In Pages Find and Replace, can you specify format you want to use for the replacement?

Thanks for that.

Pages '09 lets you apply a Character Style to searched text. That simple.

Nice as your AppleScript may be as a patch, it does a fraction of what Pages '09 does in its Find/Replace and is nowhere as simple.

It would be more fascinating if it handled text in any open App. Mail would be nice.

Peter

MauraMacP wrote:

I want to replace all instances of a word with the same word only bolded and in a different color. This was very simple in MS Word

Contrary to what you've read here, this is very simple in Pages 6.3 too!

No need to know any AppleScript. You should be up and running in less than a minute.

Just basic copy-paste the script below into Script Editor (in your Applications > Utilities Folder) and make sure Script Editor is already checked at System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Accessibility. With your Pages document open click the triangle 'run' button and answer the prompt.

If you need to do this often then you can easily place the script in the script menu or in an Automator Service so that it effectively becomes just another menu choice. You can even attach it to a keyboard shortcut.

If you want a different color or font just change the values between the "" in the first two lines.

SG

set highlightColor to "red"

set highlightFont to "HelveticaNeue-Bold"

set searchWord to text returned of ¬

(display dialog "Highlight what word?" default answer "" buttons {"Cancel", "Continue"} default button "Continue")

tell application "Pages"

tell document 1's body text

try

set color of (words where it is searchWord) to highlightColor

set font of (words where it is searchWord) to highlightFont

end try

end tell

end tell

You should make an attempt to tell Apple, here: Send Apple Feedback. Theoretically if they hear how much they are annoying their customers they may change their way of doing things. No holding of your breath though.

Hi Maura,

Not a supported feature in Pages.

What you want is likely possible using an AppleScript or an AppleScript based Automator Service, So you may get some suggestions using those tools.

Regards,

Barry

Thank you SG! 🙂

You will need to adjust that script, it is not** finding instances in Textboxes, Shapes or Objects.

Also I tried this in TextEdit* and it does not find the instances of the word and does not highlight the color.

Peter

* Sorry just reread the script and noticed you specifically cite Pages. Can you change this to be non-specific and target the open App instead? **Also notice that you specify Body Text in the script as well.

Hi Peter,

The equivalent for TextEdit turns out to be slightly different: text not body text.

SG

set highlightColor to "red"

set highlightFont to "HelveticaNeue-Bold"

set searchWord to text returned of ¬

(display dialog "Highlight what word?" default answer "" buttons {"Cancel", "Continue"} default button "Continue")

tell application "TextEdit"

tell document 1's text

try

set color of (words where it is searchWord) to highlightColor

set font of (words where it is searchWord) to highlightFont

end try

end tell

end tell

Thanks for your work SG

Is it possible to make this script simply address whatever App is open and in the case of Pages Search and Replace all text, not just the body text? And change bold/italic as well which would bring it closer to Pages '09 which can do all the attributes of text not just this, and do it with a simple change of Character Style.

This could be super useful. 🙂

Peter

It doesn't do everything (I don't have Pages '09 to compare) but this simple script seems to be an efficient way to search and highlight a word in Pages body text, text boxes, and shapes.

SG

property highlightColor : "red"

property highlightFont : "HelveticaNeue-Bold"

set searchWord to text returned of ¬

(display dialog "Highlight what word?" default answer "" buttons {"Cancel", "Continue"} default button "Continue")

tell application "Pages" to my highlightWord(a reference to document 1's body text, searchWord)

tell application "Pages" to repeat with i in document 1's text items

my highlightWord(a reference to i'sobject text, searchWord)

end repeat

tell application "Pages" to repeat with i in document 1's shapes

my highlightWord(a reference to i'sobject text, searchWord)

end repeat

to highlightWord(thePagesObject, searchWord)

tell application "Pages" to tell thePagesObject

set color of (words where it is searchWord) to highlightColor

set font of (words where it is searchWord) to highlightFont

end tell

end highlightWord

Because the available text attributes are not uniform across apps it's tough to come up with a generalized script that doesn't quickly become unwieldy.

It think it may be possible to specify other text attributes in a script for Pages. But at this point, because of limited scripting skills and thus a need to keep things simple, I will conveniently classify that as a "nice but not necessary" feature.🙂

Meanwhile, there is a simple way to find and highlight a word in the Pages 6.3.

SG

It has occurred to me that your script is really just a manually applied attribute.

Reversing it will be difficult and can not be universally changed as it can with an applied Character Style in Pages '09.

Peter

I like the wisdom and utility of SGIII's script — considering the limitations imposed by Pages v6.3 AppleScript dictionary. It could even set highlightColor via a color chooser.

set highlightColor to (choose color default color {0,0,0})

Should the user change their mind, and wish to undo the document changes, it will be two undo (command+Z) for each changed word.

Let's hope that Apple has sunk as low as it can go with Pages 6.3.1.

Apple's slogan under Steve Jobs was "Think Different", now under the current gaggle of executives it has become "Thermal Throttling".

Peter

MauraMacP wrote:

Thanks, Peter. I wonder why they did away with it. It's a very helpful feature.

Many of us wonder why Pages was neutered in the new versions. I dealt with it simply sticking with Word or a Word clone, (some of which are free)

We may wonder why but it obviously is a corporate policy for the last 5 years.

Pages, Numbers, Keynote, iTunes, Disk Utility, iPhotos, Aperture, iMessage are just a few of the Apps that I can think of that got "The Treatment".

Those that haven't been trashed yet is only because Apple hasn't got around to them.

...they will.

Peter