Bold, italics, underlined

The only other way I have figured out (I just got my Mac yesterday ad am still learning the system) to do this, is by key shortcuts. Command-B for bold Command-U for underline etc. I can't figure out how to format the text though. I want it centered on the page. Like you say, this is easy in word but I can't figure it out in Pages.

I think this has been covered, but I'll mention it anyway:

+T brings up your Font options, essentially making it a menu bar item. No, you can't have it sit in the menu bar...but it stays open making it just as functional.

Hope this helps...if you haven't solved this already.

Peace

Glad it helped a bit.

I checked as well....I don't see a way to add a typeface to the +t box....so adding the underlined version of Georgia doesn't seem to be an option at the moment.

If I come across something, I'll be sure to let you know.

At the same time, highlighting what you've typed and using +u is available....as is pressing that before you type whatever it is you're about to type.

Peace

Hi Lindsay,

I'm not sure what's not working for you here. Are you trying to set up Georgia 12 bold italic with underline as a favorite typeface? Lining is not a part of the font (unlike e.g. SchoolHouse Printed A). If you want underlining, you either have to:
1. select it from the font box
2. press command-u, or
3. use the style draw. Go to View>Show Styles Drawer, then at the bottom of the drawer click on the underlined a to show character styles, one of which is underline.

Hope this is at least marginally helpful! As I said, I can get underlined Georgia 12 bold italic, so I'm not quite sure what's not working for you.

In the Font box, right above the list of fonts, there are a series of boxes with "Ts" and a down triangle indicating a drop down menu for the first two. The first is for Underline variations, the second for Strikethrough variations, the third for text color, the fourth for Document Color, and the fifth for Text Shadow. Next are sliders for adjusting the shadow and a wheel for shadow angle.

In the Typeface column (Collections, Family, Typeface. and Size) you will see what is available for your selected typeface. If the characteristic you want is not listed, it is not available for that face. Pages does not create artificial bold or italics, which is why keyboard shortcuts sometimes do not work. The various weights and italics must be specifically drawn for any given typeface.

Walt

To me there is too much mousing already. Keyboard shortcuts are the way to go. Learn them by going to the Pages 'help' menu and select 'keyboard shortcuts.'

I have also modified them so they are the same as some of my other programs. For example, I press:

⌘ +shift +c to center the text on the page. * (see below)

⌘ +[ = align left,

⌘ +] = align right.

and my favorite:
⌘ +shift +> or < to increase and decrease the font. * (see below)


<i>* The two I marked were changed from the default Pages shortcuts. Modify shortcuts by following these instructions from the help menu:

Keyboard shortcuts allow you to quickly perform tasks by pressing keys on the keyboard. You can assign your own keyboard shortcuts to perform menu commands in any Mac OS X application or in the Finder. This may be useful if, for example, one of the "global" shortcuts, which works the same in most applications, is used by one application for a different purpose. In this case, you can assign it a different key combination.
<hr>
Note: You can only create keyboard shortcuts for existing menu commands. You cannot define keyboard shortcuts for general purpose tasks such as opening an application or switching between applications.
<hr>
instructions
1. Quit the application for which you want to add or change a keyboard shortcut. The shortcut will not be added if the application is running when you create the new shortcut.

2. Choose Apple menu > System Preferences and click Keyboard & Mouse. Then click Keyboard Shortcuts.

3. Click the Add ➕ button.

4. Choose an application from the Application pop-up menu. If you want to set the same key combination for a menu command that appears in many applications, choose All Applications. If you want to set a shortcut for the Finder, choose Finder at the top of the list. If the application you want to select does not appear in the list, choose Other and locate the application using the Open dialog. Some applications may not allow you to set keyboard shortcuts.

5. Type the menu command for which you want to set a keyboard shortcut in the Menu Title field.

Tip: You must type the command exactly as it appears in the application menu, including ellipses and any other punctuation. (An ellipsis is a special character that looks like three periods. To type an ellipsis, you can press Option-; or use the Character Palette. It may be difficult to tell whether the command is written in the menu with a real ellipsis or with three periods, so if one does not work, try the other.)

6. Click in the Keyboard Shortcut field and press the key combination that you want to assign to the menu command, and then click Add.

Tip: You cannot use each type of key (for example, a letter key) more than once in a key combination.
<hr>
To remove a customized shortcut, click the Delete ➖ button.

When you restart the application, the new shortcut appears in the application's menu.

<hr>
If you want to go back to the default application shortcuts, click Restore Defaults. This returns all the keyboard shortcuts to their original key combinations.

Kurt

It is a pain in the neck code to type so I have an older version of TextExpander do it for me. I have entered the code in Textpander so that when I type the shortcut: 'command+' I get '⌘ +.'

Great list of html codes here.

Kurt

If you like Georgia, have you considered starting in a blank document, creating a style with that font, and the paragraph and or character formatting you like, then saving it as a template (it's in the File menu) and using Preferences to specify that when you open a New document, use the new template you created. Then every time you create a new document, you'll have a blank document with the predefined style in Georgia, and you're ready to go. If you have some header or footer info, or any body text or graphics as well that you normally use, save the template with all of that in there.

