Line numbers in Pages

In a previous century, the most often suggested workaround was to place a single column spreadsheet table on the left edge of the page, adjust the rows to match the line spacing, and use the table to carry the line numbers.

Current versions of Pages, unfortunately, won't let you float a table on a word processing document, making that an unworkable workaround.

But you can insert and float a shape on a Pages wp doc, and you can place text (eg. a list of numbers) in that shape. Using the default colour fill of the shape (in Pages 5.6.2) and the inserted text, gives this result (after some adjustment to the height and width of the 'square, the size of the type, and the space after a paragraph)"

(Page zoomed to 50% to get the full page on the screen. Fill and text colours left as received toclearly show the 'box' containing the numbers.)

Setting the border and fill of the shape to None, and the text colour to black (and zooming the view to 125%) shows the result you would normally see:

For the example,

I used 12 pt regular Helvetica and 1.5 line spacing for the body text,

and 12 pt regular Helvetica, single (1) line spacing, and 7 pts after a paragraph.

Other fonts, type sizes, line spacing. and space after paragraph settings may require further experimentation and adjustment.

Subsequent pages will require a copy of the shape, with the same numbers inserted, or with the numbers starting at one more than that for the last line on the original page.

Regards,

Barry

A comparable approach to Barry's solution, though using a Text box in this example.

One can automatically generate the number sequence to the clipboard using AppleScript, or the Terminal command:

set nseqmax to 30

do shell script "seq -w -f %5g 1 " & nseqmax & " | pbcopy"

This outputs a right-justified, five character width list of numbers from 1 to 30 onto the clipboard.

One can then simply paste into the Shape (or Text box) in Pages, and then adjust the font attributes, and line-spacing to match the body text. To precisely vertically align the line numbers with the body text, one must select the Shape, or Text box, and then in the Format Text : Layout tab, set the Text inset to 0.

In the following Pages v6.3 example, I used the above seq approach, pasted the result into the Text box, set the matching line spacing to 1.3, and the Cambria font to 14 pt. The first and left indents for the body text were set to 0.15 in. I selected the entire body text, and then pressed command+] to move the entire body text on this page to the right.

Hi Barry,

In a previous century, the most often suggested workaround was to place a single column spreadsheet table on the left edge of the page, adjust the rows to match the line spacing, and use the table to carry the line numbers.

Current versions of Pages, unfortunately, won't let you float a table on a word processing document, making that an unworkable workaround.

The first bit of good news is that Pages 6.3 (and perhaps Pages 5, but I can't test) allows a table in the Section Master.

Type 1 into Cell A1.

Formula in A2 (and Fill Down) =A1+1

Second bit of good news is that the background (Section Master) table starts with 1 on each page.

The bad news is that I have not found a way to adjust the Row height of the table cells to match the line spacing of the body text (the table is out of sync with body text rows at the bottom of each page).

Back to the drawing board...

Regards,

Ian.

Hi alebs,

Your audience here in Apple Support Communities is users of Apple Software and hardware, not Apple employees nor developers of Apple software.

To address your concerns to Apple, use the Provide Pages Feedback item in the Pages menu in Pages to request that this feature be added to Pages.

Be aware that no version of Pages has included this feature, nor did any version of AppleWorks or ClarisWorks before that. You will need to make a strong case for its inclusion in a future version.

Regards,

Barry

Line numbers are more applicable to monospace fixed line length TextEditors.

Pages is a heavily DTP Wordprocessor with inbuilt spreadsheets, charts, visual effects and editable vector Graphics in which line numbers would be fairly pointless as the line wrap would be forever shifting.

IF you need a particular feature for what I imagine has quite specific usage the use the appropriate App for the feature.

There are a very large number of Wordprocessors and TextEditors for the Mac, you are not compelled to use just one.

iText Pro [available now in the App Store] is one that I know does line numbers, have a look around and see what else exactly meets your needs.

Peter

LibreOffice and MS Word provide line numbering, but Pages, as it is no Word clone, does not.

I have been using computers for over 40 years and I have never found line numbering "a necessary function".

But you do.

What about using Pages' List format with a return at the end of every line?

Peter