Wednesday, February 11, 2009

I Work in Pages - an informal Users Group?


A reader of this blog has suggested developing I Work in Pages as an informal iWork/Pages user group.

Please post you comments below:
what do you think about this idea or how to do it. I have changed the blog format - now you can write your comments straight under each post without opening a comments form. Word verification and moderating are still on to avoid spam.

There is a new tick-box type comment feature called 'Reactions' - just tick a box to show what you think.

You can also subscribe to posts and comments and join in as a follower of this blog.

Thank you.

Read comments about this blog here

22 comments:

  1. Anonymous4:32 pm

    good idea, but how do you separate threads?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous12:03 am

    I would appreciate that - I need all the help/support I can get.

    ReplyDelete
  3. about threads:

    several posts here have more than a dozen comments and questions. When I see that a numder of comments grow to form an article I put them together as a separate post. Then I group links to articles on a related subject into a separate post and put a link to the post in contents.

    How's that? Might be better than threads where there is often a lot of off-subject waffling.

    Alex

    ReplyDelete
  4. A question from Alonso:
    Here's a question I can't find anywhere: Any idea of how to include footnotes with a kb shortcut in Pages? Thanks anyway for the blog

    Anyone knows a solution?

    ReplyDelete
  5. alonso5:29 pm

    tried with automator but it doesn't work, will continue trying

    ReplyDelete
  6. alonso5:40 pm

    another one: I use pages 09, and I cannot use the normal command+z for undo, it is assigned to "open new", and the "redo" shows the symbols cmd+shift+z, but they are sort of faded. Any idea how to change them?

    ReplyDelete
  7. Alonso6:20 pm

    keyboard shortcut for footnotes solved: In system preferences, then keyboard-shorctus. In the lower part of the dialog box you see the option for applications shortcuts - You just add yours to work in pages. I didn't know it was that easy to assign shortcuts to any application on a mac. I cannot though do the same with the "undo" shortcut, I have written it as cmd+z for all applications, but in pages cmd+z is still = open new.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Re footnotes shortcut: does this really work? I tried it and it didn't. What does your shortcut look like?

    ReplyDelete
  9. re undo shortcut: this can't be right. Have you checked shortcuts in system preferences?
    Command+Z is one of the basic shorcuts. It works for most mac applications, not just Pages. The only 'blip' I've encountered is when keyboard layout is switched from QWERTY (English) to AZERTY (French). Z is replaced by W, so Command+Z in AZERTY turns into Command+W - close file.
    Please post when you find a solution.

    ReplyDelete
  10. alonso6:51 pm

    ok, solved. I'm just started with pages and only a few months with mac so excuse me if I say something that seems queer. Still, I did find the way to solve both issues:
    1.- undo. I use the spanish version of Pages 09 (installed without asking language, I write basically in spanish and english, sometimes french or german without changing kb, and scarcely in russian since I discovered the phonetic keyboard -in russian its still hard for me to write, can manage but I'm still learning-. So except for the russian, I understand my keyboard is always qwerty). There was no "undo" shortcut in Pages at all, and I know about cmd+z so it sounded strange. Yesterday I applied cmd+z to the "Pages application" in System preferences, but put only "undo" for the shortcut, and now I see you have to put also the full command (in spanish that is "Editar > Deshacer", in my case to the shortcut option+cmd+E).

    ReplyDelete
  11. alonso6:52 pm

    2.- Footnotes. This is the queer thing, because here the shorcut works if you assign only the simple command (not "insert > footnote" but simply "footnote") to the shortcut. (Mind, I put "footnote" but that's not ok in English, in Spanish the command is "Nota al pie", but you can substitute "footnote" for whatever you need in English)

    By the way, Pages 09 recognises footnotes perfectly from Word 09 if you just copy and paste, it's something I've heard people have problems with in other versions.

    Thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  12. I have published a directory that was created with Pages (data was provided to me by the author in Word). However, next time I want to try to automate the process as far as pulling data into Pages with the proper fonts, point size, position, colors, bolding, etc. Right now it's a manual task. Step one seems to be to collect the data in a spreadsheet or a DB. Any thoughts after that - software to use, how to code, etc?