If you have a document whose formatting you already like, open it and save it as a template! Or delete the text you know you'll be deleting in a new document, and save the cleaned out template.

I have templates saved for a lot of things, from simple things like letters, to more complex documents (e.g., patent applications), so that I don't have to recreate any of the formatting choices -- done once, ready to use over and over again. Because I might do any of a variety of things at any one time, I have the Prefs set to open the template dialog, where all my templates are ready to use. It's very easy, and saves me an enormous amount of time.

Just a few suggestions.

Mark

I'm a new Mac user, convinced by all the rhetoric about ease of use etc, and like Lindzzz, I've just discovered that there's no Italic/Bold/Underlining button on the Pages toolbar nor any way of getting one there!

This is pretty bad. Apple should not be falling behind Microsoft in such basic areas. I bought iWork 06 with my new Macbook Pro because I wanted to go for the full Apple experience, but I'm seriously thinking of getting MS Office for Mac now.

iWork does not replace Office. They each have their place on a Mac and you should probably have Office if you plan on working with other people. Most Mac users I know and work with have Office on their computer.

iWork is its own separate program, I would say more closely associated with PowerPoint and Publisher. Once again, not exact duplicates of those programs, but decent applications in their own right.

If you're a recent convert to Mac (as I was last year), you'll find there is a bit of a learning curve to figuring out Mac and how it's used. Stick with it and you'll find things go pretty well after a few months.

Peace

Hi John,

I know it can be confusing, because Pages and Word take different 'philosophical' approaches.

Think about it from a culinary point of view: you want a steak, but you only have vegies and tofu in the fridge. Fine you can dress up the tofu to LOOK like meat and just pretend you've got a steak. Your girlfriend comes to dinner and you say: "Hey, have some steak", but her skills of self-delusion aren't so good and she ends up thinking you're just cheap. You try to convince her: "But it LOOKS like steak, isn't that good enough?" Apparently not.

This is the technique that Word follows. It doesn't care what you have in your font cupboard, it will dress it up to look like whatever you want: "You want italics/bold with that? Fine, here you go. Looks almost like the real thing". The Mac is too picky for this kind of charade: if you don't already have the essentials (if the designer of the font never created a bold or italic form, or if you never bought them) then the Mac isn't going to try dress it up to look like something it's not or was never intended to be. It's up to you as the typographic chef to choose the right ingredient (typeface). Don't think of italic or bold as something you DO to a typeface, it is rather a completely different typeface that needs explicitly to be chosen. I know this is a real annoyance for some users because you are the user after all and the computer should do what you ask of it (regardless of its own quirky philosophies). Underline is different: there you really are adding something to the typeface and Pages will happily do this with a press of a button (located under character styles in the styles drawer). And you're right, at the moment these selections cannot be placed on the toolbar so you have to have the styles drawer open.

Basically, it is not so much that Apple is 'bad' or 'falling behind Microsoft', because Apple is catering to purists and using a purist philosophy in regard to font usage (stemming in no small part from Steve Jobs' own background and interest in typography).

This is certainly NOT to say you shouldn't be complaining. On the contrary, if you don't want to 'think different' submit feedback to the Pages team (Pages > Provide Pages Feedback) and tell them you want next year's Pages 3 to work like Word. You're the user, it's your right.

Thanks for your responses, Kedryn and Stephen!

Yes I take the point about italics being a different font and not just something you do to a font, but the fonts I like - Book Antiqua, Garamond - have italics which are highly complementary to the standard (Roman?) font and aesthetically pleasing in their own right. And all I want to do is italicise a few words for emphasis without having to go through three mouse clicks!

Having said that, I haven't discovered the styles drawer yet so I'll shut up until I know what I'm talking about...

Thanks again guys.

This problem usually arises when someone wants to know why they can't italicise Geneva or Monaco. But yes, Garamond and Book Antiqua (which is basically just Microsoft/Monotype's *********** version of Palatino) DO have a full range of complementary typefaces (as you know).

The easiest way (that I find) on the Mac to italicise is simply to double-click on the word and press command-i (if you hold down the command [] key when double-clicking, you can select separate sections of text). But I know others prefer to click. So: for the styles drawer, click and hold on View in the tool bar and select "show styles drawer", then click on the underlined 'a' on the bottom right of the drawer and this will reveal the character styles. Character styles are a very powerful feature which let you customise an entire range of features, but is you simply want the corresponding italic, an easy way to do this is to select some italic text in your document, then click and hold the plus sign at the bottom of the styles drawer and choose "Create new character style from selection..." A pane scrolls out and asks you for a name (call it something like 'italic') and click OK (or click on the disclosure triangle to see all the different options). This will then give you an option in your character styles (called italic, or whatever you named it) which you can then click on to apply that style. You can use this method for creating dozens of different italic styles if you want - you're not limited to one - and the styles draw will give you a WYSIWYG preview so you can tell them all apart. So feel free to play around.