mountainvideo
Level 1 (4 points)
iWork

Q: Unable to Select Single Character

I'm unable to select single characters in Pages documents using my trackpad. I left-click w/one finger and select with the other, as I have always done and can do in this online editor. The character will show blue highlighting but as soon as I lift my left finger from the trackpad to type, the highlighting disappears. For a while, I thought it wasn't possible to replace a selection in a document with typing, as the typing would always be inserted next to the original characters. This feature works occasionally but doesn't work most of the time.

 

Using Pages 5.6.2 & El Capitan.

MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Late 2013), OS X El Capitan (10.11.6)

Posted on Sep 18, 2016 9:33 AM

by VikingOSX,Solvedanswer
VikingOSX VikingOSX
Level 7 (21,500 points)
Mac OS X
A:

I just got out my external trackpad. With the default 11 pt Helvetica regular text, and document at 100% zoom, I was able to reproducibly select a single character, and paste to confirm it. My technique is to left-click with my thumb, and then slightly roll my index finger to the right to select.

 

Your other option is to increase your zoom to the next zoom level to give yourself a larger selection target.

Posted on Sep 19, 2016 11:47 AM

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mountainvideo

Q: Unable to Select Single Character

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  • Helpful answers

  • by PeterBreis0807,Helpful

    PeterBreis0807 PeterBreis0807 Sep 19, 2016 8:43 AM in response to mountainvideo
    Level 8 (35,825 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 19, 2016 8:43 AM in response to mountainvideo

    I am not on a Mac at the moment but you can use a combination of arrow keys + shift + option keys to select individual characters, words, lines, paragraphs and entire documents.

     

    Experiment.

     

    Peter

  • by VikingOSX,Helpful

    VikingOSX VikingOSX Sep 19, 2016 8:43 AM in response to mountainvideo
    Level 7 (21,500 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 19, 2016 8:43 AM in response to mountainvideo

    Click in front of the character that you want to select. Then, press the shift key, and click behind the character that you want to select.

  • by mountainvideo,

    mountainvideo mountainvideo Sep 19, 2016 8:50 AM in response to mountainvideo
    Level 1 (4 points)
    iWork
    Sep 19, 2016 8:50 AM in response to mountainvideo

    Thanks very much!

    I don't think these ideas are solutions--I should be able to select a single character w/the trackpad--but they are helpful. It's one less keystroke to just press delete and type, which is what I have been doing. Why I can select two characters and not one w/the trackpad in Pages is a strange quirk which makes no sense to me.

  • by VikingOSX,Solvedanswer

    VikingOSX VikingOSX Sep 19, 2016 11:47 AM in response to mountainvideo
    Level 7 (21,500 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 19, 2016 11:47 AM in response to mountainvideo

    I just got out my external trackpad. With the default 11 pt Helvetica regular text, and document at 100% zoom, I was able to reproducibly select a single character, and paste to confirm it. My technique is to left-click with my thumb, and then slightly roll my index finger to the right to select.

     

    Your other option is to increase your zoom to the next zoom level to give yourself a larger selection target.

  • by mountainvideo,

    mountainvideo mountainvideo Sep 19, 2016 12:23 PM in response to VikingOSX
    Level 1 (4 points)
    iWork
    Sep 19, 2016 12:23 PM in response to VikingOSX

    Seems like selecting single characters starts to work reliably for me at 150% w/12pt text. The issue seems to be how narrowly Pages defines the selection, compared to other word processing software I've used. Selecting part of the character/letter should be sufficient but Pages doesn't accept the character selection unless it includes roughly 50% of the white space between two characters.

     

    Thank you everyone for being so helpful!

  • by mountainvideo,

    mountainvideo mountainvideo Sep 28, 2016 9:50 AM in response to mountainvideo
    Level 1 (4 points)
    iWork
    Sep 28, 2016 9:50 AM in response to mountainvideo

    This bug is fixed in Pages 6 for Sierra.