Missing Fonts

Some users have had messages about missing fonts in all iWork applications - Numbers and Keynote as well as Pages. In many cases these messages seem innocent but annoying. In some cases the problem can affect the layout of the document.

In Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger), it seems the most efficient fix is the following: Delete the folder /Library/Caches/com.apple.ATS (that is the font cache) and restart.

In Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard), it is more delicate to delete the font cache, but you can follow the instructions here.

However, that only works if the font cache is corrupted. Sometimes the font is really missing. Pages can be very picky about fonts, even fonts you do not visibly use in a document. It is for example possible that a Style you do not use contains a font that is missing. It may also be part of a bullet list.

From Pages 3.0 there is a built in fix, which may work for you. Just follow the warnings and instructions on the screen and replace the font with another one.

However, be aware that the replacement is stored in the document, when you save it. Let's assume that you get a Pages document from a friend. It gives you a warning that the font "Nice Font" is missing. You follow the instructions and choose to replace it with Times. The next day, your friend sends you "Nice Font" so you will be able to see the document as he intended it. However, as you accepted the replacement, you will no longer be able to tell which parts of the text should have been written with "Nice Font".

Besides, reports in Apple's discussion forum show that it does not always work.

Here is a list of possible fixes in no particular order, so you can try them in any order you want.

* Delete the folder /Library/Caches/com.apple.ATS (that is the font cache) and restart.

* Use Applications > Font Book to make sure you really have all the fonts that Pages complain about. If you do not, get them.

* Enable all fonts in Font Book. Disable a few to make FontBook refresh the font cache. If it then works in Pages, enable all fonts you need.

* If you think the missing fonts may come from MS Office you can go to Mactopia to download a test drive, which will install the fonts.

* If you think the missing fonts come from Pages, reinstall Pages.

* Log into another account on your computer. That may clean up some settings and make the problem go away.

* In Font Book, highlight the fonts Pages complains about, and go to File Validate, to make sure they are ok. Make sure there are no duplicates active.

* In the Finder, highlight the files of the fonts that Pages complains about. Drag them from the Fonts folder to the desktop and then back again to the Fonts folder.

* You can also try Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility > Repair Permissions. (To be honest, I do not think I have ever heard of this actually fixing any problem, but it is theoretically possible.)

* Some people have reported solving the problem by "cleaning" the document saving it to another format. Try for example saving your document as an earlier version of Pages and then reopen it. Warning! You may lose formatting here, so keep the original as back up.

* Restart.

* Log feedback to Apple complaining about this. With enough feedback, they may fix this for future versions of Pages.

For problems with Helvetica Narrow, see this post.

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.

Which formulas does Pages support?

The best source for that information is the free iWork '09 Formulas and Functions User Guide.

How do I enter a non breaking space?

Use alt + space instead of the space.

(This is used to keep words together, even if they go over a line break. You may for example have the phrase "R & D", which you for some reason wants to stay on the same line.)

How do I decide where a word is hyphenated at line breaks?

This is a missing feature in Pages.

Many applications use a soft hyphen or discretionary hyphen (unicode 00AD). That is an invisible character in the middle of a word, which only appears when the word needs to be broken into two in a line break.

Let's for example say you want to write an article about something called "efterår". You know the word, and you know that it can be broken into efter-år, if needed. A soft hyphen would be visible only when the word is broken.

Unfortunately, if you try with the soft hyphen 00AD in Pages, you will see that it is visible even when the word does not break: "efter-år".

I generated a PDF file from Pages, and now I want to know if the images are RGB or CMYK. What do I do?

The only answer I have is expensive: get Adobe Acrobat Pro.

* Open the PDF in Adobe Acrobat Pro.
* Go to Advanced > Preflight.
* Highlight any profile, for example "List all images".
* Execute.

In the resulting window, expand the data for all image and check if it is CMYK or RGB.

Where is the future of Pages?

There was some consternation at Macworld in San Francisco January 2007, as Steve Jobs did not present any computer updates - no new Macbooks, no news about MacOS X and no new versions of iLife and iWork.

