Basic Document Layout Techniques In Pages

Learn how to use Pages to create simple page layout documents. You can remove the word processing aspect of a Pages document and place text boxes, images and other elements to create flyers, newsletters, brochures and other types of documents.

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Video Transcript: Hi this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let's look at Basic Layout using Pages.
So I'm using Pages version 5. We're going to look at doing some basic layout.
Now in Pages you always start off with a word processing document. That means there is a large text area in the middle of the screen. We can see that by going to View/Show layout which is something you want to have turned on anyway if you are going to do layout. You can see this large text box here.
Now if you are doing page layout, like say you want to make a flyer or a newsletter or something, then you are not going to want this large box here meant for word processing. So the way to get to it is in your right sidebar here you are probably looking at format or perhaps you even have it turned off. Either way you want to go to Setup. In Setup you want to go to Document. Then you want want to turn off Document Body. It is going to warn you and then once you say okay you want to remove it then that is gone. You still have the header and the footer but you now have this blank space that now you can add things to.
So now you can begin adding elements. Probably one of the main things you want to add are text elements. These are just different styles of text boxes. Using the basic one is the best bet for most reasons and you can just put it there. You can adjust it by dragging the dots on each side.
Go to Format and you can see you can switch to any of those different text styles and you can add your own. So as you make adjustments you can hit this plus button here and add a new style there that you can easily repeat.
You can change the Fill or the Border. Let's add a border here, a simple line. Let's make it 1 point. You can do other things like add a Shadow and Reflection and such. Then you can add any text that you want to it.
Once you have some text you probably will want to add some other things. For instance you can add photos. So I'm going to go to Media up here and I'm just going to grab a photo and then I can resize that as well. So now you can basically combine images and photos and build your own layout based on what you want.
Let's add a headline here. I'm going to select multiple items by using Shift and I can move this down. I'm going to add some new text here and move this up and make this a headline box. It is really no different than a regular text box. Then I can adjust things as I need.
One useful thing if you are doing lots of this is that you should learn how to group items. For instance let's say in this photo here that I want to put a caption right under it. Then I want to make sure, if I move this photo around, that this caption goes with it. I can use the shift key to select both of these and I can group them together. So now they move as one unit. So that is something very important to do in layout.
If you are doing layout you might want to do a custom page size. You only have a limited number of choices for some standard pages sizes here but if you go to File/Page Setup then you can look under Page Attributes, format for (let's just do any printer here) and we can manage Custom Sizes and I can create a new one, anything I want. So some sort of unusual size like 10 x 20 and hit okay and you can see it is going to change to Other here and I've got 10 x 20. So you can do custom page sizes. Let's zoom out and you can see this unusual page size.
Also, as your document gets larger you want to make sure that you are looking at the thumbnails on the left side so you can see the pages get built. So we can insert new page here and continue to do that. Do three pages and jump easily between them.
For more ideas you may want to go and take a look at some of the templates here. Like for instance let's take a look at some of these flyer and poster templates. You can see how they are put together. See there is an image there and boxes there. You can examine all of these and the different styles and formats and the setups for each one to get some ideas of what you can do.

Comments: 13 Responses to “Basic Document Layout Techniques In Pages”

david

11 years ago

I love to watch your videos they are well done and informative.
in your current video about pages you show how to add a page. Once this page is added can it be moved or deleted. i can't do either. It seems odd that i can not delete a page.
I have a lot of trip notes and photos but find the new pages not as easy to work with as the older version.
I welcome your advice. Happy New Year!

Gary Rosenzweig

Did you remember to switch to page layout mode by turning off Document Body? See 0:50. Otherwise, each page is linked together as a continuous text box. But if you turn off Document Body, then you can select the thumbnail of a page and Edit, Delete to remove that page.

Thanks for the above post about pages layout. I can now delete a page but i am not able to move the pages around in the view thumbnail section.
Is there a way to return to the previous version for some of my documents?
thanks.

Ron Paris

I can't believe that Apple has removed the linked text box feature. For many of us, that makes this update something to avoid like the plague. Or, am I missing something?

Robyn

Gary, how do you colour the pages now? I am still using the old Pages version because I can't seem to do the things I used to do and I need to use Pages for my newsletters which are usually around 14 pages.
Please can we have more tutorials on Pages?

Color pages? You mean have a solid color in the background? Usually you would just put a rectangle of a solid color behind everything. Or, use colored paper :)

I forgot...I need to link all the pages together as well as some of the articles flow on to the next page. I don't know why they changed Pages so dramatically as many people are not happy with it. Basically you have to take time out to re-learn everything and it is not always possible if you are in a hurry.

Right. You can't do that with the new Pages. I would suggest you think about using a desktop publishing tool as Pages is clearly focused on word processing now.

Shirley Allan

Yes, that is my take on the new Pages- that it is primarily word processing and Apple already has TextEdit. Could it be that they are planning a separate app for Page Layout? I certainly hope so! Gary, what about the Text Wrap being always on, have you found a way to turn it off? If so please share it with us and I do look forward to more of your videos on the new, if not likable, Pages.

Well, Pages is far more capable than TextEdit. Two tools, each with their own use.
I don't think Apple would come out with a page layout tool, especially when there are already so many good ones available for Mac.
Not sure what you mean by text wrap. Why would you want it off? What would the alternative be?

I do several lessons showing the tools in Page Layout (version 4.3) where I show how to create a landscape in a text box, how to create cartoons with your head instead of the cartoon head using Photo Booth, Preview and clipart in Pages etc. In Version 5, when I move an item across a Text Box with text in it, the text wraps and I have to go to Wrap and select none. It is very disconcerting.

Gracie Hilton

Happy to see rulers, both horizontal and vertical, back! Is there any way to make them appear every time I open a blank page? Or is it necessary to go to View/Show Ruler(s) each and every time I start a new project?

Looks like it is off by default. But it only takes a second to hit Command+R.

Comments Closed.

Basic Document Layout Techniques In Pages

Comments: 13 Responses to “Basic Document Layout Techniques In Pages”

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