Help recovering pages document-previous version

[ericsing40]

I was wondering if there are ways of recovering a Pages document from a previous version. My MacBook Pro is currently running macOS Mojave 10.14.5 and the current version of Pages 8.1.

I recently fell prey to loosing this document, because of the typical "got distracted and wasn't paying attention" when I was updating my document. When I went to minimize it, I accentually clicked on the "exit" button, which of course asked me if I wanted to save. Did I do that, of course not. It appears that I had inadvertently clicked on "Revert Changes" and just entered through, because like I stated before, I wasn't paying attention. When I attempted to open the document, it couldn't and I was prompted to browse all versions, but it was unable to open the versions.

Now to make things more fun and complicate, this document wasn't saved out in the iCloud and my Time Machine was off, which are the only ways I know of recovering a document. So that's why I was wondering if there are any other ways of recovering this document in its previous version or have I just pretty much shot myself in the proverbial foot, in that it is now a lost cause to get this back.

I appreciate your feedback.

Thank you.

 

[Ambrosia7177]

I was wondering if there are ways of recovering a Pages document from a previous version. My MacBook Pro is currently running macOS Mojave 10.14.5 and the current version of Pages 8.1.

I recently fell prey to loosing this document, because of the typical "got distracted and wasn't paying attention" when I was updating my document. When I went to minimize it, I accentually clicked on the "exit" button, which of course asked me if I wanted to save. Did I do that, of course not. It appears that I had inadvertently clicked on "Revert Changes" and just entered through, because like I stated before, I wasn't paying attention. When I attempted to open the document, it couldn't and I was prompted to browse all versions, but it was unable to open the versions.

Now to make things more fun and complicate, this document wasn't saved out in the iCloud and my Time Machine was off, which are the only ways I know of recovering a document. So that's why I was wondering if there are any other ways of recovering this document in its previous version or have I just pretty much shot myself in the proverbial foot, in that it is now a lost cause to get this back.

I appreciate your feedback.

Thank you.

This won't solve your current problem, but here is what I would recommend going forward...

1.) Stop relying on your software to make backups for you, and take ownership of your information!

As you work on documents, start creating new *physical* versions of a docuemnt like this...

family_budget_v01.xls
family_budget_v02.xls
family_budget_v03.xls
:
:

Or if you prefer, append a date on like this...

family_budget_2019-07-20.xls
family_budget_2019-07-21.xls
family_budget_2019-07-22.xls
:
:


In addition, make sure to back up this data and store it on an external hard-drive regularly.


2.) Start using LibreOffice.

It is open-source and free and will do 95% of what Microsoft Office or Apple office suite will do.

The advantage is that it looks and feels more like traditional office productivity software, and will reduce you tripping over yourself like you did above.

HTH.

 

[ericsing40]

This won't solve your current problem, but here is what I would recommend going forward...

1.) Stop relying on your software to make backups for you, and take ownership of your information!

As you work on documents, start creating new *physical* versions of a docuemnt like this...

family_budget_v01.xls
family_budget_v02.xls
family_budget_v03.xls
:
:

Or if you prefer, append a date on like this...

family_budget_2019-07-20.xls
family_budget_2019-07-21.xls
family_budget_2019-07-22.xls
:
:


In addition, make sure to back up this data and store it on an external hard-drive regularly.


2.) Start using LibreOffice.

It is open-source and free and will do 95% of what Microsoft Office or Apple office suite will do.

The advantage is that it looks and feels more like traditional office productivity software, and will reduce you tripping over yourself like you did above.

HTH.

I greatly appreciate your feedback. I'm usually pretty good at backing things up, so something like this doesn't happen, but I was really having an off day. I like your suggestion on creating new versions of the document as I'm working, so I will try that out going forward.

I can't say that I've heard of LibreOffice, but I will check that out.

Thank you very much for your help.

esi

 

[Fishrrman]

What was the name of the "lost" Pages document?
Can you remember it?
Or at least a "fragment" of the name?
Try searching on the name, see what pops up.
Can you open ANY of them?

 

[ericsing40]

What was the name of the "lost" Pages document?
Can you remember it?
Or at least a "fragment" of the name?
Try searching on the name, see what pops up.
Can you open ANY of them?

I hadn't created a title for this document yet, so I just left it as "Untitled" and was planing on circling back around to create a title later. I've done that before on a few of my other documents that I've created, but this was the only one that I still didn't have a title for.
No, I can't seem to open any of this document's previous versions. When I attempt to open it and then select "Browse All Versions...", it appears that the previous versions are there, but each one is indicated as "Unable to open version". Then when I close out of the browse feature, the next message that comes up is '"Untitled" can't be opened right now. The file format is invalid'. This is why I have a feeling that the document is there, but for some reason I'm not able to access it.

 

[Fishrrman]

It's almost certainly gone.

Suggestion for the future:
As soon as you create a new document, give it a working name and save it on the desktop -- so you can find it easily.

 

[Ambrosia7177]

I greatly appreciate your feedback. I'm usually pretty good at backing things up, so something like this doesn't happen, but I was really having an off day. I like your suggestion on creating new versions of the document as I'm working, so I will try that out going forward.

I can't say that I've heard of LibreOffice, but I will check that out.

Thank you very much for your help.

esi

A lot of people - especially Mac people - probably shun my approach, yet it works.

If you have "my_report_v01.doc", "my_report_v02.doc" and so on, if one particular file gets lost, erased, or becomes corrupt, you at least have other *physical* copies. And how hard is it to save your documents every 15 minutes adding on a new version? Lazy people will complain it is too much work, but then apparently they don't have much to lose, do they?

LibreOffice is a fork open-source project from another open-souce project that you may have heard of called Open-Office. Both are very similar to "traditional" Microsoft Office and more than enough for 95% of the population. LibreOffice is better in my experience because it is slightly newer and has a more active community, whereas Open-Office is dying off, yet not dead.

There are some excellent video tutorials on LibreOffice from TheFrugalComputerGuy.com.

Check it out and start versioning your documents and it will save you much grief!!

 

[ericsing40]

For the most part, I'm pretty meticulous about saving as I go and try to make sure that my documents are title in a timely manner, but it's evidently clear that I slacked off in this case. I greatly appreciate the advise that I've received thus far and have taken steps in making sure something like this doesn't occur again.

I'm guessing that it's a complete loss cause in trying to obtain any information from this document, from it's previous version or any other kind of version.

Thank you.

 

[NoBoMac]

Forgive me if redundant question...

When you say TimeMachine is off, was it totally turned off (ie. Switch flipped in the program)? If not, there should be a backup in the local snapshot, but if not, might have run into a bug as Apple formats are generally supposed to be in the realm of TM/backups.

 

[ericsing40]

Forgive me if redundant question...

When you say TimeMachine is off, was it totally turned off (ie. Switch flipped in the program)? If not, there should be a backup in the local snapshot, but if not, might have run into a bug as Apple formats are generally supposed to be in the realm of TM/backups.

Your question is not redundant, it's fine.

I believe that the Time Machine was totally turned off. The reason why I think that's the case is because when I went to the TM, I noticed the external drive that I was designating to be my backup driver, was't showing in the TM. I believe what may have happened was that I had recently bought a new external drive, because I needed additional memory and after I had consolidated the files, disconnected the old drive, and connected the new drive, it appears that didn't go into the TM and designate it the new external drive as the new backup location (that has since been corrected). But unfortunately, that was right around the time I created this now lost document.

But what's throwing me for a loop, is that it looks like the file may still be on my computer, because when I try to open it and review the "Browse all versions.." it lists the document many times in the latest update timeline, but for some reason it's unable to open any of them.