Beginning to dislike Mac :(

[Lifeisabeach]

+1. 100%.

One of the best made for Mac applications ever.

And DOS/Windows. The Mac version was before my time on the platform.

 

[Randy B. Singer]

...The hint posted above about Command-Option-Shift-V to "Paste & Match Style" is incredibly useful. Just don't expect it to work in Microsoft bloody Word.

Word has the Paste Special command. It's better than "Paste & Match Style" in that it gives you a choice of what sort of formatting to use, including a choice of plain text if that's what you want.

There aren't words to describe how much I hate Word (and I work with it every day).

I use Word all day, everyday. It's an awesome application. I don't know how I would be able to do my job without it. I often hear from folks who "hate" Word, but every single one of those people have never bothered to get some training on how to use Word.

Word is a high-end (i.e. professional) application. It's very easy to use, but it's not intuitive to learn to use. You can't learn to use Word by "playing with it." It requires some training. Just like Photoshop, or any other high-end application. If your work requires using Microsoft Word, you should get some training on how to use it so that you aren't fighting with it constantly.

 

[Randy B. Singer]

+1. 100%.

One of the best made for Mac applications ever.

I used to use WordPerfect/Mac in its heyday. In fact, I was the de facto tech support for lots of folks who used it.

It was a wonderful application, but I don't look back on it with rose colored glasses like a lot of folks do. It wasn't much more intuitive to learn to use than Microsoft Word. Formatting screwed up all the time requiring lots of time unwinding what you had done to fix it. Basic features were missing. WP/Mac's translators truly sucked. The program, unlike every other Macintosh program, actually had a serious bug for a while where your display regularly got munged.

The word processor from FreeOffice is better than WordPerfect/Mac was. Folks don't realize how good they have it currently.

 

[krs]

"Regular" - plain old text document that is EASY to edit. NOT a word processing document. I just want my iWorks Pages. Easy peasy to use.

Holy cow - what an active discussion.
I haven't read most of it, but have you ever considered to use TextEdit?
It's part of macOS _i use it quite regularly for simple text documents.

 

[Toroidal]

Holy cow - what an active discussion.
I haven't read most of it, but have you ever considered to use TextEdit?
It's part of macOS _i use it quite regularly for simple text documents.

When you read all of it you'll see why your post is funny. And since I've followed it, I think TanBrae needs to do a quick screen recording showing how Pages is not doing the 2 or 3 things it should be doing, that way we can get to the bottom of this copy paste and formatting and highlighting thing.

 

[Lifeisabeach]

Holy cow - what an active discussion.
I haven't read most of it, but have you ever considered to use TextEdit?
It's part of macOS _i use it quite regularly for simple text documents.

I’m convinced that is what the OP was actually using before.

 

[TanBrae]

I'm glancing over Pages' preferences myself here. If you want Pages to always start with a generic "Blank" document, then you can do that via the menu at:

Pages » Settings » General
On the first setting, For New Documents, change it to Use template and then click Change Template to pick the default one of your choice.

The invisibles, aka formatting symbols, that MacInWin explained for you... I don't get those by default and never have. You can change the color and opacity as he pointed out, but that isn't the actual problem at hand. The problem is that they are appearing in the first place. This is NOT the default behavior. You must have turned them on accidentally (hey, it happens). Just toggle them off via the menu:

View » Hide Invisibles

If you simply change the opacity to effectively hide them, you will never ever see them, even if you have a bona fide NEED to see them for checking your layout.

If you are pasting text with multiple formatting styles that you want to remove... rather than simply pasting it, use the option Paste and Match Style, found under the Edit menu item.

Thank you for your kind response!

I'm going to try that "Blank" document thing. Hoping it works for me!

Nope, the invisibles were, apparently, automatically turned on. I downloaded the software, opened a blank document, and started working. Never touched anything, thinking that this version would work like my previous. As soon as the text got pasted, there were the blue dots and paragraph symbols. UGLY YIKES! I now have them turned off, and hope that my saving MY document as a template works. So far, so good,,,, kind of.

 

[TanBrae]

Use "Paste and Match Style" instead of "Paste. Strips all formatting.

I tried that. It still didn't work. I think, though, I "may" have that fixed??? It's yet to be determined. I haven't had time to mess with Pages again.

 

[TanBrae]

The most recent Pages is 12.2.1, so you aren't that far behind. I'm running Ventura, which may be why I have 12.2.1, but you can check for an update to your 12.1 to see if you can get to 12.2.1.

