Bulleted lists - how can I use a bullet that I want

Question

Bulleted lists - how can I use a bullet that I want

Having made the effort to switch to Pages, I'm beginning to find a number of features that make me long Word!

Some of the Pages interface design feels very rough -- like they just gave up before the end. Such an example of this is the relatively simple (in Word) task of making your own text bullet using a dingbat or symbol. This seems utterly impossible in Pages '09! I have spent over an hour struggling to get Pages to accept my preferred bullet. However, it refuses to allow any attempts I make change the bullet. It seems stuck in some font that is not correct for the bullet I want. But the bullet does not 'inherit' the font face attributes when you paste in your desired one.

I would like some details instructions (preferably from Apple -- chance would be a fine thing!) on how to select and enter my desired Wingdings character as a bullet.

As a last resort, I created a list in the style I wanted in Word (NOTE: a mere four minute job, Apple). I then tried to open the resulting .DOC file into Pages'09. But I guess it detected that I was attempting to circumvent its vice like control on MY lists, and so failed to open the document.

Any help with this matter would be gratefully received.

A.

17" MacBook Pro 2.6 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, Mac OS X (10.5.5), The more you try to use Pages'09, the more intuitive Word seems.

Posted on Oct 19, 2009 5:07 PM

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Answer 1

Oct 19, 2009 8:02 PM in response to Andrew No Thanks

Hi Andrew

Seems like you have noticed that Pages is not Word! 🙂

Ah, change can be hard.

First starting with the impossible (text bullet):

+Inspector > Text > List > Bullets and Numbering > Text Bullets/Image Bullets/Custom Image…+

*Text Bullets* lets you choose any Unicode character as your bullet, either selecting from the short list offered or by simply pasting in the character you want.

You can find the standard Unicode dingbats in:

+Menu > Edit > Special Characters > View: All Characters > Symbols+

Specialist fonts are here but will probably not display correctly if they are not Unicode.

+Menu > Edit > Special Characters > View: PiFonts > PiFonts > Font: If you have WebDings it will be here+

*Image Bullets* does exactly what it says taking any of the supplied images as bullets and scaling them accordingly.

*Custom Image…* lets you browse to find an image from your drive and use that scaled appropriately as a bullet.

You may have had problems using WingDings because it is not to my knowledge a Unicode font and its glyphs are arbitrarily located within the font according to older encodings.

You can get around this by making a text box typing your WingDings dingbat into it and then copying the box and going to the Preview application where by going command N you create a new .pdf file containing your textbox.

Trim the .pdf using the crop tool and save the .pdf which is now a graphic file and can be used with CustomImage… as a bullet.

It is best to make sure your graphic is tightly cropped to just the image itself and if it is too difficult in Preview, it is better done in a drawing program.

*Creating a list style in Pages* is as simple as creating an example of what you want then whilst selected adding it to your Styles in the Style Drawer:

+Menu > View > Show Style Drawer > click on the little down pointing triangle next to the List styles > Create New List Style from Selection+

I don't know what format you saved your word document in so can't comment on why or how it didn't open. Pages doesn't open Word templates for a start, there could be other reasons.

Now that did not come from Apple that came from your fellow users. As you may have noticed entering the forums, Apple puts up the site but does not frequent it.

Peter

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Answer 2

Oct 20, 2009 12:45 AM in response to Andrew No Thanks

I hear loud and clear. I ran into the same wall trying to get a number format that is not supported in the Pages inspector. My solution was to export my document back to Word, apply the formatting there, save the doc file, and then open it with Pages again. I have managed to save the bullet style for that particular format (1.1, 1.2, 1.3; 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, etc) and saved it into Pages. I could not find any way other way to do this. You can also do a copy paste & match style to do the same. Good luck!

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