Using old version of Pages on newer generation of MacBook Pro

It may work - see here

How to revert back to Pages ’09?

When you say an older version of Pages, exactly how all are speaking about?

Giving us a version number would certain help to get an answer.

Apple no longer offers iWork '09 media or individual applications as they did prior to Fall 2013.

Amazon and Ebay have the iWork '09 DVD via their resellers. Just make absolutely certain that you get the retail iWork '09 DVD. Apple circulated trial iWork '09 DVDs, back when their license servers were operational. Once you get the retail iWork '09 DVD installed, immediately update it with the Apple iWork 9.3 updater, which gets you Pages '09 v4.3 that introduces autosave, versions, etc. You will need that for Yosemite, and El Capitan compatibility.

I have Pages '09 v4.3 running here on my El Capitan 10.11.4 machine. Here are some of the features (so far) that have fallen by the wayside on newer releases of OS X. There may be others that I have missed, or will suffer with future releases of OS X. Caveat Emptor.

• Share menu : Send via Mail

  This section of the Share menu is now inoperable. Cannot export documents directly to Mail as attachments.

• Mail Merge

  Some of the Mail Merge panel contents are missing.

• Media
  • If you never updated to iPhoto v9.6.1, older versions will not work on Yosemite and El Capitan.
  • Without functional iPhoto, the iPhoto Library images will not show in the Media panel.
  • Photos Library not offered in the Media panel.

I would recommend Word 2016 in Office 2016 for Mac (Yosemite or later) as the tactical/strategic word processor on the Mac. If you have considerable documents in Pages '09 format, and do not have an operational Pages '09 with which to export them to Word formats, that poses an interesting dilemma.

Here are features that are in Pages '09 v4.3, but not in the current Pages v5 release:

• Linked Text boxes
• Auto-capitalization of first word in a sentence
• Intradocument bookmarks
• Links to external Pages documents
• Facing pages (alternating header/footers)
• Insert Layout Break
• Capture pages
• Ability to copy/paste thumbnail section from one '09 document to another
• AppleWorks v6 support
• RTF document support
• Go to Page #
• Small floating inspector
• Functional design, with sub-toolbar for direct access to frequently used features (like one-button click for text highlight).
• Mail Merge
• Scores of other features not functional in Pages v5

Because of the huge disparity of missing features in any release of Pages v5, opening a Pages '09 document in Pages v5, and saving it will purge or mangle unsupported features, compromising the original Pages '09 document, and leaving it in a backward incompatible document format that Pages '09 cannot open.

I run Pages V9 and Pages V5.6.1 on my new MacBook Air and my 2011 iMac. You just have to be careful to get the right Version when you open a document. It likes to change V9 to 5.6.1. Why Apple ruined a good thing I don't know.

Is there a simple way of opening pages files from older versions into the latest pages format? All I get is a message to say that I need to save the work on 7.0 or similar, but seeing as I don't have those any more, how can you get access to old archive material?

Unless your older Pages document predates Pages '06, your options are:

1. Look for Pages '09 in the Applications : iWork '09 folder. Use that.
2. Update to Pages v5.6.1 (current). Requires OS X 10.10.4 or later. Opens Pages '06, '08, and '09 documents. No RTF. No Pages v1.
3. SIgn into Pages for iCloud, and open your Pages document (according to [2]) in it. Mail or Download it as Pages (v5), or Word document.
4. Purchase the retail iWork '09 DVD from either Amazon or Ebay, install, and use Pages '09. Update DVD apps with Apple iWork 9.3 updater.

Pages v5 revisions older than v5.6 would not open Pages '08 or earlier documents, expecting you to open them in Pages '09 and then save in Pages '09 format, or export as Word documents.

One other option: if you are using 5.6.1 and you want to go back to Pages 9, you can use Export in the File menu to change the 5.6.1 document back to Pages 9. I tend to forget this useful possibility. I think Apple included this because they knew how awful 5.6.1 is.