Section A.1. The Pages Menu

A.1. The Pages Menu

The first menu after the menu not only holds some of the program's very basic commands, like Preferences and Quit, but the menu name also shows you at a glance which program is in the foreground, or active on your computera helpful guidepost when you're switching back and forth between programs.

A.1.1. About Pages

This command opens the "About" box, headquarters for Apple's legal fine print in a dozen languages. Non- lawyers are interested in this box for two reasons: it displays exactly which version of Pages is running, and it displays your iWork installation code, useful if you need to reinstall the program and have managed to lose the little stickers that contain this vital information.

A.1.2. Preferences

This command opens Pages' Preferences window, where you can make program-wide adjustments that affect the way Pages behaves. Keyboard equivalent: -, (comma). From the Preferences window, you can control the following settings:

• For new documents . When you open a new Pages document, either by launching the program, by choosing File New, or by choosing -N, what you see next depends on this setting. The standard setting is "Show Template Chooser dialog," which causes Pages to display the Template Chooser window so you can pick which template to use. Select "Use template: [template name]" if you want the program to always open the same template. Use the Choose button to determine which template it uses.

• Use smart quotes (" ") . Turn on the first of the three editing preferences to make Pages use typographers' quotation marksthe kind that curl in toward the quoted wordsinstead of straight, typewriter-style quotes. Unless you're trying to emulate a typewriter or have some other special need, smart quotes are the way to go.

• Show size and position when moving objects . With this checkbox turned on, Pages displays a little box showing an object's dimensions when you resize it, and a fixed object's position on the page when you move it. You'll find this information very handy when trying to match the size or position of various objects.

• Back up previous version when saving . With this checkbox turned on, Pages saves two copies of all your documents. One file is your most recently saved version and the othertitled "Backup of [file name]"is the next-to-last saved version. While having this preference turned on requires exactly twice as much hard drive space for your Pages documents, it provides a safety net, keeping a previous version of your document available in case you inadvertently damage a fileor make changes to it that you later regret .

• Invisibles . Click this color well to open the Color Picker to change the display color for invisible charactersspaces, tabs, paragraph breaks, and so on. Turn the display of invisible characters on and off for each document via the View menu.

• Hyperlinks . Turning on the checkbox marked "Automatically detect e-mail and web addresses" makes Pages turn email and Web addresses into active links, displaying them with an underline, and opening your email program or Web browser when you click one of these links. See Section 4.5 for details.

• Ruler units . Use this pop-up menu to choose your preferred measurement unit in Pages: inches, centimeters, points, or picas. Pages uses this unit throughout the program wherever measurements are involvedsuch as the document margins in the Document Inspector or object sizes in the Metrics Inspector.

• Place origin at the center of ruler . Turn on this checkbox if you prefer to measure everything in your document from the center of the page. You may find this option helpful if you're creating centered or symmetrical layouts. Instead of the rulers having their zero points at the upper-left corner of the document, the horizontal ruler will display its zero point half way across the page, and the vertical ruler will show its zero point half way down the page.

• Display ruler units as percentage . If you turn on this checkbox, Pages' rulers display a percentage of the document size, running from 0 to 100 across the full width or height of the page. When you use percentages instead of units, it's much easier to divide the page into equal segments, for example. With this checkbox turned on, the settings in the Ruler Units pop-up menu no longer apply to the rulers, but they do apply to those other parts of the program that use measurementsobject size, position, and so forth.

• Alignment guides . Click this color well to open the Color Picker if you want to change the color for Pages' alignment guides. This feature comes in handy to choose a contrasting color, if you're working on a document with a colored background.

• Show guides at object center . With this checkbox turned on, alignment guides appear when an object you're dragging crosses the page's invisible center or edge guidelines, the centerline of another object, or alignment guides you've added to the page. These guidelines also cause the object to magnetically snap into alignment.

• Show guides at object edges . This checkbox turns on snap-to guidelines that appear when an object's edge aligns with another object's edge, the page's edge, the invisible page centerline, or alignment guides you've added to the page. Turn on both of the alignment guide checkboxes to have the most alignment possibilitiesor turn them both off to do away with object alignment guides entirely. See Section 4.3.4 for more alignment guide details.

A.1.3. Provide Pages Feedback

Apple acknowledges that software is always a work in progress by including this command. Choose it to open your Web browser to the Pages Feedback form, your direct line to the Pages development team. Apple encourages you to report bugs , glitches, and compatibility problems, as well as missing features you wish were included or other ideas you have for enhancing the program. Just don't be disappointed if you don't receive a personal thank you note in return.

A.1.4. Register Pages

Choose this command to open your Web browser to Apple's product registration page. Product registration is completely optional, although Apple's marketing department would like to collect some demographic information about you and with your permissionput you on the list to receive promotional emails from Apple and its partner companies.

A.1.5. Services

OS X offers this menu to give you access to other programs on your computer while you're working in Pages. You can use it to do things like send a chunk of selected text to a Sticky note; have your Mac read the text aloud to you, or summarize a long selection into a pithy paragraph; open a selected URL in your Web browser or search for a selected phrase with Google; or use Grab to capture a snapshot of what's on your screen.

A.1.6. Hide Pages

When you choose this command, Pages immediately vaporizesevery last window, inspector, browser, picker, and panel disappearsproviding ready access to your desktop or other programs whose windows may be lurking beneath Pages'. Its keyboard command -His a good one to memorize, especially if you're a double agent or like to spend time at work updating your rsum. Keyboard equivalent: -H.

When you find what you're looking for on your desktopor when the coast is clearclick the Pages icon in the Dock and all its hidden windows reappear.

A.1.7. Hide Others

This command does just the opposite of the previous one: the Pages windows stay put and those belonging to any other program disappear. Click the Dock icon of any hidden program to bring back its windows. Keyboard equivalent: -Option-H.

A.1.8. Show All

If you've hidden any programs, this command is the Mac equivalent of shouting "Ollie ollie oxen free!" All the hidden windows immediately reveal themselves .

A.1.9. Quit Pages

This command does exactly what it says it willexits the program. If you have any unsaved documents open, Pages gives you the opportunity to save them before it quits. Keyboard equivalent: -Q.