I have found that for MOST things (not all, but most) you can click on the top bar "Edit" then "Select all" and then with everything highlighted make the changes and it applies to all of the document. Change font, color, bold, italic, underlined, etc. I just tested it with a PDF I had and it worked. I think you said you copied from Facebook, which would be websites, which would be HTML I just went to a group I am in and copied one post, a long one, with multiple fonts/font sizes, etc., and then pasted to a new Pages page and was able to Select All and apply Font/Fontsize/Appearance and alignment changes universally.

So, tell us what you are trying to copy/paste to Pages that is more, or different, from a post in a group and we can do some experimenting to see what works best.

EDIT: One observation, with Select All and all of the document highlighted, the invisibles for paragraphs show up again. They disappear once you click away the Select All. I didn't want you to go all ballistic thinking that Pages was changing things when that happened. It's how it works.

Well, I'll have to try that "Select All" thing again. If I recall, it didn't work for me before. And, yes, most of what I copy and paste is from websites, and I know about the HTML thing. I gave the FB example because that was where the mess first happened - copying text from Fb. The most frustrating incidences happen when trying to copy and paste from a photography site. I didn't have an issue with making changes with that text/formatting in my previous version of Pages, but this version... EGADS!

So, disclaimer - I mainly copy and paste, for MY OWN use and benefit, from the site called Picture Correct. I save their articles, for MY OWN use, so I don't have to hunt to find them within their site. I have them organized in MY OWN folders to make them quick and easy to find as MY OWN references (I don't need any guff about copyright, etc. I learned about that in college, thank you. ) If you go to that site, and look at one of their tutorial articles, you will see how their articles are formatted - TITLE - in color, large, all uppercase; author under the title, with a link for the author's site; then, body text with various text styles. Not all that complicated. But, my version of Pages... Generally, I change the title to be black and 18pts. The author's link is removed, and the font size goes to 12pts. The body text, for the most part, keeps any text styles, but all is changed to 12pts.

Should be easy, right? Ha! And, even when I tried "Select All" changed all font size to 12pts., color to black, it still did not work. I hope you can understand why I'm so frustrated!

 

[TanBrae]

What you call unnecessary changes, others have a great appreciation for. It's still perfectly capable of working to your liking, you just for some quite frankly bizarre reason aren't doing so. I've been using Pages on and off for several years now, and your complaints just simply make zero sense to me. Quite frankly, I'm beginning to think you never actually used Pages, but rather were using TextEdit, which has long been bundled with the Mac OS and was a simpler plain text editor until a few years ago when they made it a little more robust.

I can say that there is one change to Pages that I believe was made, and that's at some point, when pasting content into a document, it pastes it EXACTLY (or as precisely as it can) the way it was on the source, including background colors, font sizes, etc. I believe that before, it might have kept bold and italics, but not background colors and so on. This is a relatively new enhancement that most "modern" word processors have started doing. I might be mis-remembering that to some degree, but anyway.... EASILY fixed. Use "Paste and Match Style" per my other posts, and all formatting is stripped.



Sounds more like TextEdit to me, althought TextMate is truer to how TextEdit was in the past. Pages has ALWAYS been a word processing alternative to MS Word and the others. ALWAYS!

EDIT: If you doubt me on this, watch the video of Steve Jobs introducing iWork for the first time in 2005. Jump to the 3:30 mark. He touted all the features of Pages as a modern word processor, complete with... drum roll please.... a TEMPLATE picker! Pages has always always ALWAYS been like this.

Look, I'm going to be blunt. This is baloney. You most certainly can. I can. I always have been able to. This is how virtually EVERY word processing app works, if not literally every single one. I've been using a variety of word processing apps since the late '80s (DOS, Windows, and Mac), so I feel pretty good about making this claim. What I think may be the problem is you literally are using it wrong. You are using, or TRYING to use, the Paragraph Styles menu to make template-based changes to selected text, which isn't necessarily a wrong way to do it. But have you ACTUALLY selected the entire text before selecting a paragraph style? Or did you just paste it all and without re-selecting everything (just press CMD-A to select all), you tried changing the style? If the latter, then of course it didn't work. You changed the style on literally nothing. Make sure you have selected the text that you want to effect a change on; then either use the paragraph style picker if that suits you or simply toggle B or I to cycle through making all the selected text bold/un-bold italicized/un-italicized. Heck, that's how it works right here in this very forum!

If you continue to struggle here, you'll need to provide a specific example of a page where you are copying text from and can't accomplish what you need so we can validate the steps needed.

And one more quick EDIT here... I was using the term "highlight", but these apps have a highlighter akin to what you'd use on paper, so on the off-chance you are thinking I meant that, then no... don't use the highlighter tool. Select the text with the mouse, or use CMD-A to select everything. "Highlight" is an old-school way of saying "select with the mouse" because it does get highlighted in a manner separate from un-selected text.



