Douglas Broyles

Q: Pages 5 Where is Advanced Find

I got the new Pages 5 yesterday and for the life of me I cannot figure out the Advanced Find & Replace for invisible characters. My heart sank when I ran into this blank wall.

 

I was able to breathe again when I found I still had an old copy of Pages 4 so I could continue to work. I'm constantly reformatting doccuments, cleaning them up, removing extra spaces, tabs, carriage returns and and it was quite easy in the old Pages

 

Am I missing something, or is it just plain missing?

Posted on Oct 23, 2013 10:24 AM

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Q: Pages 5 Where is Advanced Find

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  • by dan_pyle,

    dan_pyle dan_pyle Oct 23, 2013 10:50 AM in response to Douglas Broyles
    Level 1 (15 points)
    Oct 23, 2013 10:50 AM in response to Douglas Broyles

    If it's there, I can't find it either. Looks like another missing feature. I don't think I've ever been this disappointed in Apple. This new version of Pages is barely more powerful than TextEdit.

  • by Douglas Broyles,

    Douglas Broyles Douglas Broyles Oct 23, 2013 11:37 AM in response to Douglas Broyles
    Level 1 (30 points)
    Oct 23, 2013 11:37 AM in response to Douglas Broyles

    If it's true that this is missing, then it is a truly ghastly blunder. It renders the new, highly touted Pages 5 as useless to me. I'll clutch my Pages 4 tightly to my chest.

     

     

  • by hosifer,

    hosifer hosifer Oct 23, 2013 1:02 PM in response to Douglas Broyles
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 23, 2013 1:02 PM in response to Douglas Broyles

    Glad I saved the old version on an external drive. I'll be using it.

  • by Jessie Dasher,

    Jessie Dasher Jessie Dasher Oct 23, 2013 1:46 PM in response to Douglas Broyles
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Oct 23, 2013 1:46 PM in response to Douglas Broyles

    I can't believe it is missing. I use thte advance find feature every week.

  • by Colymba,

    Colymba Colymba Oct 25, 2013 4:36 AM in response to Douglas Broyles
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Oct 25, 2013 4:36 AM in response to Douglas Broyles

    Just terrible news of Apple getting rid of this basic function. If there had been any hope...

  • by Douglas Broyles,

    Douglas Broyles Douglas Broyles Oct 25, 2013 10:19 AM in response to Colymba
    Level 1 (30 points)
    Oct 25, 2013 10:19 AM in response to Colymba

    While I waited for someone to chime in to tell me the secret of where Advanced Find & Replace got buried or come up with some arcane key combo to invoke it, as I had time, I dug through other threads, MDN, etc. to find other numerous reports like mine, so it appears it is indeed gone.

     

    So many words in my head to describe this: disastrous, inexcusable, ***!

     

    How could any modern word processor be considered a valid tool without this BASIC function.

     

    I picked up on another fly in this ointment of disappointment. It's the iPad GOTCHA that you get no warning for. I saw this in another thread so felt the need to write it up in this reply.

     

    If you upgrade your Pages for iPad in iTunes or accept it on the iPad or iPhone from v1.7.2 to v2.0, the nasty surprise is that the file format is not backwards compatible with Pages 4 for desktop. If you open the file in the new iPad Pages, it updates the file format so locks you out of it on the desktop Pages 4 if you work in the iCloud. I am not EVEN going to experiment with this bit of nastiness to corroborate it. My time and work are too valuable to play Russian Roulette for fun.

     

    I dearly hope that all made a fresh Time Machine backup before all of this began. I navigated to the folder of apps and set the way back machine to a week ago and thankfully, found the old version and was able to downgrade my iPad.

     

    Be very careful when hitting that Update All button in iTunes or you could get yourself in a pickle. I don't know if there's a way to isolate a particular app from the Update All stream.

  • by Colymba,Helpful

    Colymba Colymba Oct 25, 2013 10:41 AM in response to Douglas Broyles
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Oct 25, 2013 10:41 AM in response to Douglas Broyles

    Black day, indeed...

     

    I've already addressed Apple two times via Pages feedback form. Maybe collective effort will highlight the situation for them?..

     

    BTW, have you admitted a sorting joke? Pages 5 makes text sorting impossible, as text-to-table function is also missing.

