Updating dates automatically in Pages

Apple never intended to design Pages to compete with any other business-oriented word processing application such as MS Word that provides field codes for intra-document date locations as you describe. Use Word instead.

In addition to the cell solution that I mentioned, one can assign text strings throughout the document as placeholder text. One then uses AppleScript to replace those placeholder text strings with the particular date format needed.

For instance, I placed the text string [date] in the left footer segment on three pages. I selected [date], and from Format menu : Advanced : Define as Placeholder Text. The string now takes on a salmon colored appearance:

And when I run the appropriate AppleScript, every occurrence of the [date] string is now replaced by the current date:

code:

set date_text to "[date]" -- placeholder text string
set theTags to {} as list

set {year:y, month:m, day:d} to current date
-- January 6, 2020
set dstr to (m & space & d & ", " & y) as text

tell application "Pages"
	launch
	if not (exists front document) then
		display alert "Pages document must be open for this script to function properly."
		if it is running then quit
		return
	end if
	
	tell front document
		set theTags to the tag of every placeholder text whose tag is equal to date_text
		repeat with i from 1 to count of theTags
			set thisTag to item i of theTags
			set (every placeholder text whose tag is thisTag) to dstr as text
		end repeat
	end tell
end tell
return

Still, simpler to use MS Word, in my estimation.

The only means to provide for an automatically updating date is to use a borderless table cell that contains the function, now(). Use appropriate cell date/time formatting for the effect you desire. I would create a template with this single table cell positioned where you want the date to appear when you start a new document.

Real old version (over 8 years ago) had this. We all used it in our office.

When Apple made Pages as an App, they took this away.

I guess it made the program a bit smaller code-wise but that is just a guess. May other features disappeared as well. A few have been added back over the years.

I agree this would be a valuable preference, but Apple software engineers took it away.

Pls see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pages_(word_processor)

On October 23, 2013, Apple released a redesign with Pages 5.0 and made it free for anyone with an iOS device. In this release, many templates, as well as some advanced features that were available in version 4.3, were not included. Some of these missing features were put back over the next releases but the current version (8.0, released March 28, 2019) still lacks important features from version 4.3 including mail merge, non-contiguous selection of text, advanced find/replace functions, the ability to print comments, and more.

They omitted it, as Pages v5.0 in 2013 was a complete, ground-up rewrite of the better Pages '09 application. It was not based on the Pages '09 v4.3 code pool, so the automatic date feature would have to be something that they were motivated to add to the new code — and have not for over six years.

Even Pages '09 v4.3 was intended as a consumer grade application. Of course, many chose to use it in their business for the simplicity over Word, but that still doesn't alter it from its original intended purpose.

Apple never intended to design Pages to compete with any other business-oriented word processing application . . .

???? ???????????????????

This feature (re date) was in the program. Apple software engineers took it out??? Makes NO sense.

Hi Nick,

Where is the date that you want to automatically update?

In a table cell?

In a page header or footer?

Somewhere else?

More information will lead to a solution!

Regards,

Ian.