Keyboard shortcuts for bold, italics and underline

Question

Level 1

47 points

Keyboard shortcuts for bold, italics and underline

I have read some conflicting info on the web and had different personal experience and want to know if others have this same problem.

With a bluetooth keyboard I can't use a keyboard shortcut to bold, italics or underline. Other ones work just fine yet these are omitted. Is anyone else having this problem? I've seen one other post on here but not sure if there are more of us out there.

I also wonder if you have the attached keyboard if the shortcuts work. Since I don't have that keyboard would like to hear from those that do.

A note about the bluetooth keyboards - I was told before I bought mine Apple just updated their bluetooth keyboard because some of the function keys on the older ones didn't work with the iPad. The new keyboard fixed is supposed to fix those issues, but since I never had an older keyboard I can't say if it did or did not. What I do know is I have one of the newer bluetooth keyboards.

15 MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.3)

Posted on Apr 29, 2010 8:37 AM

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Answer 1

popster

Level 1

30 points

May 15, 2010 6:01 AM in response to Mac News

You are correct about the absence of formatting keys.

Try Command + arrow keys and Option + arrow keys to navigate.

Shift + Forward/backspace selects text for copying and deletions. Also Tab works in Pages and in Numbers. Shift + Tab doesn't appear to work. I haven't tried Keynote yet.

Ii spent an hour mapping the special characters as well as the key sequences for the Spanish keyboard. It turns out I can get accents, special characters (except the right brace '{' ) and spell checking/correction in both languages.

Also, the Media keys for Music and Video work - at least Stop/Resume in Video. I have made .mov files on my Mac of Keynote presentations and can use the keyboard as a remote for the iPad playback

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Answer 2

g.Fodder

Level 1

5 points

Apr 29, 2010 10:11 PM in response to Mac News

Not sure if I have the old Bluetooth keyboard because I am using the one that came with my Dads 27" iMac that he just picked up but I have found that bold, italic, and underline keyboard shortcuts do not work with pages for iPad. Tried a few different things but all had the same results. The keyboard was from the older iMac, not the new quad core systems so it might be the old keyboard. Hope this helps.

-Ken

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Answer 3

May 1, 2010 7:02 AM in response to g.Fodder

That is exactly my experience.

I have the keyboard from the iMac and using pages on the iPad and cannot do bold and italic. Although I am new to Mac, every guess that i have done for those shortcuts failed.

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Answer 4

May 15, 2010 1:37 AM in response to grandpollock

Same experience here. No shortcuts other than undo, redo, copy, cut and paste works. I am using Applem's new bluetooth keyboard. I was very excited when i see he update which brings the toolbar in landspace mode, however unfortunately keyboard shortcuts are still not implemented. Well, we can only request from Apple and hope that they will implement this in the next update.

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Answer 5

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

115,800 points

May 15, 2010 1:11 PM in response to popster

except the right brace '{'

Is it not at Alt/Opton + ' ?

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Answer 6

popster

Level 1

30 points

May 15, 2010 6:19 PM in response to Tom Gewecke

That works for the Spanish KB. Thanks.

The ASD line with Option is

å ∫ ∂ ƒ  ™ ¶ § ~ {

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Answer 7

KOENIG Yvan

Level 8

41,807 points

May 16, 2010 10:45 AM in response to g.Fodder

Are you sure that the shortcuts doesn't work ?

My guess is that you tried to bold or italicize fonts whose Bold or Italic versions aren't delivered by their authors.
In such case, Pages doesn't build faux_styles.

This was explained _many times_ in Pages formac forums.

If you want to be able to use faux_styles you must use a third party product.

Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) dimanche 16 mai 2010 19:44:58

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Answer 8

LetoLiu

Level 1

0 points

May 18, 2010 4:09 PM in response to Mac News

I have the same problem. I am using the Apple bluetooth keyboard but the formatting hotkeys for bold, italics, or underline doesn't seem to work. I have tried several possible combinations but no luck so far.

I really really hope Apple releases some update for the bluetooth keyboard so that I can have the same Home and Search keyboard shortcuts as the iPad dock keyboard, and so I can do formatting while in iPad's Pages, or any other word processing context.

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Answer 9

KOENIG Yvan

Level 8

41,807 points

May 20, 2010 12:30 PM in response to LetoLiu

Have you checked that the font in use is available in bold or italic ?

Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) jeudi 20 mai 2010 21:30:33

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Answer 10

dan_pyle

Level 1

15 points

May 20, 2010 12:45 PM in response to KOENIG Yvan

The font isn't the problem. The keyboard shortcuts aren't available for any of the fonts. Unfortunately. Has anyone tried the shortcuts on a keyboard dock as opposed to a bluetooth keyboard? I know the keyboard dock has some built in functionality (home button, slideshow, etc.) that bluetooth keyboards don't have.

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Answer 11

Oct 22, 2011 3:25 AM in response to dan_pyle

I don't think that Pages for iPad supports the keyboard shortcuts for bold, talic or underline. Sadly. Does anyone know where (how) to submit enhancement requests?

I have the most up to date bluetooth keyboard and iPad2 and it isn't available. Which is confusing (because it is different to Pages on the Mac) and interrupts typing flow. Therefore, irritating for business users to have to use the touch screen to format - even at this basic level.

Since Bold, Italic and Underline are available within Pages for iPad, and some keyboard shortcuts are available for Pages on iPad, it seems odd that these basic shortcuts are not.

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Answer 12

Oct 22, 2011 11:56 AM in response to DoctorFresh

@DoctorFresh That's what you are looking for: http://www.apple.com/feedback/

Let's hope they'll add this soon...

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Answer 13

Rob6677

Level 1

0 points

Mar 8, 2012 2:18 PM in response to Mac News

Same problem here. Allready sent to mails to feedback but so far no improvement. :-(

Please send them feedback to!!!!

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Answer 14

Dec 7, 2012 1:58 PM in response to Mac News

Yeah! They finally fixed this in the latest Pages update! Not having the shortcuts for bold, underline, italics using an external mac keyboard (with my iPad 3) frustrated me to no end. I just updated today, and it works! Hurrah!

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