Strange Pages behavior in 2 pages mode

What happens when you visit the Document panel, and select Section starts on, and then vary that selection between the default Next Page, Right Page, and Left Page? Also, at the top of the Section tab is the selection — Left and right pages are different. Does this have any effect on your results?

There is the possibility that Pages (not being a Word clone) has translated that Word template contrary to your expectation. Especially for a document this huge — which Word was designed for, but Pages, as a low end consumer application — was not.

Try dragging out the Thumbnail sidebar to Wider/Narrower, Pages may rerender itself.

I strongly suggest you break down this excessively large document into a sensible series of smaller documents for your own safety as well as manageability sake.

You do not have to have a document all in one to be able to search it.

Most computer search tools search inside separate documents.

I am frankly amazed that you have got away with opening 3,600 pages at all.

That Pages 7 has had problems displaying it correctly does not surprise me at all.

If it was me I would be using something substantially more robust, like LibreOffice [free]. That is an awful lot of work to lose and you will not be able to get much help (or sympathy if you ignore our warnings) when you come back here and complain that the document is damaged or won't open.

You are not alone in hating Microsft Office, but Pages 7 is not robust for long or complicated documents.

This is straight out personal advice: Do not use Pages 7 for this project.

It will only end in tears.

Additionally, have a backup copy of this Pages document on Time Machine, or other media, because periodically, and without warning, or reason — occasionally Pages simply forgets how to open a document that it just saved, and there is no recovery, save for that backup.

In my decades of experience using Word on Macs, and WIndows in the corporate world, one rarely needs to deviate from a few ribbon bar selections for most documents. This is not defending the horrid interface, but in my experience, I set aside the emotional baggage/expletives, and focused primarily on the particular deliverable. There are also nice thick Word books as backup.

All of the MS Office clones have duplicated the ribbon bar to some extent, and using LIbreOffice as an example, have the highest compatibility with the Word .docx format. LibreOffice supports Master documents which would allow you to break that monolithic document into convenient chunks (e.g. chapters). You might look at Mellel, or NisusWriter Pro to see if they can help you escape from the MS interface. Both have demo software on their websites.

There is a LibreOffice Writer manual (written in Writer) that may expand on whether it can export document bookmarks to PDF, or that you need something more heavy duty like InDesign.