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 have this problem frequently. So far, it works to just close that specific pages file and then opening it again. But honestly, it's super annoying and stupid. Can I throw my (minuscule) weight behind an effort to get Apple to pay attention to this? Does someone have a link to that?
It pains me to say this, but when I bought the original 128k Macintosh computer it came bundled with MacWrite 1.0 — which included a fully functional “Find” and “Find & Replace” command. Apple might have done a lot of innovating since 1983, but to not have a working FIND & REPLACE function in today’s PAGES is hard to justify.
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.
Hey all,
I've been struggling with this same issue for months, and just had an Apple Tech Support Person (Thanks, Josh!) help me find the true glitch and fix it!
UncleFlinsky's answer below was not a fix for me. But Josh figured out that some of my individual Pages documents had gotten corrupted somehow, leading to the Find/Replace feature not working. The solution was to Select All-Copy-Paste to a new Pages document, and in the new document, Find/Replace works perfectly!
In my work flow, I do a lot of Duplication (aka "Save As") to start a new document with an existing template. I believe this is what led to the corruption and the Find/Replace ceasing to work. All of the documents that have had the Find/Replace feature break are ones that had been duplicated multiple times.
Hope this is helpful to someone else!
I am currently running Pages version 12.1 and I am experiencing the same problem. I did once go through a stop-everything-restart-and-repeat cycle that did work. that approach is not acceptable. But search and replace on the iPad has not failed me, so that is my work around.
It's now August 2022, and I just want to reiterate that the Search/Find feature in Pages 11.2 is still defective. This is an essential word processing function, and it is very disappointing that Apple has not fixed it.
To clarify - when I open a Pages document, the feature does work, but only for a short while. If I come back to the document later it no longer works. The workaround is, whenever I need to search for a word within a Pages document, I have to close the document, reopen it, and perform the search immedicately.
not found??? How come ???
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.
That did it!! Woo hoo!!! Thanks a bunch!
Strange! It's working now!
rebooted in safe mode - same problem. restarted normally, now it is working again
It's beyond absurd that not only is this a solution but that it's the Apple Recommended one. Regardless, thanks anyway.
Thank you UncleFinsky!!!!
Had the same issue with the find option not working. I've closed all the active windows, quit the Pages. Then, I opened Pages and my most recent document and the feature is working again. Weird bug.
Seems the bug is still in place... I successfully followed your method Benjamin (many thanks) but the bug returns after a restart. I hope Apple will address this problem soon.
Pages 11.2 - Find and Replace Not Working
