I use the Find and Replace function quite frequently for my work, and with this new update, it no longer works. The Find / Find and Replace window appears, but it doesn't actually find (or highlight) the word, even though it is absolutely within the document. And then of course, it will not replace it, either. Any solutions?
MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 11.5
With all respect UncleFlinsky, I followed your advice and discovered I could fix this problem in one minute:
fix it now in less than one minute
the problem occurs when the computer is shut down with open documents and the option "reopen windows when logging back in" is chosen on shut down. each document that is "reopened" automatically will no longer be able to use find
I skipped your first step, because I had already restarted my Mac several times. I closed each document in Pages, quit Pages, and then opened it again, and just opened one document, and finally, my search was working again.
Running Monterey 12.2 on an MBP 16-inch, 2021 M1 Pro. I think my problem started about a month into this new Mac.
This subset of the above got Find/Replace working again:
I did not have to quit all apps before restart.
Right. This doesn’t work:
Quit pages
Restart
Open Pages; close all documents; quit Pages
Open Pages and select the document to open
nor does this work:
Use "Duplicate" under "File" to make a new copy of your document. Find and Replace should work in the new document.
The only thing that works for me every time is to simply close the document and reopen it from Open Recent. It'll work for a while before you notice Find is no longer working and you must do that again.
I've experienced the same problem. I work on 300-450 page manuscripts where FIND is essential. The size of my files may be part of the problem as I don't experience FIND quitting on me on files of a few pages or less; I also don't work on them for near as long and collect as many saves, etc..
I talked with a senior advisor from Creative Products (or whatever they call it) at Apple and he confirmed they know about the issue, but haven't fixed it. They are still trying to collect data (logs and screen actions) from users experiencing this problem. Call APPLECARE when FIND quits and have them collect your non-working data logs, etc. for their Pages engineers. Might help accelerate a fix.
My current workaround has been to DUPLICATE my file where FIND/FIND & REPLACE are not working and throw away the non-working file version. It's not a permanent solution but it works for a while until it doesn't, then I do it again.
I'm running Mac OS Monterey v12.3 on a MacBook Pro, and Apple Pages v11.2, and I just encountered the same problem with Find not working. Today I was trying to find a word in a doc I was working on, and Find didn't work. Instead I got an error msg that said "nothing was selected", but when I selected the entire document and tried Find again, I still got that error msg.
After reading the comments here, I restarted my Mac in Safe Mode and tried again. Find still wasn't working.
So then I closed all my open Pages documents, quit Pages, then re-opened Pages and opened the doc where I'd originally run into the problem. Voila! Now it works. Go figure.
Anyhow, thought I'd post my experience here in case it helps someone else.
I don't think there's any need to restart the computer. I closed every document on Pages, quit the app, then re-opened the primary file I was using, and it started working again. Hope that helps.
Uncle Flinsky you're the best! Yes when I closed every Pages document and quit Pages, search works again when I opened Pages. Did not have to restart.
I fixed it by quit pages (right click on icon and "quit") and then reopening the document. Didn't have to restart the computer itself.
Well, there you go! I did the same thing more or less — I quite Pages, restarted the computer, opened Pages, closed all docs, quit and restarted Pages, created a new doc, entered text and tried Find/Replace ... and it worked!
Opened the previous doc that was having problems, and it works there too. So does Spell Check, which was also not working.
So something here is buggy after the upgrade, and resets eventually. Note that I HAD quite Pages and restarted the computer several times prior to this, with no success. So if you're having a similar issue, you should try UncleFlinsky's advice!
I had the same problem - tried rebooting, restarting pages etc with no effect. Having read the whole thread (which is a clear indication that the problem IS real), I took a deep breath, closed the document in pages, closed pages, re-opened pages and then re-opened the document.... and, much to my surprise, it works again! Amazing. Thanks for the pointer.
I have this situation, too. Pages, version 11.2 (7032.0.145). I'm a veteran Pages user, and this is a new problem. I can quit Pages and reopen it (without restarting my Mac entirely) to regain the Find function, but I believe the Find disfunction is a bug that should be fixed.
For what it's worth I had a broken search function for a specific Pages document. The easy fix was to copy and paste the original content to a new page document which, for the new document, corrected the problem.
Even_dead, you don't even have to quit Pages. Just close the document and reopen. And don't neglect to complain bitterly about this bug. Just click on Pages (next to the Apple icon) and hit Send Feedback.
It worked! I followed the suggestions just like UncleFlinsky listed, and once I did, my search and find started functioning. I had turned my computer off and on dozens of times before, but somehow, with turning the computer off and on twice without trying to use Pages, the search and find function returned. Thank you, UncleFlinsky!
Definitely a bug. I'm happy that some users don't experience this problem. For those of us who do, try just closing and reopening the document. That's working a treat me. For me, I don't have to close everything down, reboot, etc.
Pages 11.2 - Find and Replace Not Working
