I was trying to make some irregular shapes for my students in Pages, but I couldn't do it because the options were greyed out. I wrote down the sequence of what I did and hope it will help to address the problem:
3. went to Format menu and found the options were greyed out.
thanks a lot in prior.
MacBook Pro 16″, macOS 11.3
When you insert those two objects into Pages, ensure both are selected and then visit the Arrange panel, not the Arrange menu. On the Arrange panel, and with objects still selected, set the Text Wrap to None, so you can overlay these shapes.
Still on the Arrange panel, and at its bottom, with both shapes positioned and selected, you will see the shape manipulation tools for various actions on the shapes. When you press one of these four (Unite, Intersect, Subtract, Exclude) buttons, you will see an immediate effect on the selected shapes. Don't like the effect, press ⌘+Z to undo it.
See, Combine or break apart shapes in Pages on Mac, for more information on these tools.
To facilitate alignment of the shapes, I have selected all of the options in Pages Preferences > Rulers panel > Alignment Guides. Thus, when I move one shape over another, dynamic guides will appear, and when both shapes are centered on one another, a cross-hair intersection of guides will appear. It will disappear when you stop dragging the shapes.
My guide color preference may differ from your own. 🤓
When you insert those two objects into Pages, ensure both are selected and then visit the Arrange panel, not the Arrange menu. On the Arrange panel, and with objects still selected, set the Text Wrap to None, so you can overlay these shapes.
Still on the Arrange panel, and at its bottom, with both shapes positioned and selected, you will see the shape manipulation tools for various actions on the shapes. When you press one of these four (Unite, Intersect, Subtract, Exclude) buttons, you will see an immediate effect on the selected shapes. Don't like the effect, press ⌘+Z to undo it.
See, Combine or break apart shapes in Pages on Mac, for more information on these tools.
To facilitate alignment of the shapes, I have selected all of the options in Pages Preferences > Rulers panel > Alignment Guides. Thus, when I move one shape over another, dynamic guides will appear, and when both shapes are centered on one another, a cross-hair intersection of guides will appear. It will disappear when you stop dragging the shapes.
My guide color preference may differ from your own. 🤓
Hi Jack,
Most of the greyed options have reasons not too difficult to explain.
The first four deal with an objects position wrt other objects. With the two objects Grouped, they become a single object. In a Word Processing document, an object can be placed behind the text (the only other content on the page) either by placing the text in a text box and placing that container in front of the existing object, or to select the object and Move it to the Section Master, where it will appear on every page in the section.
Align and Distribute objects cold also be greyed, as with one object, they have noting to distribute or align.
Flip anf Flip are in black type as they can work with single objects or with grouped objects. One thing I've not tried them with is flipping one object, then Grouping that flipped object with one that has not been flipped and (optionally) then flipping the grouped object. Might be an interesting test. Interesting to explain, whichever end state occurred.
Unlock is greyed because the selected object is not locked.
Lock is probably greyed as the object still has the default setting of "Move with Text" and the ability to be Lov=cked depends on being set to Stay on Page.
Group is greyed because there is on ly one object selected, and you need more than one to join two or more objects in a single group.
Ungroup is active because a grouped object is selected.
And Section Masters is available to move the object to the Section Master (which would put it behind the text, but would also cause it to be displayed on every page in the section.
In the Sun menu shown above most items are greyed because there is not a single independent object selected on which those operations could be applied. When the objects are Ungrouped, and one is selected, most of those menu items will be active.
Regards,
Barry
Thank you VikingOSX, I made it. The key is not to group the shapes, the pics you enclosed help to provide intuitive guide, thanks.
The shape I made like this one (the parts needed to be shaded make this figure difficult):
You are welcome. And other (imperfect) Pages fun…
actually, I can make such a complicated shape now :), thanks again.
You are welcome. You are starting to get dangerous now… 🤓
The options line unite shapes, intersect shapes and so on in the Format menu are greyed out
