I Work in Pages

Combine layout and text boxes to create a multi-column design.

2012-02-13T13:42:00.000+01:00

Read this previous post about the background for the page shown here.

This magazine page shows the layout grid (shortcut to show: Command+Shift+L, type again to hide) and all the objects on the page selected, showing their handles.

The page is designed in Word Processing mode. You have to choose the mode when you start your project.

Note that the top of the page has a one and four-column layout for text. You can choose the number of columns in the Layout Inspector.

The heading at the top is in one column, then there is a layout break, followed by the four-column layout.

The lower half of the page is a combination of two Text Boxes and two graphic images, slightly tilted.

To tilt, use rotate function: press Command and then drag one of the handles of the photo. You can use rotating wheel or arrows in Graphics Inspector.

There is also a flip function. In the left photo the airplane can go leftward or rightward when you flip the image. Be careful: if there is lettering in the image, it will be inverted like in the mirror if you flip the photo.

In this design, what holds the text in four columns at the top half of the page is wrapping. Text boxes in the lower half push the text above into the four-column layout.

Adding a layout break at the end of the article at the top of the page will also keep the text in four columns. But you may find that using text boxes alongside the layout gives more flexibility.

In Page Layout mode, use Text Boxes to create a multiple column layout.

The image here is a screenshot. Actual PDF will have a much higher definition suitable for high-end printing.

Minimalist Nude (3). Adobe Illustrator's Tutorial.

2012-02-11T14:17:00.001+01:00

In this video tutorial from the SewHeidi web-site (via YouTube) a fashion designer shows how to use Adobe Illustrator's tools to draw the sketch of a fashion model.

Palettes and bars are slightly different from those in iWork, but the actual process of adding editing points (anchors) and curving the lines of the body shape is the same.

Read Minimalist Nude (2) for a step-by-step tutorial and watch this video to have an idea of how it works.

Valentine's Projects on I Work in Pages

2012-02-09T06:04:00.000+01:00

For your Valentine's projects, have a look at these previous articles on I Work in Pages which describe how to draw heart shapes, smiles and compose designs with a love theme.

Minimalist Nude 2 (drawing pictures and logos)

2012-02-08T09:32:00.000+01:00

Minimalist Nude

A few weeks ago I published 'Nu Minimale', a picture made with iWork's draw tool. The tool sits as the last option in the Shapes menu. It is for creating free-drawn (custom) shapes.

In other words, it's an artist's tool. Look at it as a pencil, a piece of chalk, a brush or a stylus.

To create shapes click several times. Each click creates a dot and each next dot connects to the previous one with a line of default colour and thickness.

To make a closed shape, make a roundtrip with your clicks – and click on the first dot again. To make a line, double click on the last dot.

After the basic shape is created we can edit and modify it.

This is how it works.

Click one-two

Click two-three

Click three-four

Click four-five

Click five-six

And double-click on the last dot.

Format>Shape>Smooth Path

This makes the line curving instead of angled.

Choose a line style

In Graphics Inspector, under Stroke click on Line and choose a line style from the drop-down menu.

Make curves

When you click on red dots – editing points, they turn white and show 'propellers'. Drag, pull out or push in to change the curves of the line. When you drag one propeller, the other one moves too. To move them independently, press Command while dragging.

Curve the line until it resembles the curves of a body.

Watch an Adobe Illustrator's video tutorial to get the gist of how the curving function works. It's pretty much the same in iWork.

See earlier post 'Nu Minimale'.

and have a look at 'Obama, Blues Brothers and Picasso'.

In this clip from Woody Allen's 'Midnight in Paris' Gil stuns Paul with his deep understanding of avant-garde art:

Backgrounds: using Musical Poster template.

2012-02-07T13:38:00.000+01:00

In this post I want to show

- how elements from iWork templates can be used in our own designs

- and how to combine multi-column layout with text boxes and graphic images.

The background for this magazine page (picture on the right) with a historical theme is from the Musical Poster template.

Background from Musical Poster

Open it with File>New From Template Chooser.

The image of a yellowed piece of paper in the background is locked, you cannot select it.

To unlock, Arrange>Unlock. When the image shows handles, copy it and paste into your document. (picture at bottom left).

Then resize to fit your design, send to back or move to background, also under Arrange menu. You can rotate it by dragging the handles while pressing Command and change proportions: uncheck 'Constrain proportions' in Metrics Inspector and drag handles to resize.

