Tiny Little Pages Screen

Question

Tiny Little Pages Screen

I am reluctantly converting a newsletter from MS Publisher to IWorks Pages.

I am used to having a full screen with a laydown area for photos, graphics, and stories being moved within the document. I have resolved myself to the reality that Pages will never give me any of the layout conveniences I am accustomed to.

However, it is making me crazy that I have a 24 inch screen and my work area for Pages is basically 9 in by 12 in.; and things just seem to disappear forever into some limbo area beyond the visible areas of the Pages workspace. When I Zoom in, I lose the edges of my document.

Is there any way I can expand the Pages work space to the dimensions of my screen?

Mac, Mac OS X (10.5)

Posted on Mar 3, 2010 11:03 AM

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Answer 1

KOENIG Yvan

Level 8

41,825 points

Mar 3, 2010 1:22 PM in response to JohnLosingPatienceRapidly

JohnLosingPatienceRapidly wrote:
Is there any way I can expand the Pages work space to the dimensions of my screen?

You may display two pages two pages side-by-side on the screen.

I don't understand what you wish.
A page is a 9 x 12 area.
If you enlarge the width to fit the 24" display, you will have a page whose height will be 24*12/9 =32"
Which will force you to scroll very often.
What would be useful is to be able to rotate the display of 90°.

Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) mercredi 3 mars 2010 22:22:32

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Answer 2

Mar 3, 2010 2:10 PM in response to KOENIG Yvan

Yvan,

I believe the OP is wanting objects that are dragged out of the document to remain visible to the side of the document's page display, still a part of the file, still visible and selectable, just not a part that will be contained on the printed page.

Jerry

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Answer 3

Mar 3, 2010 2:45 PM in response to Jerrold Green1

YES! That is what I need. I do wonder how much stuff I have lost in that area beyond my visible work space.

Thanks for the clarification.

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Answer 4

Mar 3, 2010 3:03 PM in response to JohnLosingPatienceRapidly

John

Pages doesn't have a "pasteboard area" which is virtually standard on all DTP software.

This is extremely annoying as you have pointed out, especially as it "sort of has one" where objects can get lost.

Try dragging out your cursor from the page with the command key held down. You maybe able to "fish out" some stuff stuck there.

Peter

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Answer 5

Adam White

Level 4

1,325 points

Mar 3, 2010 9:48 PM in response to JohnLosingPatienceRapidly

Hey John,

I know exactly what you are looking for, but as you have heard, there is no such feature in Pages.

I have come up with a work around which may help you.

I am designing games pages for teaching soccer and I use the same shapes all the time, ie: soccer ball, corner flags, different colored players for the teams etc...

So what I have done is to create a template board with all the different objects I need. I open up that template, Hide the Sidebar and size it to only take up half of my screen.
I then start a new document(Page Layout for me) and size it to take up the other half of my screen. I then copy and paste what I need from the template board onto my new document.

With this set up, you are not able to drag and drop, as you would then be removing the object from the template board, but it does serve the purpose I was looking for.

I hope this has been helpful.

Adam

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Answer 6

Mar 3, 2010 10:56 PM in response to Adam White

Adam White wrote:
I am designing games pages for teaching soccer and I use the same shapes all the time, ie: soccer ball, corner flags, different colored players for the teams etc...

Why don't you just have those as .pdf graphics and drag them in from your Media Chooser?

Peter

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