I want to change the colours of my text in Pages

Question

Level 1

5 points

I want to change the colours of my text in Pages

I write lengthy pieces of fiction, and I use Scrivener because anyone who has tried to write a piece of fiction spanning 100,000 words knows, word processors are awful for it. Being able to jump from chapter to chapter with the click of a button is like a dream.

Unfortunately, even agents and publishers seem to be unaware of the virtues of Scrivener, and insist that everything be sent as a word document. Which brings me to the problem I have now. When I export text of any kind in any manner from Scrivener, the formatting will be inconsistent. To put it nicely. Segments of text will end up with different background and text colours from the rest. And this is where Pages is really blowing my mind, because although the disgusting and tiresome "styles" system allows me to change the colour of text, a crowbar and dynamite has failed to turn up any semblance of an option to change the background colour.

So I have a huge segment of black background, white text, amidst a document that is formatted properly (formatted to expectations, anyway... your monitor is NOT a piece of paper, people who have only been using computers since it got popular). No option anywhere to say hey, the background of this paragraph is supposed to be white and the text black. Only to change the text.

Oh yeah, some of the paragraphs are formatted white text on white background.

Where is the option to change the background, Apple?

MacBook Pro 16″, macOS 15.2

Posted on Dec 17, 2024 3:03 AM

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Answer 1

Dec 17, 2024 5:46 AM in response to DeanSad

You should be using Scrivener 3.4.0 or later. Send your agents and publishers content in the format that they request. Scrivener can export to Word .docx and that ought to be sufficient. If it is mangling your Word visual content, then you should be in touch with Scrivener support. I do not use Scrivener and am puzzled by your background and font color conundrum after exporting from Scrivener.

If your recipients in the second sentence above expect and will review your documents in MS Word, whether on Windows or Mac, then you should be sending them that content. When you open a Word document in Pages, it attempts to translate the Word document contents into Pages internal (.pages) document format. Apple does not guarantee this translation will be accurate. The donor Word document remains unchanged and uneditable in Pages.

When you choose to export Pages content back to MS Word, another translation takes place, and features used in Pages that are not present in MS Word will be dropped. The resultant Word document may not look anywhere close to what you think you saw in Pages when opened by your recipients in MS Word — or even in the Finder's Quick Look. Sending a Word document that may appear as an aberration to your recipients, and cause them more work may not endear you to them.

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Answer 2

Vancouver22

Level 8

36,818 points

Dec 17, 2024 3:13 AM in response to DeanSad

see: Change the page background in Pages on Mac - Apple Support

Or use a Text Box from the tool menu.

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