How to add little numbers at the top of words in pages?

Enter a lower-case 'a' (arbitrary chararacter), and set its preferred color. Select that character, and then from the Pages Format menu, choose Font -> Baseline -> Superscript. With the character now a superscript and still selected, click the Character Styles from the right Text panel, and then click its blue + button to add this superscripted character as a character style, and with a meaningful name.

I gave this an obvious name. Now, all you have to do with subsequent leading characters like this is to select the character, and choose the Character Style you assigned to it. It will colorize and make it superscript.

Alternatively, you can select the leading character and from the Pages Insert menu, choose Footnote. This has some additional issues and limitations.

• Coloring the character before making it a footnote strips the color afterward, so it must be colored afterward.
• Although a body text footnote can be alphanumeric, or special characters, its corresponding footnote at page bottom is numeric and black. You can change the color, but not is numeral.

Check that when you created the style, that only the superscripted, colorized letter was selected, and not the adjoining text. Similarly, select only the leading character before applying the associated character style.

There will be no means to automatically produce this effect in Pages. You will have to select each applicable, leading character and apply the style manually.

About the only automation that exists on a per character basis is assigning a keyboard shortcut to a Pages Character Style. You still have to select the leading character, but now you can use a keyboard shortcut to apply the style.

I enter a Helvetica Neue 1 at 16 pt, enter a space, and set the font size back down to 12. Then I enter the remaining text, and apply the character style only to the letter a (or b in the second example below). I do not get all text promoted to superscript.

I also went into the Pages Advanced Options panel ⚙︎v and set Base Line shift to 2pt, but you may not want that much superscript.

"when I set the style for the 'a', the entire line next to it becomes just as small. Any idea? "

Have you set a "Character" style, or a "Paragraph" style?

"Also, is there a way to have this automatically inserted at the start of each new sentence for numbering to take place?"

Pages can automatically number Lists or Paragraphs and can number Pages in a section or throughout a document.

Line numbering and Sentence numbering are not supported.

You could set each sentence as a separate 'paragraph' by inserting a return character after each, thereby converting the verse to a list..

Verse numbers could be handled using a tiered list—verse numbers marking the ('empty') verse name line, sentence numbers marking the 'second tier' lines.

Doable, but the result would b quite different from that in your example.

I'm not aware of software that is able to automate this style of text numbering, but there may be some available. A message to a Biblical discussion group might prove useful in locating suitable software.

You might also take a look at the Gutenberg Project website. Gutenberg has several versions of the Bible in its collection. The King James Version is 'public domain' under USA law* and free to download, copy, and use as you wish. (A second, newer KJV file, expands the user rights to 'anyone, anywhere')

The numbering system used in the Gutenberg online edition numbers each line with the verse and line number in this format: 1:1…1:22, etc.,

Still not automatic, but using Find - Replace to strip the 'return Vnumber colon' string with a space might be more efficient than inserting formatted sentence numbers manually.

Regards,

Barry

*Gutenberg lists only US rights for this book, and includes a note that those living outside the US should check the laws in effect in their area before using the item.

**A second, newer KJV file, expands the user rights to 'anyone, anywhere'

B.

You need your leading character as a colored superscript and selected before the blue + (add character style) button becomes available to you.