How do I make an organisation chart or a flow chart in Pages?

One of the crucial things in making a chart is to have connector points between boxes and other objects, so the links can stay the same, even if you move the objects around.



The connector points of Pages are a little limited, but they exist.

1. Create two or more shapes. (For example: Insert > Shape > Rectangle.)
2. Make sure the shapes are floating in the Inspector > Wrap (third icon) > Floating (doesn't move with the text.
   
3. Highlight two shapes.
4. Go to Insert > Connection Line.

You can now move the objects around in Pages to fit the page layout. You can also drag the middle of the connector line to bend it. Or change line type, shadow, colour, and so on.


(Updated for Pages 9.0. Thanks for the comments pointing out that one no longer has to create the chart in Keynote!)

How do I get svg files into Pages?

SVG files are "images" which can be resized without losing any information. They can be created by programs like OpenOffice (the drawing module), Inkscape or Adobe Illustrator.

Often the program that created them can also save to PDF, which Pages handles directly, and that is then an easier solution.

However, there is a way to import black and white SVG files to Pages with the help of some other programs. It it may be cumbersome, the first time you set it up, and you will have to type commands in the Terminal, but it does work.

1. Download the program svg2key and follow the corresponding instructions at http://mcb.berkeley.edu/labs/zusman/dave/svg2key/ .
2. Run the program on the SVG you want to import to Pages.
3. You will get a Keynote file. Open it in Keynote.
4. Copy the content and paste it into Pages.

(Images are usually stored inside the Pages file "package" as separate objects. However SVG objects are stored inside the index.xml file in the package, just like "shapes", text and style information. As far as I can tell, they appear within the tags SFDBezierPathSource.)

How do I create my own Color Palette?

Sometimes you may want to use a limited number of colours for a document. Let's for example say that you want certain words in blue. If you use the standard Color Wheel in the color window (View > Show Colors), you may end up with slightly different shades of blue, depending on where you click.


To be sure that you always select the same colour, you can drag colours from the rectangle next to the magnifying glass to the strip at the bottom of the window.



The strip contains 15 squares by default, and that should be more than enough for most people. However, if you need more, you can drag the the dot below to make room for more squares.



You may need several sets of colours. Let's for example say that you want one particular set of three colours in one document but another set of three colours in another document. You can handle that as well in the Color window, using the third tab, called "Color Palettes".



Here you can choose between a few pre-defined palettes, like Apple, Web Safe Colors or Developer, but you can also create your own ones, clicking on the wheel, and choosing "New".



You can of course rename both the colours and the colour palettes to whatever names you like.




So, how do you select colours for your palettes? You can do this in (at least) two ways.

One is to click on the magnifying glass and then click on an area of the screen that has a colour you want to capture.



The other method is to select a colour using one of the other icons on the top. Then go back to the "Color palettes" icon.

After you have selected a colour, you drag it into the empty area of your palette or click on the + button. That's it. You do not even have to save, as the colour palette has auto-save (in contrast to Pages documents).

Resizing pictures with AppleScript

If you resize a picture inside a Pages document, it will just look like it is smaller. In reality, it takes up as much diskspace as before. You have not lost any information. However, sometimes you really need to free up some diskspace, and you need to resize the picture for real. The most obvious tool to do this is Preview (Tools > Adjust size).

However, there are a few other options to use. The following is a script to resize pictures using AppleScript only. There is no real UI at all. It resizes the image to the value of "targetSize" - in this case 240. If you want to resize it to some other value, just change the script.

1. Open Applications > Utilities > Applescript Editor. (Path in older versions of Mac OS X: Applications > Applescript > Script Editor.)

2. Create a new script and paste the following code:

on open theImages
repeat with anImage in theImages
tell application "Image Events"
--Set the maximum dimension of the picture.
-- If it is in landscape mode, it is the width.
-- If it is in portrait mode, it is the height.
set the targetSize to 240
set currentImage to open anImage
set imageType to currentImage's file type
scale currentImage to size targetSize
tell application "Finder" to set newImage to (container of anImage as string) & "scaled " & (name of anImage)
save currentImage in newImage as imageType
end tell
end repeat
end open

3. Save the script as an "Application".

4. Drag your image to the new script Application.

You will get a new file with the new dimension.