Why are you trying to do that with a right-click? I'm guessing you are trying to insert the text in between other text? So don't right-click. Use the top menu item as I pointed out already, or use the keyboard shortcut command for the action. Position your cursor where you want the text; use the top menu item or press OPTION-SHIFT-COMMAND-V. And BOOM! Text pasted with formatting stripped. Just look right there at the menu. The keyboard shortcut for every action is listed next to the action.

EDIT: I just realized I missed that you don't want to move the mouse to go to the top menu. This MIGHT be addressable with 3rd party software or other means... I'll have to think about that. Anyway, something worth pointing out... if you wind up wanting to use the keyboard shortcut for "Paste and Match Style" frequently but find that keyboard combo cumbersome, it CAN be changed via an existing feature in macOS. But we can cover that at a later time.

Well, thanks for thinking I'm stupid, and for calling me a liar. Helpful? NOT! I've been using pages since 2010 when my husband introduced me to Mac computers. Never had a problem I couldn't figure out on my own, or by searching on the 'Net. So, you may leave this conversation if you continue with this mightier than thou attitude, thank you.

 

[TanBrae]

I've long complained about Apple's STUPID software policies, from abandoning Aperture (seriously, ***?), to the lobotomization of Final Cut Pro, and the iOS hammer they took to the iWork '09 suite, the latter two of which they eventually, mostly, resolved via updates and the return of features, in a process that took *years* and lost uncounted numbers of users in the process.

I was a daily user of Pages & Keynote in the '09 suite, and while there were bugs that bugged me, no pun intended, that was nothing compared to the mess those apps were turned into in order to unify file versions / feature sets with the iOS counterparts. It was handled *horribly*.

That said... I've recently moved up to Ventura and the latest versions of the iWork (I guess it's not called that anymore) suite, and all is mostly fine. The hint posted above about Command-Option-Shift-V to "Paste & Match Style" is incredibly useful. Just don't expect it to work in Microsoft bloody Word. There aren't words to describe how much I hate Word (and I work with it every day).

Oh, THANK YOU! Another not-so-much-a-fan! I'm glad there is somebody else here who doesn't think Apple is the computer god! My husband (who has had Macs since Lisa - still has his Lisa machine!) have both been frustrated with some of the, at least for US, unnecessary changes that "others have a great appreciation for". I say if it ain't broke, don't fix it! And, if you feel you "must" "fix it", then leave the older version intact, and let it run with newer OSs.

 

[TanBrae]

I’m convinced that is what the OP was actually using before.

Again, I was NOT, NOT, NOT using TextEdit. I DO know the difference. Go away if you won't be kind and helpful.

 

[MacInWin]

I just went to Picture Correct, copied an entire article, with images, pasted into Pages and then used Select All to select all of the text, made changes and saved it. So, before calling somebody out for pointing out that Pages is pretty useful, maybe you should learn more about it. it works, just as advertised. So if it isn't working for YOU, then YOU must be doing something wrong with it.

Frankly, your attitude about this in this entire thread has been very aggressive. Toning it down would probably draw a lot more help. Having verified that Pages works, I'm done with this. Good luck with it.

 

[TanBrae]

I just went to Picture Correct, copied an entire article, with images, pasted into Pages and then used Select All to select all of the text, made changes and saved it. So, before calling somebody out for pointing out that Pages is pretty useful, maybe you should learn more about it. it works, just as advertised. So if it isn't working for YOU, then YOU must be doing something wrong with it.

Frankly, your attitude about this in this entire thread has been very aggressive. Toning it down would probably draw a lot more help. Having verified that Pages works, I'm done with this. Good luck with it.

Aggressive? Yeah, it probably sounds like that. I'm FRUSTRATED beyond imagine. That probably translates to aggressive.

So, I'm done, too. I uninstalled Pages. Dumped my trash. Went back to the App Store, verified that Pages will work with OS Big Sur, then reinstalled while reading through this thread to see if I've missed something. So far, it seems like things may be "better". Making the changes I want seems to be working better than before. So... "maybe"???

I have found that sometimes, uninstalling and reinstalling work.

 

[Lifeisabeach]

Well, thanks for thinking I'm stupid, and for calling me a liar. Helpful? NOT! I've been using pages since 2010 when my husband introduced me to Mac computers. Never had a problem I couldn't figure out on my own, or by searching on the 'Net. So, you may leave this conversation if you continue with this mightier than thou attitude, thank you.

