution.

No one in their right might upgrades an operating system while leaving applications running with open documents. If you never saved that document once to trigger autosave in the iWork '09 application, then that document is lost for good.

Were your documents saved?

If you updated OSX to El Capitan, that would have involved a restart and a warning to save any open documents.

If you saved them, have you done a search on their names in Spotlight?

Or simply looked in All My Files where the most recent are at the top of the list.

Peter