If you prefer to scale to a certain percentage, use this script instead:

on open theImages
repeat with anImage in theImages
tell application "Image Events"
-- Set the variable targetSize to the scale factor. 0.5 means 50%.
set the targetSize to 0.5
set currentImage to open anImage
set imageType to currentImage's file type
scale currentImage by factor targetSize
tell application "Finder" to set newImage to (container of anImage as string) & "scaled " & (name of anImage)
save currentImage in newImage as imageType
end tell
end repeat
end open

The accepted image formats are BMP, JPEG, JPEG2, PICT, PNG, PSD, QuickTime Image and TIFF.

If you feel more comfortable with Automator, you can use that as well.

Resizing pictures with Automator

If you resize a picture inside a Pages document, it will just look like it is smaller. In reality, it takes up as much diskspace as before. You have not lost any information. However, sometimes you really need to free up some diskspace, and you need to resize the picture for real. You have to do that outside Pages. The most obvious tool to do is Preview (Tools > Adjust size).

However, there are a few other options to use. One is to use Automator.

1. Open Automator from your Applications folder.
2. Select "Custom" as starting point.


3. Click on Photos > Scale Images, and drag that icon to the empty workflow area to the right.
4. When you get a question if you want to add a Copy Finder Items action, accept it with "Add".


5. Set the scaling factor to the size or percentage you want to use.


6. Save the workflow as an Application - not a Workflow, which is the default in the Save dialog.


7. Drag an image to the new Automator workflow application.


You will get a new copy with the defined scaling. If you want to change scaling, you do not even have to leave Automator. Just open the workflow application in Automator by dragging it on the Automator icon. Change the value and save, and you are ready to scale again.

This will work with for example jpeg, png, tif or psd files.

It will not work for gif or raw image files.


If you want even more flexibility, you can use these AppleScripts.

How do I use Quartz Composer?

Uh? Isn't that a development graphics tool? What does that have to do with Pages?

Admittedly not very much, but for some situations you may want to use Quartz Composer to modify pictures or text you have converted to an image. There are better and easier tools out there, but none is cheaper than Quartz Composer as it comes with the OS. If you want to experiment with it, here is some advice to get you going:

1. Install the Development Tools from your Mac OS X installation DVD, unless you already have them.
2. Go to Developer > Applications, and open Quartz Composer.
3. Create a new file from the template "Image Filter". (The main differences between this one and a blank file is the fact that the a flag in Editor > Edit Protocol Performance already is set to "Image Filter", which makes sure you get all required patches.)
4. Remove the optional elements and the macro called "Process the Image".
5. Go to Editor > Show Patch Parameters.
6. Double-click on the image, and choose the image you want to use yourself.
7. Click on Edit > Show Patch Creator.
8. Choose any patch you fancy, for example Image Transform. (Others, like Twirl, also work.)
9. Click on the Output node on the patch "Image (required) _protocolInput_Image" and drag it to the left Image node of "Image Transform", so you get a yellow line that links the two.
10. Click on the node "Transformed Image" from Image Transform and drag it to the Input node of the patch "Image (required) _protocolOutput_Image".
11. (Optional) You can also add a Filter like "Circular Wrap Distortion" before the Image Transform. The method is the same as when you added the patch in step 8. You just have to connect the nodes.
    
12. Unless the Viewer is already visible, go to Window > Show Viewer.
13. Unless it is already running, click on the Run button.
14. Click on the patch Image Transform and change its parameters.
15. Experiment. Change or add other patches, to see the changes.
16. If you find a result you like, save the file.
17. Drag the file you created to an open Pages document, where it will appear as an image - or actually a movie - in case you added any moving elements.
    

How do I create Word Art with Pages?

You cannot.

