Help! Current versions of Apple Pages no longer have a “Search” function for editing documents. I write and edit long dissertations, often in excess of six-hundred pages. For years I’ve been editing with Pages 09 because the current versions of Pages

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Level 1

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Help! Current versions of Apple Pages no longer have a “Search” function for editing documents. I write and edit long dissertations, often in excess of six-hundred pages. For years I’ve been editing with Pages 09 because the current versions of Pages

Help! Current versions of Apple Pages no longer have the “Search” editing function. I write and edit long manuscripts, often in excess of two-hundred thousand words. For years I have continued using Pages 09 because the current version of Pages (which I have) eliminated the “Search” function and retained only the “Find” function. The elimination of the “Search” function was a terrible mistake on the part of Apple because it makes editing a long document almost impossible. I have now updated to Apple Mohave, and it will not support Pages 09, so my editing has come to an abrupt halt. Does anyone know how to perform a global search for a specific word or phrase in a long document using the current version of Pages? The "Find" function requires the user to click through the entire document one word or phrase at a time and is therefore useless for global searches. Are other global search alternatives available using Apple Pages? If not, can anyone recommend other editing programs to use for quick global searches of a document? Thank you for your help and suggestions!

MacBook Pro w/ Touch Bar (2018 or later)

Posted on Dec 21, 2018 8:43 AM

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Answer 1

Dec 21, 2018 11:50 AM in response to artjon108

I think that you might be better served exporting the document to PDF, and then using the search tool in Preview. Found items will appear in a left panel with the associated Page number. Here is what that looks like:

Spotlight, if configured to search Documents, will only inform you which documents contain a quoted search term, but not its page location or surrounding context.

There are no other applications that can open Pages v7.3 documents. You will have to undergo an export to .docx (or PDF), and then consider MS Word, LibreOffice, or Softmaker's Office 2018 products, (or Preview above) for their stronger features than Pages.

Using AppleScript, I can tell you which paragraph in a document a particular search string (including a sentence) occurs.

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Answer 2

artjon108 Author

Level 1

8 points

Dec 30, 2018 4:13 PM in response to VikingOSX

Thank you for your thoughtful reply. I have explored your suggestions, but none that I tried provided the ease and versatility of the Pages "Search" function for voluminous manuscripts, which is what I generally work with. I did not, however, try MS Word because a free trial period was not offered, and I didn't want to buy it without first knowing how effective it would be. Do you know if its search function is similar to that of LibreOffice and Softmaker's Office?

Apple had the best search function available, and it made editing large manuscripts a lot easier. Why did Apple delete this function in its current operating systems? Did they simply not realize how valuable it is to writers and editors? Without it, other editing functions become practically useless. Is there a way to get Apple to revive this function?

Thank you again for your generous help.

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Answer 3

Dec 30, 2018 4:36 PM in response to artjon108

You are comparing Pages '09 with Pages v5 through v7.3 which are entirely different applications that were not based on the Pages '09 source code pool. Entirely new applications that omitted nearly 100 features found in Pages '09. After five years of missing search functionality, do not expect Apple to restore it in some future Pages version.

The only place that left panel of search results remains is in Preview.

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Answer 4

otto112

Level 1

50 points

Dec 31, 2018 12:48 AM in response to artjon108

It is not the OS that had the search function, it is the software.

Pages '09 (had) vs Pages 7.3 which doesn't (well may as well not).

You can ask Apple all you want why it has gone so far down hill, but I doubt Apple will tell you.

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Answer 5

Dec 31, 2018 3:21 AM in response to otto112

Simply because this is a support community comprised of fellow users, and an occasional Apple-badged employee attached to the support community hosting team. However, Apple leadership and product teams do not participate here. Communication with product teams is almost always one-way, and constrained to the feedback menu item in the Pages application menu.

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Help! Current versions of Apple Pages no longer have a “Search” function for editing documents. I write and edit long dissertations, often in excess of six-hundred pages. For years I’ve been editing with Pages 09 because the current versions of Pages

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