How can I put a border around my page, or around text?
I rarely use Pages. Only when Textedit won't do something.
I want a frame (or box or border or whatever you want to call it) around my page. I haven't been able to figure it out from the Help. I found something about a "text box" but that seems to require creating the box first.
Thanks a lot!
Also, it seems that you don't have any control over where a text box is when you create it. There must be something I'm missing here.
You don't say whether you've got Pages 1 or Pages 2.
The techniques are a little bit different. But in either one, you might find it easier to follow this to begin by choosing "View / Show Layout from the menu.
In Pages 1, you create a text box from the insert menu, choosing insert / text.
In Pages 2, you can simply click on the T icon in the toolbar. Use View / Customise Toolbar if it's not there, and put it there.
The text box will show on your page. Where it is doesn't matter: you can size and move it wherever you want - including
outside the layout margins of your page. Just be aware that what you can print may depend on your printer. Some (mostly lasers nowadays) won't print to the edge of the page.
To size and move your text box, you click on the margin outside it and then select / all (Command / a) to put handles on it. If this doesn't let you move it, or it springs back once you have, then go to the Arrange menu and send it back. This is because when forward it can be confined by other things on the page - even provision for a header or footer in the blank template, for example: so you might not necessarily see what's stopping it being moved.
But Pages is a hands on program. It's always harder to describe what you do than it is to do it. Play around with it; get the hang of it. OK, so now you've got your text box. Now bring up an Inspector box, and choose the Object Inspector: the one with the square and the circle. That's where you put your borders in. Choose the line style, the colour, and point size you want, and there you are. You can do this with other text already entered: the box will hide it if the box is at the front, but if it's sent back text or other objects there when you started the box will show (and print) through it.
You can border your page with shapes in much the same way, but a text box is maybe the simplest. And you can also overlay text boxes or other objects if you want multiple borders, special effects, or when you really get into it, line and border fonts you can get from 3rd party suppliers. A freeware example is "Borders" and you can search for it in Mac OsX downloads.
Some printers will also allow you to surround your page with a border. If so, you'll find it simpler, but the border will go where the printer wants, and you'll only be able to set margins, which it will follow.
Here's a tip: if you want objects you work with centred on the page sometimes, you can choose in Pages preferences to have guidelines originate from the centre of your object as you move it across the centre of your page. When you get two of them, your object is centred. But be careful if you've set up for facing pages with the margins different: there's one centre for a left page, and another for the right one.
Too hard? Not if you use the program. You'll find out what's there, and use it easily. But Pages is not a toy, and it's not a mere text editor. Don't waste your money by letting it rot. Learn it, and you'll be astonished at what it can do.
You can also do borders with other objects, like shapes, and the principles are much the same. Choose what best suits your project, once you know what's there. But Text Edit? You've got to be joking. It's like the old IBM/DOS one with fonts thrown in. Better learn Pages before it bores you to death!
I have the same query. But, is there a way to make a border
without making a text box? I want the border to appear all around my document. Is this even possible? I haven't found any options with this.
Putting a border around a page is simple. First, place a rectangular object on the page. Using the inspector set the object to be fixed on the page with no wrapping. Set the object's color and stroke to whatever you want. Now drag it to size and arrange it on the page as you want it. In the Arrange menu, send the shape to the back and lock it on the page. Now set your document's margins so they are inside the box—to see this better, in the View menu turn on show format. You can use a variation of this technique to put a border around a text box.
You can use this same method to create the border, but then go to Format > Advanced > Move Object to Subject Master. This will make this object appear for each page in that section. I don't know if it would carry over to a new section, but I doubt it. If you want to reuse this set up, save the document as a template.
It actually does carry over to the new section, when the new section is created, but it is just a copy of the initial master object. This means that modifications to the frame on the first page will not be carried over.
But if you're sure what kind of frame you want from the start, then that shouldn't be any issue.
You are right - I forgot that step - and it will carry over.
BTW, there is one annoying feature of creating a border. If you duplex (print on both sides) on cheap paper and the border isn't perfectly centered you get an unattractive shadow border. And since most inexpensive printers are off-center by as much as a quarter inch you will almost never get the border perfectly centered.
Ok, thanks for all of your help. I've had a little trouble following all of the directions since I'm not that fluent in Pages speak. I do use Pages regularly, but when it comes to all of those formatting tricks, I'm lost! LOL 🙂
Apart from the Download, "Borders" (search for it in MacOsX software - I haven't found any need for it myself), this is the main way it's done in Pages. But some printers do have a border option in the Print Dialogue Box if you choose "Layout" from the third button down, which opens with the scrolling triangles at the right of it. My iP90 gives four options here, but whether yours provides any you would need to check yourself.
You can also border other shapes, charts and tables in Pages - and incidentally even with the basic text box you can put this all around your page layout if you wish. You may have to use the "Arrange" options to send it back or bring it forward to work on it, but you can overlay other material, and are not confined to your layout margins as to how big it is or where you put it within the physical size of your page - or your printer's actual coverage.
There may be other ways too, if you're using page lining and bordering fonts; which may either supply both vertical and horizontal elements, as well as corners - or else require rotation or manipulation as "objects" - which in Pages are generally handled within boxes or shapes.
But frankly, especially in Pages 2, text boxes are a cinch, and it's well worth while to spend some time sussing out what you can do with them. You can do it all in Pages 1. Pages 2 has only made it a little bit less fussy.
Although I daresay it would be a caution that if you're trying to use them for borders, it wouldn't be a good idea to leave text wrapping around them. So check that "object causes wrap" is deselected in the Object Inspector if you're having trouble using them for anything other than "callouts." But I see that others have told you that too. It's a common cause of "Page Rage," to coin a phrase for some beginners' disappointment.
It's a common cause of "Page Rage," to coin a phrase for some
beginners' disappointment.
And partly the reason why I hope in the next version of Pages we get more control over default states either in preferences or templates.
I'm of the opinion that
every option we can set in the Inspector (or elsewhere) should be saved when we create a template. I want to set the zoom, where the window will open on the screen, the state of the style window, stroke color and size, fill color (texture, whatever), tabs, wrap state, etc.
You've seen an article in a newspaper or magazine that had a short quote embedded in the column or off to the side, right? Often (always?) this short quote will be bounded top and bottom by a line. This is a callout.
And I also want, for experienced users too, an automatic return to the screen you had before opening comments after you've used them and closed it: for the styles drawer to make space for itself if you need to open it, and then return to your previous screen set-up when you close it, etc.
I'll put in feedback when I've got the full list (only had Pages 2 for a week) but I certainly hope others will do the same. Pages deserves to be got just right, and Apple pride themselves on their GUIs, so we've a right to expect them to fix these things. I just hope we don't have to wait for Pages 3.