If you want to let the letters dance over the page following curves or shapes, you have to go beyond Pages.

A few other products that support wordart like features are Art Text and Comic Life, but there are more ones out there. You can check Version tracker for more alternatives.

How do I compress images in Pages?

You cannot.

Any image you import to Pages stays its original quality and size to allow print outs and exported PDF files to be as good as possible.

If you really want to save space, you have to compress the original image file in an external graphics editor, like iPhoto, Photoshop, Aperture, the gimp, or many others. This is not the place to evaluate which one is best, but there is a list of some possible ones at Wikipedia.

Even though you cannot compress the images within Pages, note that for the finished document, you can export a compressed PDF version from Pages using Share > Export. (Before Pages '09, the menu was File > Export.)

Why can't I add Reflections or Adjust an Image?

The text below was written before Pages '09. With Pages '09, you can add reflections to shapes, but the other restrictions remain.

...

If you highlight an object and go to the Inspector > Graphic, it is possible that the Reflections checkbox is greyed out. And if you go to View > Show Adjust Image, it is possible that none of the controls work.

This may be because you
a) have not highlighted anything. (Make sure you clicked on the image.)
b) have highlighted something that is not an image. Images can for example be PNG, JPEG, GIF, TIFF with or without layers and transparency in CMYK, LAB or RGB colour space.

You cannot add reflections to inserted shapes (Insert > Shape > whatever), tables, text or charts, even though you can add shadows and change transparency for them. Neither can you use the Adjust Image window with them.

Reflections work only on images and PDF files you have inserted from elsewhere (for example with Insert > Choose... or drag-and-drop from the Finder).

Adjust Image only works on images but not on inserted PDF files.

Why does Pages have these limitations? It is because PDF files and inserted shapes are vector graphics. They have a completely different way of handling colours. Take for example the slider for "Sharpness". To apply sharpness to bitmap graphics, you simply change the surrounding pixels a little. However, for vector graphics, there is nothing called "surrounding pixels", to that kind of adjustment does not work.

The main problem here is not that Pages does not apply adjustments to vector graphics. The main problem is that it does not provide any user feedback why it cannot be done, and what the user can do to get around the problem.


In this image the left circle is a shape from Insert > Shape > Oval, so it does not accept reflections. The right circle is an image that was dragged onto the document from the Finder, so the reflection works fine.

How do I exchange files InDesign, Publisher or other DTP applications?

There is no easy way to export a file from Pages so it can be opened by Desktop Publishing Applications like Adobe InDesign, Microsoft Publisher or Quark Express. Neither is there any elegant way to export from those applications so one can open the file in Pages.


Let's just look at InDesign as an example of the problems.

From Pages to InDesign

If you copy formatted text from Pages to InDesign, it will loose all the formatting - font, size, typeface and so on.

If you copy a Text Box from Pages to InDesign, it becomes a graphic. You can no longer correct spelling mistakes or change fonts.

If you copy an image with an alpha channel for transparency and the setting Wrap text to follow the contour of the object, and paste it to InDesign, it will be pasted correctly with a transparent part - however, you will have to set the wrap setting as you want it manually - for each image obviously.

From InDesign to Pages

If you copy formatted text from InDesign to Pages, it will keep part of the formatting, like font and size. However, some features that are not supported by Pages, like kerning, will obviously be discarded.

If you copy a Text Box from InDesign to Pages, it becomes a pdf graphic. You can no longer correct spelling mistakes or change fonts.

If you try to Select All in InDesign and copy it to Pages, it will become a non editable pdf graphic of that page.


Solution

If you have a document in the format of another dtp application and want to work on it in Pages instead, the only solution is often to manually copy and paste piece after piece, and then to correct the formatting that was lost.

However, if there is one page, which you want to create in another application, you can usually save it to PDF from that other application, and you can then paste or insert the PDF as a picture to Pages.

How do I set printer information?

In contrast to high end Desktop Publishing (DTP) applications, Pages uses standard Mac OS X printing dialogues and features.

