Drop down menu / quick input

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Level 1

8 points

Drop down menu / quick input

Hi!

In my job I need to type up reports to send off to the customers and I use the same phrases and inputs quite a lot so I was wondering if there was anyway of inserting a drop down box or something similar so i don't have to type it in i can just select it from a drop down menu or something.

For example I have to enter a risk rating into every report and it goes from 1 (low risk) to 20 (high risk) and i wanted a way to quickly put this into a report without typing it (I do roughly 150 reports a week so will speed things up a lot!)

Thanks in advance!

Mac Pro, iOS 9.2.1

Posted on Feb 12, 2016 1:41 PM

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Answer 1

Feb 12, 2016 2:29 PM in response to Jimbodini99

There is no drop down panel support for frequent text that you describe in any version of Pages.

Input all of your risk ratings and any special styling in a separate Pages document. Open that alongside your report. Then copy/paste either the text of the rating that you want between documents, or from the Format menu copy/paste styles if you have those risk ratings styled a special way. This auxiliary document is the least complicated to provide you copy/paste support.

You could create a custom report template that uses Placeholder text. Your report is boilerplate text except for certain words or phrases that you mark in a special way so that you click on them and replace only that text. That special way is via the Format menu : Advanced : Define as Placeholder Text. The selected text will then have a salmon color background. When you have your sample report appropriately built, then save as a template. Placeholder Text fields give your template a formless, form-like behavior, but are only single-use.

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