I didn't call you stupid or a liar. Your experiences simply don't add up. Barring the possibility of an incredibly buggy installation of your macOS and/or Pages (something I failed to consider), what you insist it can't do simply isn't accurate. Whether you were mis-remembering what you have been using, how you've used it before, or are overlooking something, it's impossible to say, but you are simply wrong about what Pages can and can't do, or has and has not done. You are mistaken, like it or not, and getting offended won't change that.

 

[Lifeisabeach]

Hold the phone... I just re-created the problem. Stay tuned.....

 

[Lifeisabeach]

I believe I recreated the issue, if anyone would be so kind as to check behind me. I started with this article:

How to Use Curves Adjustment Layers in Photoshop

This is a complete introduction that will get you comfortable using and understanding the fundamentals of the curves adjustment layer. It will not go into any technical detail that you don’t need. Everything I explain here is useful for you to know when actually using the tool. The first section...

www.picturecorrect.com

I saved it as a webarchive, assuming that's how the OP was saving these themselves, however I also repeated the test with the website itself. What I did was copy the text starting with the title "HOW TO USE CURVES ADJUSTMENT LAYERS IN PHOTOSHOP" and through the first paragraph. I then started a new BLANK document in Pages, and used "Paste and match Style" to insert what I copied. It pasted with the style of the BLANK template as expected, with the font being Helvetica Neue @ 11 pts. All good this way, as expected.

Next, I undid the paste, so I was back to a blank page, still styled as per the default. I then did a normal Paste into the blank document. It all now looks like it does on the source website, with all the font changes including size and color (EDIT: with one notable exception.... there is a blue background color on the font not present in the source, which I can't explain but likely has something to do with the article's HTML source code). From here, I re-selected all; simply deleted all the text rather than using "Undo" by using the DELETE key; and used "Paste and Match Style" again. Now... because I didn't use "Undo" before and simply deleted the previously pasted text, the style of the page is no longer Helvetica Neue @ 11pts. The new style matches the title as shown on the source page, which is 30 pt Helvetica in a yellowish color. Addiitonally, if you look at the paragraph styles picker, it now shows "Default*" as being the font style as per that article's title. See my screen cap.





Ok, so now we are starting to get somewhere. Next what I did was re-select everything. I'm actually going to slightly backtrack on myself here. When I posted that I was on to something last time... I had selected all the text again at this point and toggling bold and italics wasn't working. Actually toggling bold once did work because I wound up with fewer words-per-line as they took up more space from being bolded, but then not at all. I'm certain of this. As I walk back through these steps for this post, it is working as expected. It's possible I was confused and didn't have everything re-selected last time because there is a background color to this style that makes it all LOOK like it's selected. I'm not sure now but I know I saw everything change the first time I clicked the BOLD button, then not afterwards.

At any rate, something to take away from this is that if the default paragraph style gets changed via the way I made it change as above, that modified default "sticks" for anything else pasted into the document. This is expected behavior, but is a curveball that could be confusing, depending on what that default gets changed to. Just look at that screen cap. It appears that I have everything selected due to the background color, but I don't! Nothing is selected. When I actually do select everything, there's a light blue tint to it all AND clicking the icons for bold/italic work as expected.

EDIT: I do have a question. Just exactly HOW is the web page being saved to your Mac? Are you saving as a web archive, PDF, or a screen cap?

 

[IWT]

It says a great deal about a member when they undertake experiments and find that some things come out as expected; whereas some do not - and they then share that experience even if it means revising previous advice.

Bravo, LIAB.

Ian

 

[pm-r]

I haven't read most of it, but have you ever considered to use TextEdit?
It's part of macOS _i use it quite regularly for simple text documents.

I was also going to add the suggestion of using Tex-Edit Plus.app, but unfortunately it seems to be 32 bit and the latest version won't run in some later Mac OS versions:

Version 4.10.4:
Note: This product is not compatible with macOS Catalina and later.

Download Tex-Edit Plus for Mac | MacUpdate

Download the latest version of Tex-Edit Plus for Mac for free. Read 87 user reviews and compare with similar apps on MacUpdate.

www.macupdate.com

It's name pretty well explains its extra functions.

As for using MS Word for quick note taking and copy and pasting, I would suggest that no template based Mac application would be recommended for such a task.

That would be more in line for a text editor application I would think.




- Patrick
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[pm-r]

Bravo, LIAB.

+1. Totally agree 100%.

Thanks for mentioning the fact Ian.

PS: do I see a new Avatar with your posts, or is that just from a mod the admins have done as well as adding the gentle falling snowflakes.
BTW: we have more snow forecast for our area today and throughout the rest of the week, so quite fitting.

Parts of the BC West Coast got a huge traffic crunching snowfall earlier in the week. Not a good or very nice situation for many.



- Patrick
=======