How to auto capitalize the first letter of every sentence

You can use WordService from DEVONtechnologies, free in the Mac App Store. You will then need to go to System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Services & enable the ones you want. You can then select the text you want to apply the service to & go to Pages > Services & select Initial Caps of Sentences. It is also possible to assign a keyboard shortcut to services. Using this or any similar feature in any word processing application still won't pick up on words within a sentence that should be capitalized such as "I" or proper nouns. You'll also have the problem of it capitalizing words after the period used in an abbreviation.

I do it the old-fashioned way, using the shift key when needed. It's good practice to learn to type using the shift key rather than relying on software to do it for you. Just like using a spell checker. It's good, but it won't pick up on words that are spelled correctly but not the correct spelling for the situation.

Several solutions were offered:

• Use Pages 4.3 (aka Pages '09) , which does include Fix Capitalization as a preference setting. If you used Pages '09, and have not removed it from your computer, it is still there, in a folder named iWork 09, in your Applications folder. Whether Pages 4 works under OS X v10.12 (Sierra) is a question I haven't yet seen an answer to.
  
• Install Word Services, enable Initial Caps of Sentences, choose the service from the Numbers menu before saving your work.
  
• Learn to use the shift keys. (i.e. make that use an automatic part of your process—just like pressing command-s every time you got up and left the keyboard was in the days before Time Machine.
  
• I'd add to the first: Find an application that does offer auto-capitalisation. Pages 6 is not the only WP application for the Mac. MS Word, AbiWord, LibreOffice, Apache OpenOffice all offer this feature. There may be others with this feature as well.

Regards,

Barry

After three years of Pages v5 updates (and now v6), auto-capitalization remains absent.

I used to recommend WordService, until I, and others observed that its Initial Caps of Sentences was also capitalizing other words in the sentence that were not capitalized before the service was applied. This created more corrective work for the end user. I contacted Devon Technologies about this, and they said that it was being looked into. It has been months, and no update to the App Store version of Word Service has occurred.

I had a glimmer of hope when I observed in macOS Sierra that the System Preferences : Keyboard panel : Text panel has additional check boxes, including “Capitalize words automatically.” The caveat is that the application must be programmed to allow this feature, and Pages v6 has not received this intelligence as of this post. I tested it.

I just use the shift key when I am not using Pages '09 v4.3, with its auto-capitalization solution.

Perhaps I was too spartan about my WordService comment, as it has other features (e.g. sorting) that remain practical to the Pages community. I just won't recommend it as an auto-capitalization solution.

The link that you provided is applicable to Pages v6.0.5 and macOS Sierra 10.12.2 or later. However, one is required to have the Edit menu : Substitutions : Text Replacement menu item checked too.

When this auto-capitalization feature is enabled, one cannot just type away, and have Pages magically fix the first word of the sentence. It pops a text replacement box, which you must interact with to enable the capitalization. This is a genuine annoyance where the application should just silently perform this feature.

"Any idea?"

Learn to use the shift keys?

Regards,

Barry

Barry is spot on.

This has to be the classic problem that isn't a problem until you made it one.

Peter

To call out the real problem you musn't think your research is actually worthwhile if you are using Pages 6.

Peter

Did I not say I use the old-fashioned way of using the shift key? I just used more words than the rest of my learned friends here. I also went on to say that it's good practice to learn to do so.

I've used WordService for years, but not for the capitalization of sentences. Even though I continue to use Pages 4.3 on a daily basis, I never realized it did auto-capitalization.

Barry,

I've posted in several threads here in the last six days that Pages 4.3 & Numbers 2.3 have been working without issues for me in my everyday use in Sierra for at least the last two months.

Peggy

There do seem to be a few posters here reporting major issues with Pages 6 in Sierra.

I am not in a rush to stick my head in the noose, perhaps you can follow this up?

Peter