It's unbelievable that you still can't vertically align your content in Pages. Insult to injury, OS-X prints 4x6 Word docs as solid black pictures. Sad.

Question

It's unbelievable that you still can't vertically align your content in Pages. Insult to injury, OS-X prints 4x6 Word docs as solid black pictures. Sad.

It's so frequently necessary to center your simple text content vertically on a page, yet Pages can't do it. Nor can Open Office Text Documents. Word does it quite easily. Word Perfect did it in 1985. (Yes NINETEEN EIGHTY.) I think it's because these programs are based in XML - ?? I recall learning how to code XHTML and there being no way to vertically align content other than using tables, which is really, really, really stupid. Can't put enough "reallys" in there. Now, all of a sudden, OS-X Yosemite 10.10, when printing my 4"x6" landscape index card notes created in Word, prints a solid black "photo" instead of my content. I'm going back to a typewriter I think. Worked for 100 years, where modern software works for maybe 2 weeks, if it works at all.

MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Mid 2014), OS X Yosemite (10.10.1)

Posted on Nov 13, 2015 8:18 PM

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Answer 1

Yellowbox

Level 7

21,939 points

Nov 14, 2015 12:49 AM in response to Johnny Simpson

Hi Johnny,

Pages has Alignment Guides.

Menu > Pages > Preferences > Rulers

When centring a Text Box (or any other object) on the page, the Alignment Guides tell when the object is centred.

I can't post a screen shot of the Guides in action because they politely disappear when I let go of the Trackpad or Mouse.

Also, Menu > View > Show Rulers is handy.

Make sure that the object is Floating (Pages '09) or Stay on Page (Pages 5).

Tested in Pages '09 (Pages 4.3) and Pages 5.5.3

Regards,

Ian

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Answer 2

VikingOSX

Level 10

123,332 points

Nov 14, 2015 1:45 AM in response to Johnny Simpson

No version of Pages is a Word clone, or comes with an Apple guarantee that it is 100% Word compatible. Opening and exporting Word documents is a translation exercise, and even Pages v5.6.1 does not fully support the Word 2013, or Office 2016 for Mac document format. If you need better Word compatibility, and want to work in the native Word document architecture, then use Word. It has 32 years of development effort in it.

You can click one button in Pages v5.6.1 and center text vertically all day long. The same is true in OpenOffice, LibreOffice, ad infinitum. I have now used about 30+ word processors and DTP packages dating all the way back to UNIX troff — long before the original Word for Mac, and never had an issue centering text on a page. I really have even centered lines of text on a web page without tables.

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Answer 3

Nov 15, 2015 3:54 PM in response to Yellowbox

Hi Ian. Thanks for the reply. I tried checking the Enable vertical ruler... option as you suggested. Unfortunately, I'm not trying to align a text box or object. I want to vertically align text. For example, open a blank Pages document, type "I want to align this text vertically on the page, as if it was a report title page, for example.", and now... center that sentence vertically on the page. Inserting blank rows above it is not a solution. Neither is putting it in a table cell as big as the page, which comes with its own set of nightmares. Nor do I want to make a document of text boxes. In Microsoft Word (for Mac or PC), I can center text relative to a page, for either a section or the whole document. I haven't used WordPerfect since the early 1990s, but it worked in that software, too. If you have a solution for that, please let me know.

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Answer 4

Nov 15, 2015 4:02 PM in response to VikingOSX

Hi VikingOSX. I am not trying to export or open any documents created in one software application, in another. I am perfectly happy using Word (although if I could still use the 1987 version of WordPerfect, I would). As I stated above, my problem is, Word documents (created with Word for Mac, on a Mac) will no longer PRINT via my Mac. I get solid black pages (in this case, 4x6 index cards).

Printing index cards seems to still work, however, with other word processing applications. I have both Pages and Open Office installed on my Mac. However, you cannot, without the use of tables or text boxes, center text vertically on a page using either of those applications. Unless I'm wrong, of course. You stated, "You can click one button in Pages v5.6.1 and center text vertically all day long." ... please, DO SHARE which button that is and where I can find it. I've got Pages v5.6.1, too. Thanks.

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Answer 5

VikingOSX

Level 10

123,332 points

Nov 15, 2015 4:39 PM in response to Johnny Simpson

I misunderstood what you had said previously, and your last post above triggered in my mind what you really want to do. Here is the Pages v5.6.1 approach to a document page centered Title. Unfortunately not one or two clicks. Show Invisibles is enabled for the image below.

Enter your title, select, and increase the font size (e.g. 36 pt). Alignment is centered. Place your insertion point before the title.
View menu : Show Rulers (Enable vertical ruler in Preferences)
At the bottom of the horizontal ruler, pull a guide down to the 5 inch mark on the vertical ruler (standard margins, header/footer settings)
In Spacing
1. Set to Exactly
2. Set value to 373 pt (will center title on 5 inch guideline)

Looks like this:

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Answer 6

Nov 15, 2015 8:19 PM in response to VikingOSX

Essentially, you're just making the line height 1/2 the size of the page. (Not sure what effect "pulling a guide" has.) It's a viable workaround if I wanted to center a title on the page (like in the simplified example I used). I would think just hitting enter and inserting blank rows above your title accomplishes the same thing, but more easily.

With my 4x6 notecards, I'm writing notes on them - like flashcards, for studying. I want the content, which is just text, centered horizontally and vertically. This workaround won't work for that as I have many notes that are more than one line.

On the bright side, I updated my OS to El Capitan, then updated Word, which had a critical update waiting after I updated my OS, and wallah... I can print index cards from Word again.

I just wish it wasn't so hard. All this energy put into "improving" things - re-inventing the wheel. Such a waste an nuisance in my humble opinion. "If it ain't broke..." as the saying goes.

Thank you (and Ian) for taking your time out to try and help. That, I sincerely appreciate.

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