When the poster image is in the background you can arrange other elements of the page on top of it. To avoid accidentally moving the background image, choose Arrange>Make Backround Objects Unselectable.

The images here are screenshots, actual PDFs will have a high definition suitable for high-end professional printing.

Note that the magazine page has a combination of one, four and three column formats for text.

Next, I'll show how to use a combination of layout and text boxes to design pages like that.

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When a PDF 'Scales Down', Truncates or Appears with a White Band of Empty Space

2012-02-04T21:49:00.000+01:00

Here is a curious problem that hits iWork users occasionally. A reader of this blog, Carles, wrote to me a few days ago:

I am trying to create a magazine. I am using Pages in spite of everybody telling me to use InDesign. Pages is easy and gives the documents a unique look. The printer asked me for a pdf in cmyk. I use Pages '09. I followed all of your instructions and read all the comments. I created a PS and then I processed it through the Distiller. But a white band appeared around the document. I tried to change the sizes but it didn't work. Here you can see the screen shot: (Editor: see picture of the PDF, black lines indicate margins of the document after processing). I don't know what to do.

That looked familiar. I had this problem with my magazine and couldn't find a solution for some time.

This is how to tackle it.

1. First of all, if you have other documents or a multi-page document like a brochure or a magazine, check if the same thing happens to all the pages. In my magazine, out of 32 pages two or three suddenly started producing PDFs that 'scaled down' – appeared smaller, truncated with a white band of empty space around a section of the PDF.

If other documents appear ok, then there is some bug hiding in the document – a code, a corrupt font, something else that you don't even realise is there.

To get rid of it, create a new document from scratch reproducing or copy-pasting the elements of your design in the new document. Process via Distiller and see if the problem is gone.

2. Try making PDFs at each stage of designing your document. Create a coloured shape and make a PDF, import the photo – and make a PDF, type in text - and make a PDF. Check at what stage this 'scaling down' occurs.

In my case it was a corrupt font. I deleted it from the Font Library and then reinstalled a fresh file with the same font.

3. If this doesn't help, try using someone else's Distiller, the printers' for example, to see if the problem is with your version (or copy) of Distiller.

4. And of course the simplest solution is to crop your PDF as it came out. Cut out the white band and only leave your document. Acrobat has a Crop Document tool.

5. And another trick: import your PDF with the white band into a new blank Pages document, resize it so that it fills the whole page, with the white band outside of the document, and produce a new PDF from that document. That's what one of my printers did when I had this problem. I gave up and just took the 'scaled down' PDFs to them - they 'scaled it up' without reprocessing or doing anything else to it.

Read this earlier post from 2007 about a different problem with corrupt fonts.

Carles posted his question as a comment on From Pages to CMYK PDF article, his image is used with permission.

How to Constrain Proportions Without Metrics Inspector

2012-01-26T12:30:00.000+01:00

Hold down the Shift key as you drag handles.

It's a simple trick when you want to get on with your project quickly, without endlessly going to Inspector and switching from Graphic to Metric, to Wrap, etc.

Constrain proportions function is in Metrics inspector, not Graphics. Put a tick in the checkbox next to 'Constrain Proportions'. It stops the graphic image distorting when it is resized – if you don't, the image will be squashed, when you pull horizontally, or stretched, if you pull vertically.

Holding down the Shift key constrain proportions temporarily, only for the time you need it.

Stretched

This trick, of course, is for pulling on the object handles in the middle of the sides of the object, not on the corners.

Squashed

Nu Minimale (1).

2012-01-21T15:59:00.000+01:00

A minimalist drawing I made with the free draw tool in Pages. It is the last option in Shapes drop-down menu.

For a fuller tutorial read 'Minimalist Nude.'

How to Change Unit Measures in Rulers.

2012-01-19T13:58:00.000+01:00

If you are more used to Imperial measures (inches not centimetres) and your copy of iWork came with metric units activated as default, you can change it in Preferences>Rulers. Preferences are under Pages, Numbers or Keynote menu.

Click on the Ruler Units drop-down menu and choose the measure unit of your preference.

It's useful not just for when you want to use the unit that you are more comfortable with, but for finer adjustment of tabs and bullets when formatting text. Instead of using split inches or centimeters, you can use typographical points, which are more suitable for paragraph or bullet indentations.

And the other way round, when positioning graphics objects on a page, split inches or centimetres may give a more exact position to the object. Set the coordinates in Metrics Inspector.