  • by Douglas Broyles,

    Douglas Broyles Douglas Broyles Oct 25, 2013 11:15 AM in response to Colymba
    Level 1 (30 points)
    Oct 25, 2013 11:15 AM in response to Colymba

    Thank you for reminding me to do this. I went straight to Pages and let them have it.

     

    A hue and cry is inadequate for the oversight.

     

    Pitchforks, torches and angry villagers storming the castle is a more balanced approach to the Pages 5 monstrosity.

  • by Douglas Broyles,

    Douglas Broyles Douglas Broyles Oct 25, 2013 12:11 PM in response to Douglas Broyles
    Level 1 (30 points)
    Oct 25, 2013 12:11 PM in response to Douglas Broyles

    OMG. I just had ANOTHER sinking feeling.

     

    I logged into iCloud via the browser to look at some files. My finger wavered over the mouse clicker.

     

    I thought to myself, "What if Pages for iCloud changes the file format thus, from another vector, locking me out of my files on Pages 4 for desktop?!"

     

    I backed my mouse arrow slowly away and closed the browser window. I'm getting totally spooked by this calamity.

     

    I know it's nearly Halloween, but enough already! I'm becoming afraid of my own shadow!

  • by floobyduster,

    floobyduster floobyduster Oct 26, 2013 6:56 PM in response to Douglas Broyles
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 26, 2013 6:56 PM in response to Douglas Broyles

    Try this:

     

    1. Turn on Show Invisibles in the View menu.
    2. Select (highlight) the double para breaks.
    3. Use Command-E  (Find using selected text).
    4. Open the Find dialogue box (Command-F) and select Find & Replace.
      1. The selected para breaks will be in the Find text entry box, but will not be visible!
    5. Click in the Replace text entry box.
    6. Select (highlight) a single para break.
    7. Go to the Edit menu / Find and select 'Use selection for replace' (it will not show in the Replace entry box).
    8. In the Find & Replace dialogue box, click on the Forward or Back arrows to highlight the selected items (e.g. double para break) where you wish to start replacing in the document.
    9. Use the Replace All / Replace & Find / Replace buttons as per usual.

     

    Not a nice solution, but I hope it gets you going until Apple restores the previous functionality!

  • by fruhulda,

    fruhulda fruhulda Oct 26, 2013 10:27 PM in response to floobyduster
    Level 6 (15,126 points)
    Oct 26, 2013 10:27 PM in response to floobyduster

    Don't expect that you'll get back the old functionality in the new Pages. Use the olde Pages 09 instead. Also tell Apple about you dissapointment with Pages 5.0

    http://www.apple.com/feedback/pages.html

  • by Douglas Broyles,

    Douglas Broyles Douglas Broyles Oct 27, 2013 10:58 AM in response to floobyduster
    Level 1 (30 points)
    Oct 27, 2013 10:58 AM in response to floobyduster

    Thanks, floobyduster for some abstruse work there.

     

    OMG! This workaround sounds like it's from the nightmare world of... Windows!

     

    I had seen these commands off the menu bar, but were unintuitive enough to me that I couldn't figure out how to make them work, so thanks for the workflow.

     

    This Rube Goldberg Machine work around might work for a couple of one-offs, but I have to do numerous invisible switches on a nearly daily basis and numerous switches within a single document: spaces, non-breaking spaces, carriage returns, line breaks, paragraph breaks, and on and on in a single document, cleaning up after sloppy customers. All these repeated trips to the menu bar to perform intermediary steps would be crazy-making.

     

    I'll have to stick with Pages 4 until there's a fix (and make sure I don't accidentally update it in the App Store) and start exploring other word processor options in the meantime.

  • by Inquisitive,

    Inquisitive Inquisitive Dec 9, 2013 10:47 AM in response to floobyduster
    Level 2 (230 points)
    Dec 9, 2013 10:47 AM in response to floobyduster

    This solution worked.  Why hasn't floobyduster been given any credit? 

  • by Nicolene Erasmus,

    Nicolene Erasmus Nicolene Erasmus Feb 13, 2014 12:07 PM in response to floobyduster
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Mac OS X
    Feb 13, 2014 12:07 PM in response to floobyduster

    Thanks floobyduster!!!

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