This clearly does not mean that Apple will stop producing computers and MacOS X. The new iPhone runs MacOS X after all, and Apple has a huge investment in computers and software.

It seems Steve simply thought this was not the place for that kind of announcements.

But regardless of that, it may be good to be skeptical about updates to iWork and Pages.

Apple is unlikely to ever position Pages as a business word processor. To fullfil the needs of all businesses is a daunting task, and even MS Word does not do everything on its own. Microsoft has been investing in Word for more than 20 years, and it still is not perfect.

The two main purposes of Pages are likely to be
1. to make sure there is a reasonably priced Apple branded word processor for people who want one.
2. to show off Apple's technology - like advanced typography, graphics and inclusion of media in text documents and so on.

Point 1 is solved. There is nothing more to be done there. Pages works - it creates documents and saves them. There are quirks in Pages. There are things that could be added to satisfy some users or markets, but for most users it does most of the things we want.

The application AppleWorks/ClarisWorks is arguably one of the greatest applications ever. When I started using it in the beginning of the nineties, I said to myself "it only needs so little extra development to be perfect". But Apple never added that extra development. They never added an efficient index to the database and they never made it as easy to enter dates in a spreadsheet, as it is in MS Excel. And they never added unicode support.

It looks easy to do it, but it would cost Apple a lot and it would not bring a lot of additional revenue. So they did not do it.

However, point 2 is only solved for MacOS X 10.4 - not for upcoming versions. It is likely that MacOS X 10.5 will include new graphical and typographical features, which Pages can use, if it is updated. For that reason, it is likely that there will be new versions of iWork.

But do not expect big expensive development dedicated to Pages. If it can be reused in other applications, the OS will get it. If not, it will probably not be implemented.

The text above was written before iWork '08 came out in August 2007. It is still largely valid.

How do I import AppleWorks spreadsheets to Pages?

You do not. Pages only imports AppleWorks text documents, and only the ones created by version 6 of AppleWorks.

However Numbers, which comes with iWork '08 imports AppleWorks spreadsheets.

How does Pages handle PDF-X files?

Pages does not handle PDF-X files at all, but MacOS X does through the standard print dialogue. There are some known problems with it - especially in Leopard, but if you have simple documents, it should work fine. Some of the problems are described here.

When MacOS X 10.4 prints to PDF-X it creates a PDF/X-3:2002 compliant file, probably regardless of the original content of the file. All fonts are embedded. RGB images without color calibration get a generic ICC profile called "Generic RGB Profile", if you generated the file from an English system. The file itself contains the specification of this profile. The ICC profile for an embedded image typically looks like this:

Profile version number: "2.2.0"
Color Management Module (CMM) type: "appl"
Profile/Device class signature: "mntr"
Color space of data: "RGB "
Profile Connection Space (PCS): "XYZ "
Magic number: "acsp"
Primary Platform: "Apple Computer, Inc. (APPL)"
Device manufacturer: "appl"
Device model: ""
Profile creator: "appl"
Creation date: "13/5/02 12:00"
Default rendering intent: Perceptual
Profile illuminant
- Illuminant X: 0.964203
- Illuminant Y: 1.000000
- Illuminant Z: 0.824905
Copyright information: "Copyright 2002 - 2003 Apple Computer Inc., all rights reserved."
Profile description: "Generic RGB Profile"

The output intent of the file is defined as "CGATS TR 001 SWOP". This basically means that it follows an agreed standard for printing with CMYK color space. CGATS is the Committee for Graphic Arts Technologies Standards. SWOP is an abbreviation for Specifications Web Offset Publications. Both organisations are American but the standard could be applied throughout the world.

To see more of this data go to Applications > Utilities > ColorSync Utility > Filters.

In theory, it should be possible to create your own Filter and apply them with Automator. The general idea is to take an existing workflow from /Library/PDF Services and copy it under another name to your own equivalent folder ~/Library/PDF Services. Edit the PDF service and data with Automator and give it a PDF file as input.

