Pages not opening in newest version

When you have an older version of Pages (e.g. '08, '09), and Pages v8.2, the higher version of Pages is normally the default application to open the Pages document. However, there are two cases where this will not be true:

1. Perform a Get Info (click, ⌘-i) on the Pages document that tries to open in Pages '08. In its Open with section, is Pages v8.2 (yellow icon) the default opening application?
2. When running Pages '08, or '09, clicking the red document traffic icon will close the document, but does not quit the application. As long as these older applications continue running, they will ambush all open attempts away from Pages v8.2. This includes opening Word documents.

You can always right-click on any Pages or Word document, and from the Open With panel, select the top item which is usually Pages (default) (8.2).

Hi bk,

You don't say how you are trying to open these docs.

One sure way of opening it in the current Pages is to open it from within the app.

I am not quite sure what is going on for you. Mojave (10.14.6) runs Pages '08 fine on my machine. I cannot open any docs created by later versions with it. Pages 8.2 has no trouble opening '08 docs on my machine.

I have not upgraded to Catalina so if you are running that it could explain your different experience.

quinn

Because iWork '08 applications are 32-bit, I suspect that you are getting the not optimized dialog when you run it, not a dialog that says Pages '08 is not compatible — unless it is earlier than v3.0.3. Pages v8.2 is fully capable of opening Pages '06, '08, '09, and later Pages documents.

Your Pages '08 application may be located in /Applications/iWork '08 folder. Dragging this folder to the Trash does not entirely remove the iWork '08 application dependencies scattered around your Mac filesystem from the iWork '08 DVD installation. Removing these applications means that you have no means of opening the documents as you originally authored them in Pages '08. You can open these files in Pages v8.2, but features exclusive to Pages '08 may not appear formatted correctly, or even potentially excluded. Worst case, the document would not open. Then you would have a problem…

So, you can for the most part open your Pages '08 documents in Pages v8.2. However, any attempt at subtle change to the document will be met by a descending sheet in Pages v8.2 requesting permission to convert the document format from Pages '08 format to the newer Pages v8.2 format. There will be no going back to the old Pages '08 document format once this occurs.

A safety net would be to create a backup of your Pages '08 documents, perhaps even with an accompanying PDF too. Don't let Pages v8.2 touch this backup.