Pages Master Pages

A new feature in Pages is the ability to use single page temples called Master Pages. You can use these while in Page Layout mode to create templates for newsletters, certificates, fliers and other documents.
You can also watch this video at YouTube (but with ads).
Video Transcript: A new feature in Pages 7.0 is Master Pages. This is similar to Master Slides in Keynote. It allows you to create these single page templates in page layout documents. Let me show you.
Here I've got a new blank document. Now in order to use Master Pages you need to be in page layout mode. So by default here I've got body text. I'm in writing mode. I want to go to File and then Convert to Page Layout that gets rid of the body text and converts to a page layout document. This is the type of document you would use to create newsletters, brochures, flyers, things like that. Now once I'm there I have a new option under View called Edit Master Pages. Go into that and I can see the left sidebar appears whether or not I've enabled it before and I've got a page here just called blank. 
Now I can add a new page to Master Pages. Let me add one and they'll be one there I've created at the bottom and I get to name it. I'm just going to give it a name like One. Now I can create kind of a template for a page. So, for instance, I can create a text box and put that text box somewhere on the page. I can put a shape somewhere on the page. I can do all sorts of things basically creating a template for this page. Let's create another text box here. 
Now I can create another one by clicking on Add Page again. It's going to ask which one to start with. So I'll say let's start with a blank one here and I'll call this one Two. I'll put something very different here. Let's put a square here in the upper left, some text, and of course you would do something more useful creating something for use in your newsletter or maybe you produce lots of flyers and you just want a document that has all these different page templates in it. So I've got One and Two here.
When I'm done editing Master Pages for now I can click the Done button here and now it returns me to the regular editing mode where I have my blank page I started with. Now if I want to add a page to this document I click Add Page and you can see I have a selection of my Master Pages including the initial blank one that was there by default. I've got my One page and my Two page. So I can click One and add a page that looks just like One. Now I can go ahead and edit that and put text in there and things like that. I can add another page. I can add Two. I can add another One. So I can continue to create my document like this by using these templates.
I also can adjust these pages. So notice here in my document I've got page two and page four are the same Master Page template. Let's go back into Edit Master Pages and you can see I can select anyone of these. I'll select this one here and let's say I'll make the circle larger and hit Done. Notice the change effects the two pages that were already created. So the changes are going to be applied to the pages I've already made using those page templates in Master Pages. So it makes it very easy for you to say create a document that has many of the same type of pages and then maybe adjust an element there in Master Pages and the adjustment is shown in all the pages.
You can use this for all sorts of things besides layout. You can put some background elements, watermark, that kind of thing across Master Pages. Keep in mind it only works in Page Layout mode. So this isn't something that you use when you're doing a word processing document but doing Page Layout.
Now you can also put a placeholder in a template. So, for instance, say if instead of this circle here I wanted it to be an image but I wanted it to be a different image every time I use this Master Page. So I'm going to go into Edit Master Page here. I'm going to select this page. I'm going to get rid of the circle and I'm going to drag and drop an image in there. The way I define it as a placeholder is I go to Format, Advanced, and Define As Media Placeholder. Now you can see I get the little circle icon there that you see when you're doing a template in Pages. So now when I leave Master Pages I notice that it doesn't work with pages that have already been created. But if I add another page and use that template now I can see, in that new page, I get that little icon there and I can drag and drop an image to replace it very easily.
Notice there was also the ability to add a text placeholder. So I'll go back to Edit Master Pages and I'll go in here and I'll select some text. Then I can go Format, Advanced to find this placeholder text. Actually it's that by default when I leave it as that default text there. So you can use that. It's the same functionality you saw if you ever have used templates. There's placeholder text there as well as placeholder images.
Other things you can do is you can rearrange the pages here, the Master Pages, so you can put them in the order of the ones you most use. You can Control click on anyone you want and you can delete it if you're not going to use it. You can duplicate it too. Maybe create another page that's similar and you can rename it to give it a name you can see. So there's a lot you can do with these. I think they're the most useful when you have a task like say maybe you need to produce a newsletter every Friday or you need to produce new flyers all the time and you can create a document that has all of these master pages in them. You save that document out. Maybe you lock the file. The you open it up and you save it as a new document. Then you pick the Master Pages that you want to use and it helps you very quickly produce something. Perhaps, for instance, you have a newsletter and maybe you have ten different page layouts for your two page newsletter every week. So you can choose, you know, layout one and four one week and two and seven another week. That kind of thing. So it's going to be useful for a lot of people and it is a very welcome feature in Pages.
Pages Master Pages

Welcome to MacMost

Free Weekly Newsletter

MacMost Online Courses

Keyboard Shortcuts PDF

Connect with MacMost

MacMost Sections

Popular Tutorials

Information
