Upgrade path through Pages versions within Sierra
I've been running Pages 7.1 on Sierra (12.6) with many documents used in math teaching. Now I want to upgrade pages as far as I can get, at least to 8.1 and hopefully 9, to have the option of copying page selections by thumbnail from master documents to rehash some lessons. I gather that ctrl-click option on a thumbnail is not available until v. 9 ? I'm puzzled where it was said (by Viking OSX - I think) that one can't do a direct Pages or maybe Work upgrade from Pages 7 without intervening upgrade steps through to 8.1. What risk would I take to try and install Work 9.3 for example (presuming it contains Pages 9.3 ?) given that I have Pages 7.1 (I wouldn't want to disturb my version if an upgrade fails)?
The daily update-check made by my OS has not said there's an upgrade available to me for Pages 7, but maybe I misunderstand its function: maybe it just checks for OS upgrades; but even there it should say there's an upgrade to 10.13, right? Anyway, if it is true, I guess I could try to upgrade the OS to its max available High Sierra (it's a late 2011 MacBook Pro) . But if not, what upgrade path steps should I take to get this one desired function in Pages?
MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 10.12