How to select a single stand-alone line of text?

Question

How to select a single stand-alone line of text?

Like so many in this forum, I'm trying (more painfully than I had ever anticipated) to make the switch from MS Word for Mac to Pages. In Word, if I want to select an entire line of text (the title of an article, for example), I move the mouse to the left of the line, it becomes an arrow pointing to the line, I click it, and the line is selected. (Yes, I could drag the mouse down the entire line, but this is much faster.) If Pages has an equivalent to this way of selecting text, I haven't found it, and I have read the entire section on selecting text in the Pages Help app. Does anyone know of a quick way to select a single line of text (keep in mind, it is not part of a paragraph, it is a line of text with space above and below it)?

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.5.2), iWork, Pages '08, MS Word for Mac

Posted on May 10, 2008 10:59 AM

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Answer 1

Peggy

Level 8

41,829 points

May 10, 2008 1:14 PM in response to MedTechWriter

You can select a whole paragraph by triple-clicking in the paragraph.

This is one thing (of many) that doesn't work as well in Pages as it does in AppleWorks. In AppleWorks, l can, like you can in Word, put the cursor in the margin just to the left of a paragraph to select it. AppleWorks has one more option for multiple clicks in a paragraph. One click places the cursor, double-click selects a word, triple-click selects the line & quadruple-click selects the paragraph. Handy if you want just one line in a multi-line paragraph.

Something to leave feedback for the Pages team about.

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Answer 2

May 10, 2008 9:02 PM in response to MedTechWriter

I figured out how to get this to work quite accidentally:

Place the mouse to the left of the line, à la Word. Drag down. Once the cursor passes the bottom of the line... voilà! Line selected!

So I guess the difference is between a simple click (Word) and a click-and-drag (Pages). Not as "quick" (we're talking tenths of a second saved here) but faster than selecting the whole line. Hope that helps 🙂

Message was edited by: Xian Rinpoche

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Answer 3

KOENIG Yvan

Level 8

41,819 points

May 11, 2008 1:07 AM in response to Xian Rinpoche

Hello

This tip is a perfect way to select a line and I don't feel that an other way would be useful.

But it exists and I am always surprised when I read some users claiming that a program MUST offer this or that when this or that is already available but they feel easier to rant than to RTFM.

Here, the asked feature is described in the Help (very complex keyword: shortcut):

*Extend selection to end of current line Shift-Command–Right Arrow*

So, if you put the cursor at the beginning of the line you may use it to fit your needs.

Yvan KOENIG (from FRANCE dimanche 11 mai 2008 10:04:34)

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Answer 4

May 11, 2008 7:42 PM in response to MedTechWriter

Many thanks to both Peggy and Xian Rinpoche for your suggestions--both methods work quite well and are convenient, so I hope they will be useful to others as well. Thanks also for the sense of humor and kind attitude in your posts--especially appreciated by this newbie to the forums!

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Answer 5

Adam White

Level 4

1,325 points

May 12, 2008 12:18 AM in response to MedTechWriter

Here is the simplest way to get 1 line of text.

Place the cursor to the left of the letter where you want to start from, press 'shift+down arrow'. There... you have one line of text highlighted.

Hope this helps.

Adam

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Answer 6

KOENIG Yvan

Level 8

41,819 points

May 12, 2008 1:12 AM in response to Adam White

Adam White wrote:
Place the cursor to the left of the letter where you want to start from, press 'shift+down arrow'. There... you have one line of text highlighted.

Right if the cursor is at the very beg of a line but not really with the cursor in the middle of a row 😉

Yvan KOENIG (from FRANCE lundi 12 mai 2008 10:09:01)

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Answer 7

Adam White

Level 4

1,325 points

May 12, 2008 7:17 AM in response to KOENIG Yvan

The OP was talking of a stand-alone line of text. Not text as part of a paragraph.

Yvan, I am just showing that there are lots of ways to select text. My suggestion has just as much validity as yours or any one else's on these boards. Nobody had mentioned my way, so I thought I would add it so the OP has options.

Adam

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Answer 8

KOENIG Yvan

Level 8

41,819 points

May 12, 2008 7:45 AM in response to Adam White

Hello

Don't worry.

a - I didn't gave _my soluce._ I just reproduced Apple's one. I'm not a thief 😉

b -you wrote:

Place the cursor to the left of the letter where you want to start from, press 'shift+down arrow'. There... you have one line of text highlighted.

The OP was talking of a stand-alone line of text. Not text as part of a paragraph.

The behavior which I described is not linked to this late precision. My screenshot was with a "multi-lined" paragraph but your shortcut works the same with single line ones.

c - re-read the original question, you will see that the OP was asking for the contents of the line where the cursor fit. Not for a portion of the line below.

d - when I wish to give a precision, I never ask the permission to do that. I post it, PERIOD.

Yvan KOENIG (from FRANCE lundi 12 mai 2008 16:35:18)

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Answer 9

Adam White

Level 4

1,325 points

May 12, 2008 7:59 AM in response to KOENIG Yvan

Whatever.

Adam

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