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Format Painter in Pages?

Hello,

I'll assume that others may have asked this question already, but is there a feature that's similar to MS Word's Format Painter that allows you to copy the text and paragraph formatting to other parts of your document simply by 'copying' it from text in one part of your document to text in another part of your document.

Word has had this feature since at least 2000 or '97.

1.82 Ghz Dual Core Mac Mini, Mac OS X (10.4.10)

Posted on Feb 28, 2010 3:27 AM

Reply
20 replies

Feb 28, 2010 3:58 AM in response to Jeff Ingram

In Pages you can assign and apply Styles for text. When you have defined a style you can by select text in other parts of the document just click on the style you want.

Read about in the Pages User Guide, downloadable from the Pages Help menu.

Also have a look here [Styles|http://www.freeforum101.com/iworktipsntrick/viewtopic.php?t=180&highligh t=style&mforum=iworktipsntrick] in iWorkTipsnTricks

Feb 28, 2010 5:00 AM in response to fruhulda

fruhulda wrote:
In Pages you can assign and apply Styles for text. When you have defined a style you can by select text in other parts of the document just click on the style you want.

Read about in the Pages User Guide, downloadable from the Pages Help menu.

Also have a look here [Styles|http://www.freeforum101.com/iworktipsntrick/viewtopic.php?t=180&highlight=style& mforum=iworktipsntrick] in iWorkTipsnTricks


fruhulda that's quite a trick you have there with the Styles highlight.

Where did you get that from?

Peter

Feb 28, 2010 5:13 AM in response to PeterBreis0807

PeterBreis0807 wrote:

fruhulda that's quite a trick you have there with the Styles highlight.

Where did you get that from?

Peter


Do you mean the orange colour? I don't know. I just did a search in the forum and when opening the page all searched words had the colour! I didn't know it would stay in the link.
Maybe I have magical fingers 🙂

Feb 28, 2010 3:33 PM in response to fruhulda

Thanks, but I'm not talking about creating styles. Word has the ability to do that also. The format painter tool just picks up the attributes of the last piece of text that you had selected, then allow you to 'paint' that on to text anywhere else in the document. Then you can select different text with different attributes and 'paint' that else where if you like too. At no point are you saving those attributes to a style. It works must faster than creating a style really.

Sorta of like, dipping your brush in the color/font/paragraph formatting you want, and then painting with it right away. No saving whatsoever...... It strikes me as strange that Pages, as cool as it is, doesn't have this capability. Especially since it's far from a new concept. Word's had it for years and AmiPro (an OOOOOOLD processor on Windows from YEEEEEAAAARRRSSS ago) first had it.

Oh well, thanks for your time though.

Jeff

Feb 28, 2010 5:05 PM in response to Jeff Ingram

Jeff

We know what you are talking about.

Not something I recommend. It is the lazy way out of styling, that causes you more work in the long run, because after having busied yourself with Format Painting text all over your large document you suddenly notice you haven't been very consistent and now you want to change all instances of captions or quotes and get to do it all over again.

As a designer I get heaps of this stuff. First thing I do is remove all the styling from the text and do it properly.

Peter

Feb 28, 2010 9:38 PM in response to Jeff Ingram

Jeff - when you change application you have to forget how you did a special task before. Forget how you did it in MSW. It is the end result that matters.
If all apps did the same task the same way it should be enough with one app and not the many there are around.

How about downloading the Pages User guide, from the Help Menu in Pages, and see what can be done in Pages.

May 16, 2010 5:25 AM in response to Jeff Ingram

In Numbers, triggering the "Copy Style" button,
selecting an other piece of text
triggering the "Paste Style" button does exactly what it's supposed to achieve.

It doesn't in Pages so, from my point of view, there is a bug.

*Bug ID# 7989885*

Summary:

+In Pages, the Copy Style and Paste Style buttons seems to fail to do their job.+

+*Steps to Reproduce:*+

+Apply formatting attributes like font, size, bold, italic, color …+
+to a word+
+Select the word+
+trigger the Copy Style button.+

+Select an other word+
+trigger the Paste Style button.+

+*Expected Results:*+

+I assumed that, as this scheme does in Numbers, it would apply the attributes of the original word to the target one+

+*Actual Results:*+

+It changes nothing to the target word+

Regression:

+Copy two letters from the original word.+
+Paste just before (or just after) the piece of text whose attributes must be modified+
+Cut the piece of text+
+Put the cursor between the two styled letters+
+Paste and Match Style+
+Delete the two extraneous letters.+

Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) dimanche 16 mai 2010 14:23:47

May 16, 2010 5:36 AM in response to stardust100

stardust100

Most times it pays not to be short-sighted and go the extra step.

Format Painter may pick up direct styles and apply them but when you want to change this later you have no real Styles to change and get to do it all over again manually.

Make a Style from a sample and give it a keyboard shortcut. You won't regret that, but you will regret the painter method.

Peter

May 17, 2010 2:49 AM in response to fruhulda

I thought that maybe it's linked to localized version.
With the French one, it doesn't apply
tested under :
10.4.11
10.5.8
10.6.3
with Pages 4.0.3

I tested also with Pages running in English on my French system
Same odd behaviour.

So, as you say that it behaves well on your system, I guess that the problem is in in the localized system itself.

I added a few lines to my bug report :

+I just received an interesting message.+

+An user running the system and the app in Swedish said that on its machine copy style / paste style behave correctly.+

+My tests where made with :+
+10.4.11 in French+
+10.5.8 in French+
+10.6.3 in French+

+On the three systems, I ran Pages in French and Pages in English.+

+So, the problem may be in the localized OS, not in the app.+

Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) lundi 17 mai 2010 11:44:13

May 17, 2010 3:19 AM in response to KOENIG Yvan

It is probably the localization stuff as you say. I tried English version in Pages09 and it didn't work, Nor did it work in Pages08 which is in English as there is no Swedish version. All the time the System has been in Swedish.
I must add that colour didn't work even though bold, font etc. worked. I was wrong there the first time.

May 17, 2010 3:28 AM in response to fruhulda

It's astounding.

To my knowledge, it's the first time with a localized version behaving better than the US one 😉


Added these lines to my report:

+Got a new message from the Swedish user.+

+(1) bold, italic, size are correctly treated on its Swedish version but color isn't+

+(2) she tested Pages in English on its Swedish system and got the odd behaviour which I get on my French system.+

+So, it appears that on this point the Swedish Pages version behave better than the English and the French ones ;-)+

Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) lundi 17 mai 2010 12:23:31

Format Painter in Pages?

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