On my old Lion system I used to be able to drag and drop an image from iphoto into an object shape opened up in Pages. I can't seem to be able to do this any more. Has the system changed? I've tried using Inspector (as per Help) but it won't let me access the right photo file.
iMac, OS X El Capitan (10.11.5)
You can drag/drop an image into a shape in Pages '09 v4.3, but this cannot be done in any release of Pages v5. Entirely different applications, and the newer Pages lost about 100 features that were present in its antecedent.
Check to see if you have Pages '09 v4.3 in your Applications : iWork '09 folder. If so, use that.
Pages v5 requires that you select a shape, and then from the Image tab in the right-panel, you choose Image Fill, Scale to Fill, and then select your image for the background. You cannot select this image from within the shape, but you can add text to the shape that will appear over your image.
In Pages 5.6.2 I can drag and drop onto a new Shape from Finder, and Photos and Aperture via Media but not from iPhoto.
Media is horrendously slow at populating the images in the the Photos and Aperture Libraries, but eventually gets them.
The big difference in Pages 5.6.2 compared with Pages '09, is that Shapes lose their Placeholder abilities after an image is dragged into them. If you reinstate the Placeholder setting for the shape, it then sticks, which indicates to me either yet another bad User Interface decision or yet another bug in Pages 5.6.2. There are so many of either you don't have to go far to find them.
Why not just stick with Pages '09?
Peter
Thanks for this. I have checked the info for my Pages (inside the Work 09 folder) and it does say v 4.3 so it should work but doesn't. Would this version have been lost when I upgraded to El C a couple of months ago? Another suggestion is that I could just stick to using Pages 09. If I don't have this do you know how I can get it back?
I tried all that P v5 system of choose Image Fill, Scale to Fill and select image. But having done all that I couldn't get it to go any further. ideas for this?
I agree that using Pages '09 is best, but how can I get it back onto my Mac. I assume that I lost it when I upgraded to El Cap. You'll see more of what I've tried in my reply to Viking OS X. I'm really stuck (and not very technical).
Pages '09 v4.3 is working on my OS X 10.11.6 installation. How did you originally install Pages '09 before the El Capitan update?
If you purchased Pages '09 as an individual application from the OS X App Store, it is a self-contained application, and can be restored from your backups. If you applied the Apple iWork 9.3 updater to this App Store purchased Pages '09, then it is destroyed. If you originally installed from the iWork '09 DVD, then use that, and follow that installation with the DVD-specific Apple iWork 9.3 updater. That will get you to Pages '09 v4.3, the last release version.
If you no longer have the iWork '09 DVD, then you can purchase a new one from Amazon or Ebay resellers, and then apply the preceding linked Apple updater to that installation.
Your last sentence. Once you have selected the shape, clicked on the Style tab, set it to Fill : Image Fill : Scale to Fill, and Choose... your image — you are done. You should have a shape with an image background — operative term here is background.
Keyword for Pages v5.6.2 is onto, but not within a new shape, for drag/drop action.
Because I have iPhoto v9.6.1 on OS X 10.11.6, I have access to Photos and iPhoto libraries from the Pages '09 v4.3 media browser — where I can drag/drop from either library onto my Pages document.
You have not lost any of the iWork '09 Apps they are all in your Applications/iWork '09 folder, unless you deliberately deleted them.
Can you clarify what you mean when you say you want to drag images into your shapes?
1. To fill the shape as I understand it?
or
2. To sit inline within text inside the Shape as Viking suggest?
Peter
Dragging and dropping an image into a shape in Pages '09 v4.3 automatically turns it into a media placeholder, and one cannot simply double-click to initiate a layer of text over it, as one might in just the shape itself. Any text will need to come from an overlayed text box.
Well, I have managed to do what I wanted - to put a background image into my shape. I used the Inspector system which did work. However, it will only supply me with a choice of photographs in my 'Pictures' file. So I transferred the photographs I wanted from my old iPhoto file into Pictures and access them from there.
This seems like a very roundabout way to do it. Actually, what I wanted to do was access the right photograph album (Photos, iPhoto or Aperture) from the Image fill button. But I couldn't find a way to do that.
I'm unimpressed that the new El C system has lost some of the features that I liked and found so easy to use. That's life.
Two answers here:
1) I didn't delete anything , as far as I know. I'll look into my apps in more detail. The whole system was originally was installed in-house at the Apple Store when I bought my Mac. The only thing I've done since then is to upgrade the operating system once or twice over time. Wish I hadn't bothered with El Capitan, but I had reached a point where I felt I had no option as some parts of my old Mountain Lion system weren't working properly.
2) Yes, I want to fill the shape with an image - ie put in a background - which is what I've now done. I have managed to do it with help from you and Viking - you can read how I did it in my earlier reply. But as I said in in that email it seems so complicated, when in the old system it was so easy.
The Image Fill : Choose ... Scale to Fill approach always defaults to the Pictures folder, or allows you to select other parts of your directory structure for images. If does not provide an interface to the toolbar's media tool. This is true in Pages '09 v4.3, and Pages v5.6.2.
In Pages '09 v4.3, you can insert a shape, and then open the media tool, and drag/drop an image onto the shape and it becomes a background media placeholder. You will need iPhoto v9.6.1 on Yosemite or El Capitan for the iPhoto library to be available in the Pages media tool. There is a minimum version of Aperture that is required for this too, but that version eludes me.
Pages v5.6.2 will allow you to drag/drop an image from its Media tool onto a shape, and it becomes a Media placeholder in the background of the shape. You drag your shape around until it frames the desired area of your image, then you click outside of the image to set it in the shape. Because it is a media placeholder, you can drag/drop other images on it to automatically resize them, and replace the original.
I think we need to be careful about using the word background when referring to Shapes.
A background fill is a different beast to the normal masked Image (image cropped by the shape) and behaves very differently. It can't be easily repositioned or sized for a start. As it works I think it is pretty useless. You are better having a masked image overlaid with a Textbox and grouping the pair.
The only acceptable use in a designer's eye's would be a bold pull quote or photo/illustration with reversed out caption over the image. The text on wallpaper that so many use it for is ugly and illegible.
Peter
how do I drag and drop a photo image into an object shape?
