Using Paragraph Borders and Backgrounds in Pages

Pages version 13.2 adds more option to create borders around paragraphs of text. You can use paragraph border and backgrounds for all sorts of interesting design effects in your Pages documents.

Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let's take a look at using Paragraph Borders and Backgrounds in Pages. 
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Now Pages 13.2 adds new functionality in the Paragraph Borders Section. Here's what it used to look like before and now you can see it has been upgraded. There are more options. So let's take a closer look at this section of the Format sidebar and also some examples of how to use it. 
Here I've got some sample text. I'm going to the cursor inside the second paragraph here. You don't have to select the entire paragraph because anytime you change something in the paragraph Settings it affects the whole paragraph for what you have selected or what the cursor is currently in. So i'm on the Format sidebar here and if I switch to the Layout settings I can see here Paragraph Borders and the Paragraph Background color. So basically to use this the first thing you need to do is set the Line Type. So you have a full set of Line Types now with the new update. So I'm going to choose the Regular rounded line so the edges will be rounded. You can see what it will do by default is add a line above the paragraph. You can see for little switches here showing me Above, Below, To the Left, and to the Right. So by switching one or more of these On or Off I can determine which of the sides have a border. I can switch all of them Off if I want to. Also, to the right I've got a button that quickly selects all four of those. So it is a quick way to  get Borders completely around the paragraph. 
Now I can also change the border type. So let's go to some Dots there, let's go to some Rounded Dots. We can do Dashes. Then you can change the size and you can also change the color using either one of these color chips or the full Color Picker here with the Color Wheel, or any other way that you want to choose colors. So you can fully customize that. You can also change the border offset. So how much space there is between the border and the text inside the paragraph. By default it will start off at 6. You can also choose rounded corners. It is easiest to see that if we use one of the solid borders there. There's rounded corners and if I turn it Off you can see they're squared off. With this type of line you get a tiny bit of rounding on the corners because that's the type of line it is. But with this line you're going to get sharp corners. 
Then in addition to that you've got Paragraph Background here. So if I select this I can choose a color for the paragraph background and I can also click here to use the Color Picker. Now all of this works in conjunction with other settings. So if I look above here I've got Indents. If I simply change the first or the left side it won't seem to change very much because you still have either the first line or all the other lines at zero. But if I change them both you can see how it brings the left border all the way in and I only have one setting for the right. So I can make it look a little bit better by taking away some to the left and some to the right here. I can also switch back to Style here and then I've got Spacing before and after paragraphs. I can increase that  to create a little spacing there and I get something like this. Note that this only works with Borders. So if I were to turn off all of the borders here you could see how that spacing actually includes the background. So you want to have a border on in order to make sure that things will look like you want them to. I'll show you some examples and go into more detail in a bit. 
Now one thing to remember is Paragraph Settings can be saved in Paragraph Style. So if you get something you like, like this here, so then up here in Styles you can click the little down arrow there, click the Plus button and Add a Style. I'll just call this Special, like that. Now if you have another paragraph later on, like that, I can change the style to Special and you can see how it uses that. In Styles, of course, you can change them all by simply updating  one, so I'll change the color here like that of the border, and then you can see here this is now Special with an asterisk. Saying it is using the Special Style but it has been modified. If I click Update it updates the Style and this updates the use of the style throughout your entire document. So you can set something like this up, use it 87 times throughout your entire book and then make one change to one, update it and then all 87 instances of that paragraph will change. 
One other useful thing you should know here is that is how this works when you have multiple paragraphs in a row that use the same style. So here if I put another line you can see how it combines it and just has one set of borders and one consistent background even though there are two paragraphs or three paragraphs. Like that. But if I were to change this one here and, say, turn off the right side border you can see now it's separate. It doesn't link up because they have different settings. You can change back and they have the same settings now so they link up with on consistent border and background. 
Now let's look at a whole bunch of examples of how you can use this. So in this example here I've got this single paragraph and all I've done is added a border to all the sides. Made the border one point and stuck with the default 6 point border offset. Under Style I've added 8 points before and after the paragraph and I've also, under Layout, set the first and left to one inch and the right to one inch so it indents it on both sides. This is a simple way to have some text standout without making it too flashy with colors and everything. 
In this next example I've used a Brush Border, this one here, and a color for the border. So it stands out a little bit better. I only have it going ½ inch on either side. Here I've got just top and bottom and I've set it to a 2 point regular line here with only a 4 point border offset. I've set this up so that it's got italic text that is centered. So it is a nice way to pull some information, sometimes called a Pull Quote, out of the document here. I stuck with the left and right being at zero and that works fine. Notice I have added a left side there. It really pushes out beyond the margin. But if you don't have a left or right side the line kind of stays exactly within the margins and it looks better. 
