How do I change the default zoom?

New documents always come up with the same zoom value (the percentage in the lower left corner of the document window). Sometimes that is far too big or far too small, so you may want to change it.

The simplest and safest way is to go to the menu Pages > Preferences, and change the Default Zoom value.

However, you may want to change it to a value that is not in the preferences dialogue, let's say 99%, for the sake of argument.

If you want to change the zoom for the current document only, you can use an AppleScript:

tell window 1 of application "Pages"
set view scale to 99
end tell

If you want to change the default value for all new documents, and you are willing to take a certain risk, you can manually edit the file ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iWork.Pages.plist and set the parameter SLDefaultsPageScale to 0.9900000 (for 99%).

In Mac OS X before 10.7, you can also run the following command in the terminal. (Copy the entire line until 0.99 - not only what is visible. Blogspots HTML hides the end of the line.)

defaults write com.apple.iWork.Pages SLDefaultsPageScale 0.99

How do I add line numbers?

Pages does not have any easy switch to show or hide sequential numbers for each row.

You can switch on paragraph numbering in the Inspector > Text > List, but as soon as a paragraph goes over several lines, it will be out of sync.

Apple suggests that you create a numbered text box and put it on the master slide.



However, that kind of list will not work if you change the font size, like for a title, or if you insert an image that spans the full page width and disrupts the numbering.

Spelling does not work. What can I do?

There are a couple of things to try:

• Highlight all text and verify in the Inspector > Text > More, that a language is chosen.
  
• "Clean up" the document by exporting it to some other format (MS Word or old Pages formats for example), and import it again.
• Go to Applications > Utilities and run Disk Utility. Go to First Aid > Repair Disk Permissions. (It actually has worked for people with this problem.)
• You may have an old version of CocoAspell. Update to a newer version, and the problem may go away. (If you do not even have it installed, do not bother upgrading, of course.)
• Check username/Library/Services. If you see a file called "Spell Catcher Services.service", delete it, log out, and log back in.
• Check username/Library/Services. If you see a file called "aspell.service", delete it, log out, and log back in.
• Remove files from username/Library/Spelling
• Check Username/Library/Application Support. If you have a folder there called "Spell Catcher", remove it.
• Go to /Library/Caches and trash all files ending with .csstore, and then reboot.

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.)

Where did all those tabs come from?

When you open a Pages document, it has no visible tabulator stops at all.

However, there is a hidden set of default tab stops, just like in Open Office, Microsoft Word and many other word processors.

As soon as you add a manual tab stop to a paragraph, all previous default tabs disappear:


The distance between the hidden default tabs is defined in the inspector.



However, sometimes a paragraph suddenly gets plenty of visible tabs:

This can happen if you paste text from applications like TextEdit or AppleWorks. These applications do not have the concept of hidden default tabs, so they have to use real visible tabs instead.

The easiest way to get rid of them is to apply a paragraph style without tabs. You can often simply click on the red triangle to the right of the style name and choose "Revert to Defined Style".

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 add an indent?

There is no keyboard shortcut to add a paragraph indent, as there are in some other programs, but apart from that it works like almost every other word processor.

Display the ruler, if it is not already displayed. (⌘-r)



Drag the small blue rectangle in the ruler so it is to the right of the blue triangle to create an indent.



Drag the small blue rectangle in the ruler so it is to the left of the blue triangle to create a hanging indent. You may have to move the blue triangle first.



You can achieve the same thing by typing numbers in the inspector.

You can also make the paragraph look like it has an indent by starting it with a tab or a couple of spaces, but then you will have to repeat that for every new paragraph. The easiest thing is often to use the ruler or inspector to create an indent, and then to create a new style from the current text, so you can reuse exactly the same format at other places in the document.

Pages prints to the wrong printer. Why?

Some people have reported Pages to print to the wrong printer all the time. They set up one default printer, but Pages insists on printing to a different one. Apparently Pages sometimes saves printer information in a file or template, so the files want to print on a particular printer. Perhaps this happens after one has changed some printer dependent page setup parameters.

The solution can be to copy the content of the file to another file - preferably one created with another template.

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.

Where do I find more templates?

If you want to find more templates than what is already included with Pages, there are several places on the web where you can find some. Try for example iWorkCommuniy. On the web you can also find some commercial ones that may fit your needs, but make sure you know what you get before you buy them.

As you can import Word files, if you find some nice MS Word templates, you can create Pages templates from them. You may need to change the extension from .dot to .doc to be able to import them.

How do I create macros in Pages?

The way to create macros in Pages 3.0 is to use AppleScript.

Unfortunately, Pages is not recordable, unlike some programs where you can record a series of actions you perform into an editable script. For Pages you will have to create your scripts manually.

To see what kind of things can be done with Pages, open Applications > AppleScript > Script Editor, and go to the menu File > Open Dictionary > Pages.

To see some examples of scripts people already have made for Pages, make a Google search for "tell application pages".

To get a list of resources about AppleScript in general, use for example Wikipedia.

There is currently no way to add menus or buttons with your own scripts to Pages' menus or toolbars.


Pages' AppleScript dictionary as displayed in Script Editor.

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 do I create forms with Pages?

You cannot. Pages does not support forms.

If you want to create a form to be filled out on paper, you can of course simulate the form fields with pictures and shapes.

If you want to create a form to be filled in using software, with fields, checkboxes, radiobuttons and such things, Pages is not the tool for you. To create forms, you can try Adobe Acrobat, Microsoft Office, OpenOffice or NeoOffice for example. (It is not simple in any of them, and some of them may crash frequently, so prepare yourself with some patience.)


The image above is from Numbers. Numbers has the ability to set values with check boxes, but when you copy those cells to Pages, they strangely enough lose the feature.


The image above is from NeoOffice. Pages does not support any form functionality.

How can I check grammar in a Pages document?

Pages 3.0 contains no "grammar check" but it contains a "Proofreader", which tests things like these for English texts:

• Improper capitalization (like a sentence starting with a lower case letter)
  
• Duplicate words
• Using "an" instead of "a"
• Full stop inside quotation marks ("He screamed". <> "He screamed.")
  
• Formatting errors (for example, abbreviations that should be spelled out in formal writing)
• Jargon
  
• Gender-specific expressions - like "mankind" instead of "humankind" or "humanity".
• Date format ("12/24/07" is considered too informal).
  

With Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) the OS got its own grammar checker, which is not used by Pages 3.0.1. It contains some checks for pure grammatical errors like:

• Verb conjugation ("I is". "I have did".)
• The difference between "their" and "there" (as in "there house").
  
• Sentence fragments (sentences without a verb - like this one).
  

To use the OS grammar check, paste the text into TextEdit and verify it there.

However, the OS grammar check does not check for the following issues, which Pages' Proofreader checks for:

• Inconsistent spacing or punctuation marks, like "la Arabie" for "l'Arabie" in French.
  
• Complex words like "eventuate" or jargon like "pretty".
• Gender words like "mankind".
• Date formats.
  

In some ways the lack of vocabulary check may actually be good, as you sometimes want to write for example "pretty", and Pages cannot switch off that check.

For grammar checks for other problems, try for example MS Word or Grammarian.

How do I add a hyperlink to an image?

You cannot add a hyperlink to an image or graphics object - only to text. A possible work around is to add a text box with the hyperlink and then to hide the text box setting the opacity to 100%. This solution does work, but it may confuse a reader who may get false matches, if he tries to search for text that happens to be in the hidden text box.