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After installing the latest updates to OS and Pages.app, Pages.app has stopped showing suggestions. Notes.app works fine.
Pages.app:
Notes.app
Both apps are set for exactly the same Spelling options:
Guesses work fine even in this browser, just NOT in Pages.app.
iMac with Retina 5K display, macOS Mojave (10.14.1)
In the Spelling and Grammar : Show Spelling and Grammar sub-menu selection, is your bottom selector set to Automatic by Language, or your explicit language (e.g. U.S. English, etc.)? Set it to your explicit language variation. I am using Pages v7.3 on High Sierra 10.13.6, and changing the following provided a correct guess. If you are using mixed languages in your document, you may have to select the other languages block of text, and then change this to its explicit setting, to spell check it.
There is a dedicated Pages for Mac Support Community available to you.
In the Spelling and Grammar : Show Spelling and Grammar sub-menu selection, is your bottom selector set to Automatic by Language, or your explicit language (e.g. U.S. English, etc.)? Set it to your explicit language variation. I am using Pages v7.3 on High Sierra 10.13.6, and changing the following provided a correct guess. If you are using mixed languages in your document, you may have to select the other languages block of text, and then change this to its explicit setting, to spell check it.
There is a dedicated Pages for Mac Support Community available to you.
Use safe mode to isolate issues with your Mac - Apple Support
How to test an issue in another user account on your Mac - Apple Support
Take care.
I suggest that you sign up for a free Developer account using your current AppleID and password that you used to sign in here. Then you have access to send a detailed bug report to Apple with a links to your post here, a description of the post, and actual image attachments that may support the bug claim. You may or may not be contacted by Apple at some point afterward. If it is a duplicate bug report, you will receive a follow-up email indicating that too.
In the future, and while signed in here with the same AppleID and password, you can switch to the Apple bug report page and automatically be signed in there.
The traditional Provide Pages Feedback menu item in Pages does not grant you this amount of detail, or the ability to attach images.
Hi Becky,
Following your suggestion, I set up a secondary user account and the spell checker does indeed work as it's supposed to in Pages.app.
I suppose that means there's either some form of conflict with other software installed on my main account (this is a new machine and I have deliberately not copied over legacy stuff from my old machine), or there's a Pages.app preference list that should be trashed and rebuilt? How do I go about finding the conflict?
Many thanks,
I have further isolated the bug to one specific Pages document.
The document is just over 30,000 words with a couple of dozen images and is 15.9MB. I duplicated the file, and the fault still occurred. I deleted the images. No change. I deleted over half the text. No change. It wasn't until the word-count dropped below about 13,400 that the fault disappeared and the spell checker suggestions showed up again in the right-click menu. I could reproduce the bug by cutting and pasting a few paragraphs to take the word-count over 14,000 but the error didn't trigger at a consistent number (or word).
I have tried creating a new file and filling it with over 14,000 words by copying and pasting a chunk of new text multiple times, and the fault hasn't reproduced.
I have opened a new, blank file and copied and pasted from the original file into it and the bug HAS returned - and again, disappears when I reduce the word-count down below around 13,400. So there's something in that file that is somehow affecting the dictionary look-up when the word-count goes over an arbitrary limit. I've moved on to a new file and that one will be archived and so the bug isn't important to me at the moment.
If the bug recurs with the new file, I'll post again here.
Thanks for responding, Viking OSX. Yes, my settings are for explicit language. The fact that this bug only appears after a certain number of words are reached in the file makes me believe it is a true bug and not related to spellcheck settings.
For all those who think they are losing their minds out there, I am a novelist, and my problem with pages starts after about 9,000 words. I no longer get spelling suggestions, and if I continue, other functions start to go also, like edit-find. I have spent over three hours with Apple's creative design and they have no clue until the last person found this feed and came to the conclusion it is a software issue. I discovered the issue after the recent update to the op system. What I have to do is start a new document and then past all the segments together for a complete work I don't trust doing this much further.