However, the process to create new filters is buggy, unless you know exactly which way to take. It was bad in Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) and it is not better in Mac OS 10.5 (Leopard). The I work in Pages blog has one process which is said to work. Again, there is a list of known problems and workarounds here.

When I print a document or save as PDF, Pages crashes. Why?

This can happen if you have inserted a footnote in the document and then removed the footnote text, but not the footnote itself.

I just bought iWork and I think Pages is a horrible application. What do I do now?

Oh dear! That is a philosophical question. There are a couple of ways out.

1. Do not accept defeat. Learn to like it. All applications have quirks, and Pages is no exception. You may be surprised at what things turn out not to work, and which ones turn out to work very well. Try to see what the application is able to do. Stop trying to make it do what you thought it should do. It cannot make coffee or read rtf files with graphics, but it can do a lot of other things if you explore it.

2. Take it as an experience. You bought an application that did not do what you wanted it to do. Ok, that was a mistake. However, did Apple say it would do it? You thought Apple said so, but if you really read all the fine prints, does it say it contained the function you are so disappointed about not finding? Did you try it out, before you bought it? There are probably methods you could have used to verify this before you purchased iWork. Go through them. Learn from them. And next time you buy software, it is more likely that you will use those methods than this time. You learnt something. You are now a more knowledgeable person. Congratulations!

3. Tell Apple what you think at: http://www.apple.com/feedback/pages.html

How do I copy or delete a page?

The easiest way of doing this is by going to View > Show Page Thumbnails and then to click on a page and select Edit > Cut, Copy or Delete and then Edit > Paste.

But note that what you copy is not a "page" but a "section". A section can contain several pages. To split a section into several pages you go to Insert > Section Break.

If you want to copy just the objects (graphics, text boxes...) from one page to another, the easiest way is to highlight them all.
1. Shift-click object after object, until you have them all.
2. Go to another page.
3. Make sure that your cursor is not in the body text (you do this by clicking in the margin of the page).
4. Select Edit > Paste.

How can I embed sounds or movies in a document for Windows users?

In Pages 3.0 you cannot. In Pages 2.0 there was a cumbersome and not elegant way to do it with HTML export.

Exporting to pdf or rtf will not embed movies or sounds.

Exporting to Word will link the movie/sound to the document, so it will play fine on your own computer. However, if you transfer it to another Mac, you will have to transfer the movie/sound as well as a separate file.

And even if you send both Word document and movie/sound to the Windows user as two separate files, it may not play on Windows. The help for MS Office 2004 for MacOS X says "Compatibility Report: Inserted QuickTime movies might not appear in Office for Windows."

What pdf features are supported in Pages?

When you create a pdf from Pages 3.0 in MacOS X 10.5 (Export or Print to PDF) it retains the following features:

* Hyperlinks defined in the Pages document
* Bookmarks defined in the Pages document
* Hyperlinks from the page numbers in the Table of Contents
* Scalable graphics stays scalable
* Transparency and shadows of graphics
* Well formatted unicode characters (like 日本)

It does not have any of the following features:

* Outlines (as a special side bar in Adobe Reader or Preview)
* Embedded media (sounds or movies)

Note that PDF/X files do not support any active content, like hyperlinks or bookmarks..

For advice about which method to use to create PDF files, see this entry.

How do I express if-statements in a formula?

Pages 3.0 has if-statements built in, but in Pages 2.0 and earlier there are no conditional functions for the formulas.

If you still use Pages 2.0 you can simulate if-statements in some cases.

To illustrate the principle, you may want to show the biggest of two numbers. You can then type:

=(A1>A2)*A1+(A2>A1)*A2

(For this you could also use "=MAX(A1,A2)" directly, but that is not as fun.)

As another example, you may want to fill cells conditionally. Let us assume that F2 should be transferred to a cell, if the value of E2 = 1, but not if E2 = 2. You can solve this with:

=F2*(E2-2)*-1

Well... almost solve it anyhow. You will get a 0 in the field, if E2 = 2, and there is no way you can hide that 0.