How to change strikethrough color in Pages?

I've struggled for years to change the color of my Strikethrough lines on a medical prescriptions document, a document that gets modified monthly. Long ago the Strikethroughs (of drugs no longer used) that I generated were all black. Somewhere along the line new Strikethroughs became red, perhaps somehow associated with my making only the prescribing doctors' names in the same row red, but that was the case even back when Strikethroughs were all automatically black, so who knows. Thus, now I have a list of changed-out drugs that are partly black struck through and partly red struck through.


A 3 year-old similar thread here talks about there being a button associated with and/or next to the Strikethrough style one that had a "Color" option in its menu. But that was for Pages 13, and now mine is Pages version 15.3.1. There is no color option that I can find associated with Strikethrough; I thought it used to be that the color palette was used for that if Strikethrough was pressed, but relentless attempts to get the line to change from red to black haven't worked. Under "Character Styles" field are only "None*" and "Link"; unlike the older thread's suggestions, there is in my version no "Color" button in that menu.


How can I get all the red strikethrough lines in my document converted to the more easily seen black? If it's possible, then there should be a much more obvious way to switch line colors.

MacBook Pro 16″, macOS 26.6

Posted on Sep 2, 2026 7:36 PM

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4 replies

Sep 3, 2026 1:07 AM in response to Hafcanadian

Addendum:

After posting this question, I managed to ferret out a way to change the Strikeout line color.

With the Text management column (aka Format and Style) open alongside the document, I found that if you select/highlight struck out sections of text and click on the "downarrow" in the top field in the column that shows "Standard*" (or some other text form with an asterisk identifying the current text form), a menu of text forms appears. Scroll down to the checkmarked text form, slide right to click on the ">", and choose "Clear Override" from the menu, the red strikethrough line disappears.


Back on the main Format and Style column, click on the Strikethrough icon next and the highlighted text is struck through in black. Problem solved? Nope. The override may have taken the entire textline back to a previous format, with larger or smaller font and/or a misaligned text line, all of which will need adjustments. At least we know how to do those more common basics.


If there's another, simpler method for changing out strikethrough line colors, please advise. The issue has befuddled me for several years, as is often the case when answers are buried in a bunch of sequential menus. The key words for this rectification are "Clear Override", a term I passed over often, not understanding its significance. I'm not sure I yet do, but it was briefly mentioned in one thread or Help section that I read earlier today. At that time it didn't seem to be all that relevant, seemed more complex than what I simply wanted to do, and I didn't understand what I was reading. So I paid it inadequate heed. I am glad I opted to finally click on it to see what happens. :)

How to change strikethrough color in Pages?

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