text formatting in combined cells of tables

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text formatting in combined cells of tables

I am trying to explain german verb conjugation to my son, and to that means i created a table in Pages, with the person, the stem and the suffixes in a different column. The last column then consists of the complete form for that person, achieved by the formula " =(ColumnB) & (ColumnC)"

I formatted column B as Black Text, Column C as Red text, and was expecting the last column to maintain this formatting, rendering te stem in black, and the suffixes in Red. This expected behavior doesn't quite deliver:

The formatting seems to behave randomly; "ich mache" and "du machst" behave as expected, "er macht" loses its formatting (but "ihr macht" suddenly regains it again). "Wir machen" and "Sie machen" also randomly seem to lose or gain formatting.

Adding a third column for past tense further complicates the issue. I can't seem to find the logic in this behavior. Any clue as to where i can look for an answer?

Pages 5.5.2 on OSX 10.10.2

MacBook, OS X Yosemite (10.10)

Posted on Mar 5, 2015 4:15 AM

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Answer 1

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VikingOSX

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Mar 5, 2015 5:45 AM in response to Jan-Joost

You will have solution consistency when you use the concatenate(string1, string2) text formula for consistent results in Pages v5.5.2 or Numbers v3.5.2.

So, for your formula in D2, it would be =concatenate(B2, C2). After the return, you duplicate this formula downwards by clicking on the D2 cell. You will see a yellow grip at the cell bottom, click and hold on this yellow dot until the entire cell border is yellow. Now drag downwards and the formula will be applied in cell Dn for rows 3 - 6.

Duplicating your data and coloration, I too, had consistency issues until I switched to the concatenate text function.

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Answer 2

Jan-Joost Author

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Mar 5, 2015 7:24 AM in response to VikingOSX

Brilliant! Concatenate worked like a charm! Thanks!

In fact, i think it's pretty powerful for a wordprocessor to have this kind of functionality. Looking more at the iWork suite is starting to pay off!

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Answer 3

Jan-Joost Author

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Mar 5, 2015 7:29 AM in response to Jan-Joost

Sorry; pushed the "this solved my question" icon on my own reply 😊 😮.

All credits go to VikingOSX! Thanks!

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Answer 4

Mar 5, 2015 7:40 AM in response to Jan-Joost

Looks like you found a new toy, and by the way, alittle self-adulation is import for continued mental stimulation. Have fun with the German lessons. 😁

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