This means that you cannot specify things like bleed (additional space for pictures close to the edge), slug (additional space for printer comments) or creep (adjustments for paper thickness in folded pages). Neither can you print or display printer marks.

For most of us, these are not serious limitations. For those who really need the features, however, you should look at other applications.

Above is a print dialogue from InDesign. Most of these features are not available in Pages.

Printer marks that cannot be printed from Pages.

How does Pages handle captions?

If you want a caption under a picture or table, you can create a text box under the picture and group the two items together. That will make sure that they stay together when text and layout objects move around.

If you have a lot of pictures with captions, you may want to create a dedicated Style to apply to the text boxes, so the layout is harmonised throughout the document.

Unfortunately there is no function to get automatically numbered captions. Neither can you have an automatically generated Table listing all images or tables.

How do I modify shapes in Pages?

After you have added a drawing object in Pages there are a number of modifications you can do, but they are not always obvious from the user interface. This blog goes through a couple of examples of what can be done - not using the inspector even once.

Start with a simple square.


Go to Format > Shape > Make Editable.


The square is now editable and gets four red dots in the corner, which you can drag around. From now on, if you lose the red dots, the easiest way to get them back, is to click on the square twice slowly (do not double-click). As it already is editable, you no longer have to go to the menu.

First we want to create a trapezoid. Click in the upper left corner to select it. It turns white. Shift-click in the upper right corner to add it to the selection. Drag either of the two white corners, and the whole upper line moves around.


As you move the dots around, they snap to alignments, just like other shapes in Pages. Below, the upper right corner is right above the lower left corner, as you can see from the blue line that connects the two small circles.


Now we want to make a triangle from the trapezoid, so we need to remove one of the corners. Click in the lower right corner, so only that one is selected, and press delete. The lower right corner disappears, and we are left with the other three - we have a triangle. (To go back to the trapezoid, you could either press command-z or alt-click on a border to add another red circle and then drag it to recreate the previous shape.)


To rotate the triangle, command-click on a corner and drag it. A small window shows how many degrees you rotate the image. If you hold down shift, as you rotate, the shape will only rotate to 45°, 90°, 135°, 180° and so on.



Now double click on one of the corners. It turns into a Béziers curve. You can drag the two handles to change the shape of the curve. If you want to break the two handles, you can hold down command, as you drag one of them. If you want to join them again, hold down alt when you drag.


To create an open path, go to Objects (in the toolbar) > Shapes and choose the curve shape at the bottom of the list. Click once in the document, and then a second time to create a line. (You could click several time to create more lines or click-drag to create curves, but that's not what we want to do right now.) Press esc to finalise the line.


Now alt-click on the line to create a new red circle. Double click on the new circle to make it a Bézier curve.


Drag the newly created circle and adjust the curve. Unfortunately it is difficult to get a perfect circle segment, but you can get an approximation that may be good enough for some uses. Adding more points can improve the approximation.



For a video on how to create a half-circle in an even easier way, check this video by Kyn Drake.

Why does Pages print negative images?

In some cases Pages has been known to print images with inverted colours. All red colours may come out as green, for example.

There is one case in particular that has been identified:

• Printing on HP printer

and

• using Mac OS X 10.5.1 (Leopard)
  

and

• appending drop-shadows to a picture.

One way to fix the problem is to remove the shadows from the picture. Another is reportedly to print to PDF, open the PDF in Adobe Reader (not Preview!) or iPhoto, and print from there.

Hopefully Apple will correct this bug in future releases.

Which of Pages' methods to create PDF files should I use?

If you prioritize a small file, use Share > Export > PDF (Good) or PDF (Better). "Good" means roughly 72 dpi for the embedded images. "Better" means roughly 150 dpi. Images will lose quality, but it should be acceptable for display on a computer screen.

If you prioritize high quality graphics, use Print > PDF > Save to PDF or Share > Export > PDF (Best). These two methods seem virtually identical. Graphics included in the document keep the original quality and resolution.