    ReplyDelete
  13. Word documents open nicely in Pages just by dragging the file icon onto the Pages icon in the Dock. Most of the formatting stays the same.
    But I'd say Directory is more of a job for Numbers.
    Otherwise I can't help.
    Ahyone else? Please post.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Anonymous5:34 pm

    I figured out a way to make text curve using Pages. While there are programs one could use, if you ned to curve just a small amount of text, like a street address, you could use this tactic. For example. I plan on making a sign with my street address. The sign is in the shape of a whale and I wanted the text to follow the curve of the whale. It's fairly simple. (1) You put each letter in its own text box (2) you then place each letter where you want the curve to be (3) In "Inspector" go to the "metric" feature, and simply "rotate: each letter to flow your curve. (4) you then group all the letter together.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Can't believe pages doesn't have a "thought" shape. It has everything else call outs etc Any ideas on how to do one

    ReplyDelete
  16. Peggy, hi,

    yes, there are two ways to make a thought bubble:

    1 - check inside your Applications folder to see if you have Comic Life programme. In recent years Apple has been including it in the software bundle that comes with Macs. It’s a very easy programme to make comics and includes a selection of thought bubbles. You can’t just copy/paste them from Comic Life into Pages (at least on my machine), so, make your ‘thoughts’ in Comic Life, ‘print’ them to PDF, JPG (to iPhoto) or make a screenshot, and then drop into your Pages doc.

    2 - take a Star shape from the shapes drop-down menu and edit it into a thought bubble:
    - insert a Star shape,
    - add more points,
    - go to Format>Shape>Make Editable
    - then Format>Shape>Smooth Path
    - when you click on the shape twice (not double click) it gets red dots around. These are for editing the shape. When you click to select one, it gets ‘propeller’ handles which can be rotated, 'pulled out' or ‘pushed in’ by dragging. Rotating changes the curve and length of the handles controls the angle.
    - add editing points: press option (alt) and move cursor over the contour of the shape, click when cursor turns into a little pen with the plus sign.
    - to make inside curves of the thought shape sharper ‘push in’ the propeller handles - curving tool, and ‘pull out’ the handles on the outside curving points of the bubble to make them rounder.

    After a bit of fiddling you'll get a perfect ‘thought bubble.’ Double click to write inside. Click once on the shape to resize it.

    hope this helps.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Hi,

    I really need help.

    I'm creating a brochure template in Pages and trying to 'place a master object' but the object placement in Format/Advanced is set to 'make master objects selectable' and this along with 'move object to section master' are both greyed out.

    I also tried 'Inspector - Wrap' all items here are greyed out also.

    I cant change these settings. I've tried various things but nothing is allowing me to change these options.

    Please help,
    Kirstie

    ReplyDelete
  18. Kirstie, hi,
    it looks like you are in 'Page Layout' mode.
    Open any document in 'Word Processing' mode and you will see that the options you want are all available.
    If you are creating a new brochure from scratch, open a new document in Word Processing mode and copy/paste what you've already done into the new one. If you are modifying an existing template, copy/paste the elements you want into the document created in Word Processing mode.
    I know, sounds silly, but it works.
    Hope this hepled.
    Alex

    ReplyDelete
  19. Anonymous5:09 pm

    Does anyone know how to pull a Pages document apart so I can email it one page at a time?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. hi,
      it it's just for mailing, try compressing first.
      - select the Pages document (click on its icon once)
      - go to Finder (click on Desktop)
      - under File, click Compress. Your Pages document will turn into a folder with a .zip extension
      - attach the .zip document to a mail message and send.

      If it's still too big, upload the Pages document to Google Documents. You will need an account with Google.
      In Google Documents, type in the email address of who you want to send the document to.

      If you still want to pull apart the document to Pages, the simplest way is via Save as..., Duplicate or Versions. Create a copy, rename it 'My project, page 1' and delete all other pages. Next, in a new copy, rename it 'page 2' delete page 1, leave page 2 and delete all other pages. How is this?

      Delete
  20. I have been offered a 250 x 250 space on a website for an advertisement, to be provided to the host in jpeg format. I would like to design in Pages, convert to pdf, then crop and convert to jpeg. But I don't understand what size and resolution to produce for a 250 x 250 pixel web spot. Thanks for any help you can give with designing for the web in Pages!

    ReplyDelete

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