I'm afraid to continue with pages on this novel for what might happen when I get to the end. I guess I will b e finally forced to use Word after so many years with Pages.
I have been a Mac person from the start but I hate to say their focus on the smart phone has taken away their emphasis on other applications.
I do understand the world is putting away their computers and replacing them with the smart phone. But I can't write a novel like that!
As a novelist, you have a great many other writing tools available to you other than Pages, and making daily writing quotas, and deadlines requires that you use the tools that can help you meet those goals. You can be a Mac user and use non-Apple products that allow for improved achievement and lower frustration.
Thanks for the comment. But being halfway through a novel with one application and having to change to another writing tool
Is not the ideal situation. I'd prefer if Pages would work as it is designed tondo. I'm guessing if I were to switch over to Word, the product might let me follow through with them to the end.
Maybe it would be best if Apple could fix the problem and not expect writers to change their tools halfway through a project.
There is a high probability that Apple will never get Pages working the way that real users want it designed to meet their need diversity. No, writers should not need to change their tools at any point in their project, but Apple's history with Pages should have raised caution in a veteran writer — and you may have been better served with Scrivener, Storyist, or yes, even Word. What was that about being "impaled on the horns of a dilemma."
I don't see Apple fixing something that eludes their perception, or would force them to charge for the product again.
Thanks again for your comment.
I really don't want pages to work for the way I want it to fit my needs. I would like it to work they way Apple designed it to work. I have used Pages for the pasts twelve years and this is the first time I have had such an issue. And that is after writing over fifteen novels using the software.
Lakemichigan, thanks for posting. I'm reassured to know I'm not the only one experiencing this bug. VikingOSX suggested, above, that I file an official bug report by signing up for a developer account, something that I have not yet done but may well do now, pointing to this discussion. I wrote my first novel using Pages but switched to Scrivener for my subsequent books, mainly because of the ability to have all my research, notes, drafts and reference material in one, backed-up, place. I only use Pages for journaling now and am unlikely to ever go back to it for 'serious' writing. The transition from Pages to Scrivener is relatively painless because you can cut and paste your chapters into separate files and then output the finished manuscript as an eBook or Word doc etc. I'm a fan (and not on commission).
Good morning SBML
I'll give Scrivener a good look, but I am so invested in Pages with all my novels that I hate to change. I also go to Epub for the end product. Don't go to a developer account, I'm not sure that even exists. I always have Apple care on my computers, so I get pretty good attention with their tech support. They opened a ticket yesterday on the issue so at least they are looking at the problem.
My concern is not too many people write over 10,000 words on a pages document, so the issue might not get a fair amount of attention.
Hi Lakemichigan. I do know what you mean. It's always a wrench having to move your work platform to a new system with different ways of doing things, different menu structures and options. Scrivener can look more complicated than Pages (which I think is a nice, uncluttered interface and usually a pleasure to use, as opposed to Word which is a bloated, ugly interface) but I don't use most of Scrivener's options anyway. I do use the built-in file and folder structure that allows me to keep everything together and, using side-by side documents, compare drafts, have research notes next to the document and cut and paste between documents easily. I know it's possible to make Pages work in a similar way but it's not as simple and self-contained. I wouldn't dream of going back to Pages for my novels now.
I'm curious, though. You reported having problems around the 9k word mark. It happens to me around 13.5k. I wonder if this could be because of a difference in RAM? I have 8GB available. Is that more than you have? FYI, I did open a ticket through the developer link. It was a simple enough process. Perhaps some good will come out of this.
Good morning SBML,
I also have 8 GB of RAM. The tech support called me the other day to send a screen shot of my problem with pages. It happened on my new document with 9K words again. Maybe you have it at 13K because you make less corrections along the way. At any rate, I do see them working on the issue. You were the one to get this thing rolling when the tech support went to the web and read your comment. Give yourself a pat on the back. I guess this Mac discussion board might have influence after all!
Pages.app spellcheck suggestions not working
