WATERMARK:Tried everything, but the right thing re MASTER SECTION. Cannot make arrange>Section Master>Move Objects work.. greyed out..??? Any ideas?

Hi Yoshi,

Here are the steps I used to place a 'watermark' onto the pages of a Pages word processing document.

• Open a new blank wp document.
• Insert a text box by clicking the Text button.
• Type the watermark's text into the box.
• Click outside the box to remove the insertion point from the box, then click once on the box to select the box itself.
• Click the format brush to open the Format Inspector, the select the Text section.
• In the Font area, use the stepper to increase the text size (My example is 108 pt)
• Resize the box to enclose all of the text.
• Use the colour control immediately below the size box to set the text colour as you wish it to appear in the finished document. (Mine is set to 234 234 234 (or EAEAEA)

        (continues below image)

• Change to the Arrange section of the Inspector.
• Set Text wrap for the box to None (The box will be behind the text. You want the text to flow across the watermark.)
• Rotate the box to a suitable angle. (Mine is rotated to 334°)

• Select the box, and press command-D twice, to create two copies of the box and the text it contains.
• Drag the original box to the top of the page.
• Drag the last copy of the box to the bottom of the page.
• Select all three boxes.
• Go Arrange (menu) > Distribute objects > Vertically
• Go Arrange > Align Objects > Center (This is a left-right alignment)
• Go Arrange > Group. (The three objects will become a single object extending from top to bottom of the page.)

      (Reduced page image below)

• • (If your grouped object goes beyond the top or bottom of the page, Ungroup the objects, Select the top one, and use the down arrow key to move it downward until it is on the page.
  • Repeat with the bottom object and the up arrow key.
  • Select all objects and Group again.
• With the grouped object Selected and centred on the page, go Arrange > Section Masters > Move Objects to Section Master.

The watermark(s) object is now placed on your Section Master, and will appear on all pages of this section. If your document has only one section, the watermark(s) will appear on all pages of the document, as seen in this (further reduced) image:

Regards,

Barry

To a certain extent, one can automate the creation of a watermark in a Text box with rotation. What you cannot do with the currently limited, Pages v8.2.1 AppleScript dictionary is automatically center the text within the Text box when you are done, or move the watermark to section master. To center the watermark text in its selected Text box, click two buttons in the Pages alignment section to center the final watermark text. Then manually move the result to section master.

The following AppleScript will launch Pages if it is not already running. A new document will be created from a blank template, a Text box will be created, and object text (watermark) will be placed within the Text box before it is rotated.

-- automatically generate most of a watermark in Pages

use scripting additions

set watermark to "Draft"

tell application "Pages"
	activate
	set newDoc to make new document with properties {document template:template id "Application/Blank/Traditional"}
	tell newDoc
		set locked of every iWork item to false
		
		tell current page
			-- a 4 x 6 inch (288x432) box positioned a x=2.25i y=3.5i
			set thisTB to make new text item with properties {height:288, width:432, position:{90, 252}}
			set object text of thisTB to watermark
			set opacity of thisTB to 12
			set rotation of thisTB to 45
			tell object text of thisTB
				set properties to {font:"Helvetica Bold", size:120, color:{0, 0, 0}}
			end tell
		end tell
	end tell
end tell

The result looks like this:

PS:

"(using PAGE or WORD PROCESS mode..)"

In a Pages word processing document, a Section may include any number of pages. The watermark object is placed on the Section Master, and will appear on all pages in that section. If you enter a section break, or otherwise create a new section in your document, Pages in the new section may not have the watermark.

If it is missing from the next section, you can place the insertion point on a page that has the watermark, then go Arrange > Section Masters > Make Master Objects selectable.

Then Select and copy the watermark object, go to an empty page in the section missing the watermark and paste.

Align the object on the page, then, with the watermark object selected, go Arrange > section Masters > Move Objects to Section Master.

In a Pages page layout document, each page is a separate section, and Section Masters do not exist.

Your watermark object may be pasted onto each page of the document, and placed in the back layer.

The easiest way to do this is likely to create the watermark using the same process as above, and making it the first object to be placed on the first page.

Select the thumbnail image in the left sidebar and press command D to duplicate the page (and the watermark object).

Regards,

Barry