Hide a section and/or page

Question

Level 1

8 points

Hide a section and/or page

Hello.

Just a disclaimer, I used this 'support communities' before reading answers to other's questions, this time I spend a lot of time already on google and apple and I still haven't found the answer (if it exists just link it, I must have missed it, sorry).

I have a Pages document, already split into 5 sections, over next months I will be adding new pages and sections (reaching few dozens of sections with few A3 pages each). I want to keep all that work together in one file (sometimes I need to refer to older pages, look up something, also that makes transferring files between computers and backing-up easier), but on daily basis I work only with last section, rest is taking up space on sidebar and makes it hard to navigate if I need to read one sentence, that I know is on one of first pages). Is there any way I can 'hide' those pages or an entire section? In other words to make them not visible when scrolling through the document, and appear only as a heading in 'page thumbnails', while still having them in this file, keeping track of page number etc.?

I want to have effect like in Numbers where I can have multiple tables and charts in one sheets, and I can hide/show different sheets at the same time (well I can have only one sheet open in main window because of how Numbers works, but even making it organised in 'page thumbnails/sheets' means a lot) I would like to have multiple pages in one section, and have ability to expand/collapse a section. Is that possible? Or should I just get used to longer and longer scrolling over time?

Thank You for reading and helping.

~ Kris

OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.1)

Posted on Sep 24, 2012 2:46 PM

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Answer 1

Sep 24, 2012 4:32 PM in response to KrisRogo

Not possible and quite hazardous in my opinion.

Have you heard the expression "Putting all your eggs in one basket" ?

You could use the Document Outline view, but will not see most of your formatting:

Menu > View > Show Document Outline

This is really a method of organising and rearranging text. You use it as an alternate view of your document to open and collapse various parts of the structured outline.

If you instead maintained a sequence of documents in a folder in Finder, perhaps using a date or numbering method, you could achieve the same effect and have the advantage of seeing older material next to newer material which is impossible in a single Pages document.

To back up, or transfer, just drag the whole folder to your other destination.

Peter

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Answer 2

Barry

Level 9

60,023 points

Sep 24, 2012 4:39 PM in response to KrisRogo

Hi Kris,

I'm not aware of any way to hide part of a Pages document in this manner, but you might be able to cut down on your scrolling time with one of the two techniques below:

Clicking on a page thumbnail in the sidebar will take you directly to that page. Drop a bright coloured shape (with Wrap turned off) onto key pages, and you'll be able to easily identify the page you want, even without being able to read the text.

Start each section with a 'section number', entered into the text. To navigate to the start of a section, press command-F, type the 'section number', click Find. (If there are numbers in your text, use a combined text and number code to identify each section (eg. sc006 for section 6).

Regards,

Barry

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Answer 3

KrisRogo Author

Level 1

8 points

Sep 24, 2012 5:00 PM in response to PeterBreis0807

I'm doing back-up each day I do changes, in 2 places at least, and I keep an archive of all of the back-ups, so I'm not worried about loosing that stuff. (not to mention 'versions' and iCloud doing the same for me).

Document Outline has one main disadvantage, it works with 'inline' object only, over 90% of my document is 'floating' images and/or text boxes.

Thanks for the tip with folders, I'm doing similar thing already. But the problem is that I have a very specific background elements and layout for most projects and coping them for each document would be more of a hideous additional work then a helpful trick. And in this case I would have to open few files before finding right page, in one file I can see all thumbnails.

I'm a pretty advance user so I don't simply ask for ways around a problem, I figure most of them out on my own or through research. But thanks for trying 🙂.

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Answer 4

KrisRogo Author

Level 1

8 points

Sep 24, 2012 5:09 PM in response to Barry

I can recognise pages from thumbnails quite quick anyway, and I never can be sure what will come in handy later.

Search function is something I may need to start using more often in Pages (I find in natural way to navigate in system and internet, but not in text documents for some strange reason), but I'm not really sure if it will make me work much quicker.

As I replied to PeterBreis, I'm looking for a specific feature / solution, rather then a way to go around this problem, I'm a bit OCD when it comes to organising document. Thank you for input 🙂.

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Answer 5

Sep 24, 2012 5:36 PM in response to KrisRogo

KrisRogo wrote:

I have a very specific background elements and layout for most projects and coping them for each document would be more of a hideous additional work then a helpful trick.

That is what templates are for.

But we all have our own methods of work, which can seem strange to others. 🙂

Peter

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Answer 6

Sep 24, 2012 4:46 PM in response to Barry

Also:

Menu > Insert > Bookmark

Where you want to jump back and forth.

Peter

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