Here's another one where I've created kind of a window shade effect. Here I've got just a line at the top. It's a thick 4 point line and I'm using the rounded line here at the top so you kind of got the rounded edge right here. Then I've set a Paragraph Background. Just a gray background here. But I don't like how Pages particularly does this because notice if I go to Style here and I have before and after paragraphs set to 12 points but there is definitely not 12 points here, that's because without the border on the bottom it just adds that to the white space below the paragraph rather than inside the paragraph. 
Here's a really simple effect. I just put a border to the left. I made it red so it stands out and relatively thick. This way I get this line that comes out from the edge. It kind of looks like an annotation or editing line. But instead of being part of the Editing Tools it's a permanent part of the document. So it will print and export like this. 
So here's an effect that I like which uses a paragraph border and a paragraph background that are exactly the same color. So by doing that you can really control the amount of space around the text. I've set the Border Offset to be 6 pixels so you can see that it creates a nice border around it with a text sits in the middle of this color here. I've got 6 points here which means that the line, since it is the rounded line there, really has got a nice curve to the end. I can also do rounded borders like that for more of a curve. Of course I can use any color I want as long as I match the two colors. It's got a ¼ inch to the left and the right there. The Style has got 8 points above or below. So it is set apart from the text before and after really nicely. 
An alternative to that is being able to use a black background. So basically we're reversing text. So I'm doing the same thing here. I've just got a regular border. I've turned on Rounded Corners here. I've set the Offset to 10 points so the text sits nicely in the middle. But I have the text as white text here. The text color set to white and with the border and background to black. It's kind of inverted text so it is an inverted part of the document. 
Here's another variation kind of on that. The idea is to have a background that's a specific color. I'm using the squared dots here at 2 point black. It looks kind of reminiscent of, you know, something you might cutout from something like that. So it draws attention to it. 
Here's one where it uses just left and right borders. I've got one inch indents on both sides. I've got a nice brush border here. You can see how the brush goes in opposite directions along the side there. I'll also set it to a dark gray here so it kind of creates this interesting effect. 
Here's one that is very different than the others because there is nothing there. I've actually setup a paragraph that has no content in it. I've created a border at the top 6 point gray there. We have a nice brush and I've just used the regular border offset. I, under Style, set the before paragraph to be 18 points so pushing this down a lot. I don't need to push the bottom down a lot because there is actually the black line there. So this is a way to actually have a ruler in-between paragraphs without actually having another element. 
Here's another variation on that. You can see in this one I've got a thin, just a ¼ point red line here. So it is just a really thin line and I've set it up so that it's got 8 points before and after and I've set the text in that line to be only one point. So tiny text but that's okay because I'm not actually putting any text there. It is just a blank line. 
Here's another one that only used one line. It's kind of like a window shade but in this one here I just have it on the left and then I've got a background color and on this one  I've got it just on the right and I've got a background color. But I also justified the text to the right. So it is kind of a way to have bits of information pulled out and then maybe use it once to left and once to the right throughout your document to create some variety.
Here's a variation on that where up here I've set it to a gray border and a gray background to match with rounded corners and black text. But here a blue border and blue background, rounded corners, and white text. You can see kind of what I'm simulating here. It kind of looks a little bit like the Messages app getting text messages back and forth. So maybe if you need to represent, for some reason, text messages back and forth inside of a document this is a really simple way to do this. 
Set a Style for the left side. Set a Style for the right side and use them as you need. 
So those are just some examples to get you going. I'm sure you can experiment and find all sorts of other uses for this. Note that of course you can do all of this using Text Boxes as well but that creates extra elements that you have to position, that you have to setup so that they follow along with the text if you have more before and after. Text boxes and shapes are more versatile, certainly. Using Paragraphs with Borders and Backgrounds like this is a little simpler and sometimes easier to implement especially if you've got a large document to create and you don't want to mess around with creating all sorts of other elements throughout it. So I hope you found this useful Thanks for watching.

Comments: 6 Responses to “Using Paragraph Borders and Backgrounds in Pages”

Steve Housley

1 month ago

Fascinating Gary...
I haven't tried this, but I wonder whether other word processors (Microsoft Word) can read the functions?
Thanks

Kay Fisher

Same question. If you export as word does it look right in Microsoft land? I do my books in pages but have to export to Word for lulu.com!

Gary Rosenzweig

Kay: Not sure. You'll need to test and see.

nick

Thx Gary. I realize this is not that important for the functionality, but since they gave us the option to add a background to a paragraph, would be nice to extend the feature to advanced background options, such as gradient, image etc.

Ruth Jessop

I would like special paragraph borders such as Christmas ones. I had them in Microsoft word. Is there any chance that Pages will give us something like that please? I do a 4 page "Snippets" in Pages each month for our seniors group at our church and would love to be able to add that extra Christmassy feel

Ruth: Probably not. But you can always get clipart or use the evergreen tree shape a few times.

Using Paragraph Borders and Backgrounds in Pages

Comments: 6 Responses to “Using Paragraph Borders and Backgrounds in Pages”

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