These formatting challenges in Apple Books for Authors (Pages or the Books editor) are common when working with long, pre-existing documents. Here are targeted solutions for each issue you're experiencing:
Issue 1: Inconsistent alignment and indentation changes
This happens when the document has mixed or conflicting paragraph styles. To fix:
- Select the text you want to change
- In the Format sidebar (right side), look at the Paragraph Style at the top
- If it shows "None" or a mixed state, choose a clean paragraph style like "Body" or create a new one
- Apply alignment/indentation to that style consistently
Issue 2: Underlined names and titles behaving oddly
- Select the underlined text
- Check if the underline is part of a character style (Format > Font > Character Styles) vs manual formatting
- If it's manual (Cmd+U applied), it should be easier to control alignment/indentation without affecting the underline
- If it's a character style, you may need to clear the style and re-apply formatting manually
Issue 3: Automatic list detection (numbers/lists)
To disable automatic list formatting:
1. Go to Pages menu (or the editor app) > Settings/Preferences
2. Find Auto-Correction or Editing settings
3. Look for "Automatically Detect Lists" or "Smart Lists" and turn it OFF
4. Alternatively: Edit menu > Undo Automatic List (Cmd+Z) immediately after it auto-converts
Issue 4: Working with a converted long digital file
- Long files converted from other formats (Word, PDF, etc.) often have inconsistent styles
- Consider selecting all text (Cmd+A), then in the paragraph styles panel, apply a single base style throughout, then re-apply specific styles (headings, names) where needed
- This gives you a clean formatting baseline
If you're using Pages, the Pages User Guide at Pages User Guide for Mac - Apple Support has detailed help on paragraph styles.
