Pages '09 laggy in 10.14.6

[izzy0242mr]

Preface: Please don't say "use the new Pages." No. Pages 5+ is feature-barren and is missing one of the features I rely upon frequently, which is non-contiguous text selection (which even TextEdit supports for crying out loud; i.e., being able to select sections of text that are not right next to each other and be able to instantly format or edit them in one click). Using broken alternative software is not a genuine solution to this issue.

Question: I have a 2014 rMBP running 10.14.6 and I rely on Pages '09 for most of my writing. I've noticed that when scrolling or typing in a document in Pages, the frame rate drops noticeably. Letters don't appear immediately on the screen and there is noticeable lag when scrolling up or down. Compare Pages '09 (

https://imgur.com/a/QNUlo1b

) to Pages 5+ (

https://imgur.com/a/5DQ4sFW

) to see what I mean.

Anyone know how to fix this?

I've tried…
–Changing the scrollbar settings. This doesn't do anything
–Using low-res mode. This makes text look awful and doesn't improve the FPS much.
–Deleted and reinstalled Pages '09: doesn't fix anything.

 

[casperes1996]

I'm afraid I don't really think you can fix this. Sadly old Pages just suffers a lot with incompatabilities on newer macOS. I've also had a slew of other issues that eventually led me to switch to new Pages, though for my workload, it has matured to the point that it has all I need, though I sometimes do miss the way things were done in old Pages. Nice UI, though the new one is arguably better for newcomers.

Anyways, back to your situation. You could either keep an older version of macOS, or perhaps see if a virtualised version of an older macOS could run the app more smoothly.

 

[ThirteenXIII]

if it's lagging you have two choices then, downgrade your macOS version and see if an older version is less or not laggy or upgrade your software (which is going on 10 years old).

I dont know why Apple removed this function, but there is no clear way to get it back expect to use textedit or another word processor.

 

[MIKX]

Slightly off topic.

I'm with the O.P. to the point where I use iPhoto 9.6.1 in Mojave 10.14.6 as I really can't stand "Photos".
This iPhoto version works perfectly for me in Mojave. I have no plans to hack my cMP into running Catalina 10.15.x

( I still don't understand nor accept why Apple dropped Catalina support for 4,1>5.1 cMPs. my next "Mac Pro" will be a hackintosh with bifucation & M.2 slots.)

 

[casperes1996]

( I still don't understand nor accept why Apple dropped Catalina support for 4,1>5.1 cMPs. my next "Mac Pro" will be a hackintosh with bifucation & M.2 slots.)

AFAIK it works fine if you have a Metal compatible GPU, doesn't it?

 

[MIKX]

AFAIK it works fine if you have a Metal compatible GPU, doesn't it?

No idea yet re: Catalina Hackintosh if that is what you mean. I reserve opinion on whether to make a Mojave or Catalina Hackintosh as it is still at 10.15.1 but having said that. . Mojave 10.14.6 is running perfectly for me but in a Hack with M. 2+ bifurcation & PCI 3 Mojave 10.14.6 would be so, so nice.

Anyway, this is getting off topic. Apologies to the O.P.

 

[izzy0242mr]

If anyone wants to spam Apple via Feedback Assistant to fix the missing Pages feature, feel free to copy/paste:

TITLE: Pages 5+ does not support non-contiguous text selection

TEXT: The new version of Pages does not allow selection of non-contiguous text selection. In the old Pages ’09, for example, I could hold down the Cmd key to select the word “new” in the first sentence of this report, and the word “Cmd” in the second sentence, and then format both of them at the same time while both were highlighted. The new Pages (despite multiple version changes) does not support this essential feature for editing large documents. Please add it back.
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I'm afraid I don't really think you can fix this. Sadly old Pages just suffers a lot with incompatabilities on newer macOS. I've also had a slew of other issues that eventually led me to switch to new Pages, though for my workload, it has matured to the point that it has all I need, though I sometimes do miss the way things were done in old Pages. Nice UI, though the new one is arguably better for newcomers.

Anyways, back to your situation. You could either keep an older version of macOS, or perhaps see if a virtualised version of an older macOS could run the app more smoothly.

How resource-intensive is a virtual machine that I use to solely run one specific app on an older version of macOS? Any idea?

 

[casperes1996]

How resource-intensive is a virtual machine that I use to solely run one specific app on an older version of macOS? Any idea?

It wouldn't really take much extra in terms of CPU/GPU. I mean, yes it would take a bit extra CPU cycles, but it wouldn't really be noticeable. RAM would be the only noticeable drawback, and you'd probably have to put about 3GB away for when you run Pages in the VM

 

[rraynor1980]

How resource-intensive is a virtual machine that I use to solely run one specific app on an older version of macOS? Any idea?

If you virtualize macOS on a MacBook Pro, it will noticeably spin up your fans. Pages '09 requires hardware-based GPU acceleration (Quartz Extreme), so it won't work correctly in a virtual machine. Your documents will always appear as blank, like this:

Page '08 can be configured to work in a virtual machine by enabling software-based rendering. Run in Terminal:
defaults write com.apple.iWork.Pages SFRAcceleratedCanvas 0

 

[casperes1996]

If you virtualize macOS on a MacBook Pro, it will noticeably spin up your fans. Pages '09 requires hardware-based GPU acceleration (Quartz Extreme), so it won't work correctly in a virtual machine. Your documents will always appear as blank, like this:

Didn't know it needed it for the page render. Figured scrolling might be slow but otherwise good. Thanks for the info

 

[rraynor1980]

Good news!

The Retroactive app can now fix multiple compatibility problems between iWork ’09 and macOS Mojave, including slow typing performance in Pages ’09:

• Resolves an issue where typing and scrolling in Pages ’09 may be slow
• Resolves an issue where Pages may fail to resize when the Styles drawer is visible
• Resolves an issue where text format and paragraph alignment controls in the format bar may appear distorted or become unresponsive in iWork ’09
• Resolves an issue where scroll bars may appear behind the document canvas in iWork ’09
• Resolves an issue where the document title may become unresponsive in iWork ’09
• Resolves an issue where text in Japanese, Traditional Chinese, and Simplified Chinese may be invisible or appear as special characters in iWork ’09

You can download the Retroactive app by clicking here, then click "Fix Pages" in the main screen.

 

[izzy0242mr]

You can download the Retroactive app by clicking here, then click "Fix Pages" in the main screen.

Wow. This isn't 100% perfect but it is noticably better. Not only a lot less lag when scrolling but also the lag when entering/exiting Mission Control (when Pages is open) is gone. Incredible.