There is a converter widget with the Dashboard. Click on Dashboard in the Dock, choose units from drop-down menus, enter numbers and convert.

Bloat (MS Word vs iWork/Pages)

2012-01-16T10:01:00.000+01:00

Click on the link to see other posts about Word count in iWork Pages

I've just updated (slightly) an old post comparing iWork/Pages with MS Word. One of the early complaints about Pages was the word count. Many users – and even reviewers – found it difficult to find it. Current versions of iWork have word count displayed at the bottom of the page. Remember, to have other counting features handy, open Document Inspector and click on Info tab. I shows word, character, line and paragraph count.

Here is a quote from the old article:

I started working in Pages three years ago when work on the English language magazine for Normandy began. Over that period I have done a substantial amount of work in Word, including translations of two books from English into Russian and numerous articles from Russian into English. Over time I noticed that I was getting increasingly frustrated with Word, mostly because of its cluttered look, but also because I felt that somehow it took me longer to do word processing operations in Word than in Pages. Word looses to Pages in exactly this presence of too many formatting features, most of which user may not even need. In the end, when the last batch of translations came from my client in Word, I simply copy/pasted the text into Pages, did all the work, including proofing, referencing and word/character count, there and then copy/pasted the finished document back into Word to send to the client. Even though many of my co-workers and clients send me their documents in Word, my feeling is that there is less and less room for Word in what I do. In many cases I don't even open Word docs in Word, but in Pages or TextEdit.

If you do have to deliver your finished work in .doc format consider 'Save as...' option: choose from the File menu or press Command + Shift and type S. When dialogue opens, put a tick in the 'Save copy as' option and choose Word from the drop-down menu. DOC format files work with Open Office too.

How to Add Objects as Inline Instead of Floating

2012-01-15T08:21:00.000+01:00

This tip is for those who have a habit of working like this: store photos or other graphic images on the Desktop and drag them into the Pages project when needed.

When Pages are ready to 'take' the photo a blue contour line appears around the outer margins or around a placeholder (mediaholder). Let go of the mouse and the picture will plop in the document as a floating object.

Golden Retriever

If your project is mostly text, you may want to anchor the image to a particular part of the text – the one that the image illustrates. For example, you describe your new-born puppies, black and white, and want the picture of the white puppy to stay with his description and the black puppy portrait – with his.

When images are floating, the relevant text may flow away from the description as you write. When they are inline (anchored), they will move with the text.

To import an image as inline straightaway:

Press Command (⌘) as you drag and the blinking cursor will indicate the insertion point!

Let go, and the white puppy will sit with his description and the black will be anchored to his.

Black Retriever

If you copy-paste an image from another document, click on the point in text where you want it to go as an inline object. If you copy-paste and want the image to be floating, click on one of the floating objects already in the document and then paste (or click outside the text area, so that there is no blinking cursor).

Video clips and objects of other types can be imported in the same way.

The puppies are mine and have grown into beautiful big dogs.

Three Dots Shortcut (Ellipsis)

2012-01-14T12:57:00.001+01:00

This one is for you if you love unfinished sentences and thoughts, or if you sigh after every (written) phrase, or even in the middle of the phrase. Or, seriously, for omitted parts of a quotation, or for long lines between parts of text.

To type three dots in one hit on the keyboard, press Option (alt ⌥) and hit semicolon (;).

⌥ + ; = …

The 'posh' name for the three dots is ellipsis. To read all about it, go to this wikipedia article, which also shows and describes other punctuation signs.

Happy New Year 2012! Snowman and Tree.

2011-12-31T10:53:00.001+01:00

Happy New Year to the readers of I Work in Pages!

I've just quickly drawn a tree with a star on top. It may need more tweaking, but I am putting it here anyway. See if you can improve on this desi

The picture on the right shows the click-points I made with the Draw tool while designing the tree. After the basic shape is drawn make the shape editable: Format>Shape>Make editable. Next, to make curves, add Format>Shape>Smooth Path. Drag and rotate editing handles that look like propellers sticking out of each editing point (little red dot) when it is selected.

Outline of the shape is 2 points, colour is Cayenne. The tree has gradient colour fill – Fern and Moss.

The star is from the Shapes menu with an advanced gradient fill flowing from Maraschino in the centre to Salmon at the edges. The outline is 2 points thick, colour is Cayenne.

The little robin sitting on snowman's hand is also designed in iWork. See details in 'Designing Robin: Smaller Graphic Elements'.