There is no difference between any of the methods for text and inserted shapes. They are vector graphics and keep their infinite resolution.

If you will send the PDF off for professional printing you can try one of two options.

• Print to PDF/X. This is supposed to produce a file with colour profiles that a printer can handle correctly. See further information.
• Print to PostScript and then convert the postscript file to PDF - preferably using Adobe Acrobat. In some (or all?) cases this produces a file that is easier to colour separate. See further information.

(Note: The "Share" menu mentioned above was called "File" before Pages '09.)

For information about some of the features that Pages supports in PDF files, see this post.


On the left a 300% view of a picture scaled to fit one square inch in Pages. In the middle, the same Pages file exported as "Good" PDF. The loss of quality is clearly visible at 300% magnification. To the right is the result of a "Preflight" in Adobe Acrobat. The image dimensions are 73/73 pixels.

How do I import a LAB image to Pages?

CIELAB colours are mostly used to edit pictures, but in some cases one might want to include an image that uses the LAB colour space to Pages.

Pages 3.0 usually imports Photoshop PSD files, but for some reason, it fails with PSD files using LAB colour space.

The solution is to save the image as TIFF. It maintains the colour space and it displays fine in Pages.

There is one restriction however: Instant Alpha does not work on imported LAB TIFF files. The solution is to add transparency in the TIFF file itself before import.

How do I use an image to fill text?

There is no built in way of doing it, but if you have some time it is possible using Preview:

1. Insert the fill picture to Pages.
2. Create a text box with the text you want. Use black text.
3. Copy the text box.
4. Open Preview and select File > New from Clipboard.
5. Save the image as jpeg (to get rid of the transparency of the background).
6. Copy the image from Preview.
7. Paste it into Pages.
8. Position the fill image behind the pasted picture.
9. Use Format > Instant Alpha to make the text transparent, and the image will be visible through it.

Where are the templates stored? Where are the example pictures?

The template images are well hidden in the Pages application package. Right-click on it and select Show Package Contents. Go to Resources > Templates. Each of the template is a package in itself. Right-click on each and select show Package contents, and you will be able to find the pictures. You can copy them from there, but do not remove them, or you will destroy the templates.

If you create templates yourself, they will by default be stored in your home directory: ~/Library/Application Support/iWork/Pages/Templates/My Templates.

Why were Pages documents directories and not files?

Before Pages '09, Pages files were "packages" instead of files. There were some good reasons for that, but also a lot of inconveniences.

MacOS X is full of "packages" which in fact are directories.

Almost all MacOS X applications, including iTunes, Adobe Photoshop and NeoOffice are all packages. This makes it easy for developers to add and remove components and to see what files are included and what can be changed and needs to be improved. It also makes it easy to include a lot of information, which otherwise might have been spread over many files.

The main applications of MS Office 2004 are not based on packages. MS Office contains thousands of files. iWork '08 contains only 3 visible files: Keynote, Numbers and Pages.

So much for applications. But why use packages for documents?

The same reason. It is simpler. One can easily open the package of a Pages file and see what it contains if needed. If a picture does not display correctly, one can open the package and verify that the image file is there and that it works.


The drawback is that the files are difficult to attach to mails using webmail. But it takes just a right click to zip the file, and then it becomes both small and easy to attach.

How do I change the background of a page?

You cannot change the background colour of a page in Pages 3.0 or earlier. Neither can you set a texture or picture background.

If you want to change the background for the entire page, the work around is to follow the following steps

1. Insert a rectangle that covers the entire page.
2. In the Inspector, set the rectangle's Object Placement to "Fixed on Page".
3. Uncheck "Object causes wrap".
4. Go to the menu Arrange and Send to Back for the rectangle.

If you are happy with a different background colour for just part of the page you can try the following options:

• In the Font palette (⌘-T), set the background colour of the paragraph with the document icon. It does not change the colour for the whole page, and you cannot limit it to just part of a paragraph.
• Type using text boxes. You can set the background colour and background images using the Inspector.