I appear to have found a reproducible issue/bug in the iPad version of Apple Pages relating to word-processing documents being converted into page layout documents after an automatic “Updating Document” process.
Issue summary:
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New word-processing documents initially open correctly with “Document Body” enabled.
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After opening/saving/moving the document on iPad, Pages displays “Updating Document”.
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Once the update completes, “Document Body” becomes greyed out permanently and the document behaves like a page layout document with text boxes only.
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This affects:
- Apple’s built-in Blank template
- Custom templates I created myself
- Documents created using “Start Writing”
- Documents created on my iPhone and later opened on iPad
Important observations:
- The problem only occurs on iPad.
- The same documents behave normally on iPhone.
- Documents are initially correct before Pages performs the “Updating Document” action.
- Holding down the Pages icon and selecting “Start Writing” creates a usable word-processing document initially.
- However, once the document is later moved/opened/saved from within Pages on iPad, it updates and becomes corrupted again.
- If I move documents while they are CLOSED using the Pages document browser or Files app, they can sometimes avoid corruption.
- If I move or manage the document while OPEN inside Pages, the issue almost always occurs.
- Restarting the iPad temporarily fixed the issue once, but the problem later returned.
- Reinstalling Pages without restarting did not fix it.
- The issue seems connected to Pages rewriting document metadata during save/update/sync operations.
Things already tested:
- Creating new Blank documents
- Creating custom “true blank” templates
- Restarting iPad
- Force closing Pages
- Reinstalling Pages
- Using “Start Writing”
- Opening documents from iPhone
- Moving documents between folders
- Testing with iCloud and local files
Current workaround:
- Use “Start Writing”
- Avoid moving/opening/saving documents from inside Pages when possible
- Move files only while closed via Files app or Pages document browser
This appears to be either:
- a Pages document metadata corruption bug on iPad
- or an issue with the iPad Pages document management/update process converting word-processing documents into page layout documents unexpectedly.