I'm trying to use Pages 8.0 Find and Replace tool but the replace and replace all commands are grayed out and will not allow me to replace anything. It finds the text that I'm needing to replace but will not do the actual replace function. Any help is greatly appreciated as there are over 300 instances of the text that I'm trying to replace in the document.
MacBook Pro 15", macOS 10.14
On macOS 10.14.4, and using Pages v8.0, I get the following with drastically simplified version of your outline:
The image may not show it clearly, but those Replace buttons are active with my test.
Save your document, and quit Pages. Click on your Desktop to get Finder's attention, and then press shift+command+G to bring up the Finder's Go To Folder dialog:
~/Library/Caches
Copy and paste that path into the Go To Folder dialog and then press GO. This will put you in your local Library's Caches folder. Look for any item that has the yellow Pages v8.0 icon, and drag/drop that item (if it exists) into your Trash, and then empty the Trash. This is not a file that Pages needs, and when it feels like it, the item will be recreated by Pages. Click on the red close button on that Finder window.
Open your outline document again, and perform the Find ritual, to see if your Replace buttons are now active.
On macOS 10.14.4, and using Pages v8.0, I get the following with drastically simplified version of your outline:
The image may not show it clearly, but those Replace buttons are active with my test.
Save your document, and quit Pages. Click on your Desktop to get Finder's attention, and then press shift+command+G to bring up the Finder's Go To Folder dialog:
~/Library/Caches
Copy and paste that path into the Go To Folder dialog and then press GO. This will put you in your local Library's Caches folder. Look for any item that has the yellow Pages v8.0 icon, and drag/drop that item (if it exists) into your Trash, and then empty the Trash. This is not a file that Pages needs, and when it feels like it, the item will be recreated by Pages. Click on the red close button on that Finder window.
Open your outline document again, and perform the Find ritual, to see if your Replace buttons are now active.
Let's see if for some reason, it is the current document that is the problem source. Start a new Pages v8.0 word processing document, and enter a small outline using the same format as previous. Does Find/Replace work in the new Document example?
I see that item 112 has a bullet without any text associated with it. What happens if you just add some text to it, and any others that appear this way?
It does work with a different document. Must be something within that document that is preventing it from working.
My text is not in a table. It's a simple numbered outline; however, thank you for your quick response and willingness to help!
As I stated, the same technique will work in body text, which includes your numbered outline.
I wish I could tell you that it worked. I found three icons with the pages logo and deleted them; however when I reopened Pages it still acted the same.
No change. Do you think it has anything to do with the text I'm trying to replace being a hyperlink?
Find and Replace does not work in table cells, until you first click the right arrow to select the first item. Once you do that, the Replace All, and other buttons become available. Same drill for body text items too.
Maybe I'm missing something, which is very possible, but when I click on the right arrow (circled in red) it finds and highlights all instances in the document (indicated by the red arrow coming from the red circle as well as the highlighting in the document) but it doesn't matter what I put in the replace or even if I leave it blank, it will not turn from gray or make it clickable. I used to do this all the time, but I haven't had to in a few months. Again, maybe I'm missing something...
Yes, that hyperlink is the problem. I assigned a URL to a text string and attempted to do a find/replace on it. The entire Replace button row remained inactive, even after a click of the right arrow lit up the string in the document. I see no automated approach to find/replacement of a text string, or even a single word in a hyperlink.
Pages Find and Replace grayed out
