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

I'd like to blame Michael Scott for being responsible for Apple's eternal IO development (aka The Dongle Sales Dept) as well, but Apple has been screwing up connectors as far back as I have known them which is over 35 years now.

Peter

I needed a new Mac, but none of the new models appear to be competently designed as far as connecting them to something (anything) goes. So I bought an unsold factory sealed 2015 model. Until Apple understand that a room full of adaptors is an unreliable method of connecting a computer I guess I am stuck in 2015.

Have you looked at the new iMac Pro?

I like the central idea but the moronic tiny "ventilation" under the bracket, below the centre line, and inaccessible RAM makes me think Trashintosh Mk II.

Really how could it possibly have hurt to vent the case with a subtly designed gap at the top and left the RAM hatch where it was?

Dumb and Dumberer!!!*

Peter

* The definition of Apple's incompetent Autocorrect that stuffs up nearly everything I type.

I used Macs entirely in my business (show business) I used them onstage because they were reliable, simple to use and fairly cheap compared to purpose built devices. I have used them there for nearly 15 years, I have never had a show interrupted because of their presence. I have also seen how much chaos adaptors cause. I have spent $100,000 plus over those years but Apple have lost me as a customer now. I can not tolerate the unreliability that adaptors cause.

You might appreciate this then:

The trouble is the problems caused by Apple's eternal incompatible IO shuffling is self evident to me immediately I see them, but it takes forever for everyone else to see the bleedin' obvious.

Peter

Maura

You can always get iWork '09 cheaply from Amazon, just make sure you update it to v4.3 after installation.

It runs on every version of macOS since Snow Leopard, is way faster than all the current versions and has about 100 features missing still in Pages 6.3.1 (but I keep discovering more).

Peter

If you have a 100,000 word Pages v6.3.1 document, SGIII's script will take a long while (making it spin the beachball) as it is applying color and bold font attributes to each search term match in the document. To do that, it must compare every word to see if it matches the search term that you entered.

If you in fact have a very large document, just let the script run for awhile. If you see no search terms early in your document being changed, then that is an indication of a problem.

Contrastingly, I just ran the script against a four page Pages v6.3.1 document that contains both a shape, and text box with the search term in both, as well as several places in the body text. It changed the search term wherever it was found including within the shape and text box.

PeterBreis0807 wrote:

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.

Not sure what you mean by a script being "just a manually applied attribute."

In any case, "reversing" the highlighting is just as simple as setting it.

Pages 6.x was designed to be highly scriptable, which makes it possible to restore or add functionality and place it in what is in essence a customized menu.

SG

You may be correct, but I do not want to have to write scripts that give Pages the ability to do things that are commonplace amongst its alternatives, be they more or less expensive. It is up to Apple to provide tools that users need, not the other way around.

The script is applying a manual attribute change to each instance of the search result.

Find one change it to red. Find two change it to red etc.*

To change it back you will have to remember what it was you searched on, change the script, and do multiple searches if the original was multiple searches.

Pages '09 is applying a Character Style. To change that to anything else for any number of different words, is merely a matter of changing and updating the Character Style.

THAT is what I call simple. Not jumping through a lot of scripting hoops.

Do you know what a Character Style is and do you use them?

Peter

* As Viking points out a slow process, particularly as Pages 6 does not permit non-contiguous selection.

** Viking may be able to confirm this but, just as in everything else, I believe Pages '09 is more scriptable than Pages 6.

SGIII wrote:

PeterBreis0807 wrote:

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.

Not sure what you mean by a script being "just a manually applied attribute."

In any case, "reversing" the highlighting is just as simple as setting it.

Pages 6.x was designed to be highly scriptable, which makes it possible to restore or add functionality and place it in what is in essence a customized menu.

SG

Why should the writing of common tools be the responsibility of the user? I don't believe it is because Apple are incapable of providing them, but I am not happy with the alternative explanation.

Apple gave me Pages and Numbers and that other thing for nothing, a good deal because they provided me with an equal value.

And another thing, Pages '09 has a search sidebar which lists all the items found so you can go through them all to check if you really wanted to blindly change them all.

e.g. You want to change all the instances of brown to a brown color but not Mr Brown's name which would appear as Mr (black) Brown (brown).

Peter

MauraMacP wrote:

The script runs but nothing happens in my document beyond a multi-colored little ball spinning around.

As written it's not optimized for long documents. But if "nothing happens" (even for shorter documents) then make sure 'ScriptEditor.app' is checked at System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Accessibility.

To speed things up you could try doing without the bolding by deleting the line

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

SG

In Pages 6.3 no.

In Pages '09 yes.

Peter

And this is what you can selectively apply to the found text as overrides:

Here is one particularly useful feature; Highlighting:

Which is extraordinarily awkward in Pages 6.3.1

Peter