Severe formatting issues in Pages

[AppleFan.]

Hey everyone,

I’ve got a ton of school assignments coming up in the next few weeks, but Pages is making it super hard for me with its strange actions and bugs.

Pages just won’t do what I want, especially when I add pictures. For instance, when I change some text, I find pictures randomly piled on top of each other and their positions are all messed up. I’m also having a major problem trying to put a headings at the top of the page, but it just won’t let me.

I posted a video showing one of the issues I’m having. I hope someone can help me out, I’m really trying to get some work done and it’s just not letting me.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Do you understand basic Desktop Publishing concepts? If so, File menu, "Convert to Page Layout" and then you can completely control the positions of everything on each page and make them stay there.

As is, you are using it in Word Processing mode. If you want to do it that way for some reason, write all of your content first, maybe tag text near where you want images to ultimately go in a different color so you can find them easily and then add all of the images LAST. Text will flow around the images and shift down, so work on image insertions from top of document down. Trying to insert them on the fly (as you write) is only going to work well if you opt to not have text flow around and only insert images in between blocks of text...

• text over
• image over
• more text

...And then you select "move with text", "inline with text" in the Arrange tab to keep the image in between those blocks of text. Else, editing text ABOVE images is going to try to shift images down to keep them with nearby text and then all kinds of layout issues can show themselves including the "stacked up" one you describe. Perfect the text so there will be no more text edits and then add pictures, starting from top of document and working your way down. This will get the photos right where you want them relative to the text and not have the downward shifts of text below each image insertion "mess up" the placement of images later in the document. If you just can't create your papers this way- that is, you need to keep jumping around to further edit text and/or dynamically add/remove exhibits, you really need to use Page Layout mode so you have complete control of each page.

There is a dedicated header section (and footer section) into which you can insert content and lock it in place.

If you have DTP skills, I'd do the papers that way for total control of every page and everything on every page.

 

[Kandrew]

I read your question/problem and my immediate thought was that you’re using the wrong tool for the job you want to do! I’m not surprised that Pages is not doing what you want it to do.

HobeSoundDarryl has given you a very good explanation of how to do your assignment the right way. My only suggestion is that you don’t even try to use the Word Processing mode for your task. You will need extraordinary skills in Pages Word Processing to achieve your goals. Sadly, you have demonstrated that you do not have the necessary skills.

Go with the Desktop Publishing mode. Before you start, take a few minutes to learn about creating text boxes, linking text boxes, and I was going to suggest one other thing you need to spend time learning. But I got distracted and I now can’t remember what it was! And I don’t have my Mac with me, just my iPad. And Pages on the Desktop and Pages on Desktop are very different products.

As a backup, if you have enough screen real estate, keep open the Pages Help Document and don’t be afraid to use it often.

 

[neutrino17]

Pages provides a lot of options for handling images in text.

Under Help select Pages Help and read up on this.

As suggested above, you can remove the text body. This makes image placement easier but then you have to deal with text boxes. This is not bad. I wrote lots of reports this way with text flowing between text boxes.

If you want to keep a Word Processing document you have lots of options.

Select an image and then in the side panel Choose Format then you will be in the Arrange tab. Choose Stay On Page. This will anchor your image to that page. If you don’t have enough pages already available this can be a problem. So maybe use just press and hold Return to generate enough line feeds to create a bunch of pages. You can also Insert Page Breaks and Sections.

Now you can move the image to the desired location, resize it, and it should stay there. Next experiment with Text wrap. If you only have one column then I might use “Above and Below”. This blocks out all text around the image. Try a few options to get the feel for it.

I think if you have enough pages to fit your images when you start and if you set the images to Stay on Page that should give you a good starting point to achieve your goal.

Move with Text will anchor the image to some text so as you edit the text the image will move around. I’ve never liked this. It might be OK for a small image that is tied to a paragraph. When I write reports I have more images than text so this doesn’t work for me.

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

I know where OP is coming from. Pages '05 was amazing in that aspect, as it was a true WYSIWYG editor, and a joy to use. Unfortunately, Pages 5.0 released in '13 is as bad as Microsoft Word in that aspect. Things jump all around, content disappear, the PDF output is inconsistent with the actual content, and it happens both in Page Layout and Word Processing mode, which is so illogical.

I was a firm believer in old Pages, but modern Pages is a gigantic step backwards.

 

[bogdanw]

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