How to get info about your Pages file

 

This is a simple trick for when you need to get information about your file, e.g. when you created it, downloaded it etc. 

Click/tap once on the icon of the Pages document on the Desktop (Bureau in French) and then press Command and type i. An Inspector window will open showing all sorts of data about your file, including a preview of what's in it.

I wrote about this some time ago. Here I am revisiting the same trick for a more recent Mac Pages version — Pages 14.0, Mac OS Ventura.

Here is how it should look:

How to remove background for print-on-demand uploads

 

After you've exported your design from Pages to PDF, and then to PNG at 301 pixels per inch, under View menu go down to Show Markup Toolbar, click on Alpha (the little magic wand, second from left) and drag over the background. 

The screenshot below shows what it looks like when Alpha is at work. Now, click Delete and the background will be wiped out. The next step is to go through the remaining bits of the background inside some letters, like R, O, and especially A. It's a bit of a fuss, but in the end you will get an entirely transparent image ready to upload to your chosen POD outfit. \

You can see — and purchase — mugs, t-shirts, bottles etc. with this design on my CafePress page. Here is the link. 

Feel free to contact me if you want to order a personalised design. 

Pages to PNG: How to make transparent files for design uploads

 

Pages - PDF - PNG

Here is a short script for those who dabble in graphic design in Pages, and print-on-demand (POD). 

1 Make your design in Pages.

2 Under File menu go to Export to (Exporter vers... in French) and chose PDF. 

3 Open the PDF file in Preview, the Mac does it by default. 

4 Again, under the File menu slide down to Export (Exporter...) and in the opening window click on the Format menu and chose PNG. Here, set Resolution to 301 pixels per inch, which is an industry standard for professional/commercial printing.

5 Save, open the PNG file and under the View menu open Tool Bar (or Markup Toolbar), in the tool bar click on Alpha, second from left at the top.

6 Drag the cursor over the background, and when the blinking cursive line appears, click delete. You will get a checkered grey background. This is a transparency. Now, check for the white spots inside some letters of your 'slogan' design, like A, D, P, O, B. These have to be 'whiped' out with Alpha too. Click and drag, then click Delete. Once you're done with these, save your file and it's ready for uploading to whatever POD site you use.

Once you get to grips with this, it takes less than five minutes from doing a text slogan in Pages to uploading a ready design for a mug or a tee-shirt. 

And here you can see one of my recent designs on CafePress, one of the top POD sites. I have used the Pages to PNG method described above. 

Good luck with this! 

Where is the word count?

As I am revisiting the recent versions of Pages I note that the word count, a subject of high interest among users, is now in the toolbar menu.

Click on the icon in the top-left side of your Pages document (the Toolbar) and slide down to Show Character Count. Click on it and get the word/character/paragraph/pages count at the bottom of your page. 

(Pages 14.0, Mac OS Ventura)

Happy New Year 2021!

 (Drawing and painting in Pages)

My annual New Year's card with a study after Modigliani, a Snowman and a little Robin. To add the past year's flavour I drew a few covid masks, a subject of so much debate and angst.

Everything here is drawn using Pages tools.

The mask itself is a modified Polygon from the Shapes menu with a Border and an Advanced colour fill. The straps are curved lines with endpoints.

The figures 2021 are drawn with the Pen Tool. When you click on Shapes in the Tool Bar you can see it in the top right corner.

'Modigliani's' model is a combination of edited shapes with colour fills.

Happy New Year!

Happy Christmas 2020!

(Drawing in Pages)

Miserable as this year has been, still there is a cause to celebrate Christmas as a beginning of somethinig new and better.

Here is a drawing I made with tools available in Pages.

The faces are edited shapes from the Shapes menu. 

Eyes, eyebrows and the beard I made with the draw tool, the little pen you see at top right when you click on Shape in the Tool Bar.

Halos are coloured shadows from circle shapes hidden behind the faces. 

Note that Mary and Joseph have shadows going down to indicate their bodies.

The second image shows the shapes used in this computer graphics when selected.

If you have any questions ask me. 

How to type grave accent on a QWERTY keyboard.

Keyboard Viewer shows letters
where you can type the grave accent

If you are used to the QWERTY layout on your keyboard but occasionally have to type in French or other languages with accents, you don't have to switch to the French AZERTY layout.

To type the grave accent, the one that goes to the left, press the Option (Alt) key and tap on the accent key to the left of the Z. Then type an 'a' and you get à the preposition instead of a the form of avoir (to have). This is good for capitals as well — À.

The same works for all other vowels. The screenshot here shows the QWERTY layout with all the keys where you can type the grave accent.

PS: I've checked this trick for Pages 8.1 version, it still works.

Accent grave: Accent qui marque le e ouvert. L’accent grave sert aussi à distinguer des homonymes : où (adverbe) et ou(conjonction); à (préposition) et a (verbe avoir).