I've made several versions of the snowman. Read details in this article: 'Snowman: Drawing and Editing Images in iWork'.

©A.Anichkin

Christmas and New Year Projects

2011-12-21T09:55:00.003+01:00

For Christmas projects to print or to send digitally please read this previous article on I Work in Pages:

Christmas Projects in Pages.

And have a look at other festive ideas and solutions in other posts.

A complete 10-step Christmas card design tutorial is here.

Put Remembrance Poppy on Your Photo

2011-11-04T12:31:00.000+01:00

Finished photo with a Poppy

Here is a simple how-to:

- Drop a photo of yourself into a Pages document;

- Next, insert a photo of red poppies or a snapshot of the British Legion Poppy Appeal lapel poppy;

- If there are many poppies in the photo put a mask on it to leave just one;

- Remove background with Instant Alpha tool, so that only the red poppy is left;

- Resize and position the Poppy over the photo the way you like it to look;

- Take a screenshot, print to PDF or Jpeg - and use as avatar, favecom, profile picture, etc.

Click on Remembrance Poppies label (here, or below this post) to read other posts about Remembrance Day theme and making your own clipart with poppies.

Add photo of poppies

Remove background with Alpha

Mask to leave one poppy

Resize and reposition.

Drag File from Spotlight to Dock to Choose Application.

2011-10-31T06:00:00.000+01:00

When you do a Spotlight search on your Mac, you don't need to double-click on your file to open it – just click it once.

There is another useful trick.

If you want a file to be opened by a particular programme, not the one that opens it by default, click and drag the file from Spotlight search window onto the Dock icon of that programme.

For example if you want a PDF to be opened by Acrobat instead of Preview. Or if you want Pages to open a Doc. file instead of Word of Open Office.

Apples 2011.

Zoom In and Zoom Out Shortcuts

2011-10-27T06:00:00.000+02:00

Some web documents are set in such small text (font) size that even with healthy eyes it's quite a strain to read them.

A quick way to enlarge the text is to use Zoom In shortcut:

Command+

To make the text smaller type Command- (minus)

This shortcut also works in Preview – very useful for reading PDF documents, books for example, that are typeset in too small font size.

Five Years of Working in Pages.

2011-10-25T13:12:00.001+02:00

It is five years since I've started blogging about iWork/Pages.

It seems like a long time. I only began it to organize my numerous scribbles on solutions I found while working in Pages, but slowly it grew into a popular source of information, a point of reference for hundreds of iWork/Pages users throughout the world. The blog is now visited by over a thousand people a day.

It seems like a long time, but what amazes me is that I still have that uplifting feeling of excitement and discovery every time I try something new in Pages.

A big thank you to the readers of I Work in Pages for support, encouragement, comments and suggestions.

Letters above are 'written' with the Draw Tool (in the Shapes menu) and then edited (Format>Shape>Smooth Path). The candle consists of edited shapes – two ovals with gradient colour fill and a rectangle. Both ovals have coloured shadows flowing in opposite directions (add shadow in Graphics Inspector and rotate the shadow angle wheel). This gives the halo effect to the flame.

Colour Coded Sections: How to Colour Page Edges

2011-10-24T06:00:00.000+02:00

To make a colour coded section in your book, brochure, magazine or guide put a colour-filled bled object over the outside edge of each page of the section.

When printers cut pages to format the colour on the edge will be visible even when the publication is closed. Multiple pages with the same object will form a coloured section in the publication.

The picture is a detail of a Directory section in the Guide to Buying Property in Normandy I made two years ago. I created a long rectangular shape, filled it with yellow and dragged over the outside edge of the page. The same shape is on every page of the Directory in the same position on the outside edge.

One word of caution: don't overdo coloured edges. Too many small sections may be confusing for readers. And make sure that colours have some connection to contents, e.g. yellow – for directories as in Yellow Pages, green – for something ecological, pink – for romantic stuff like personal ads or dating section, etc.

The Quirks of Word Processing and Page Layouts.

2011-10-22T06:00:00.000+02:00

I've written about the quirky behaviour of documents in Page Layout mode, when Master Object options become unavailable. A reader is asking how to choose between Page Layout and Word Processing modes.

When you open a new document, template chooser should open too prompting you to choose 'blank' from either Word Processing or Page layout. Click on 'blank' under Word Processing.

If template chooser isn't set to open with every new document, under File menu choose 'New from Template Chooser', or type Shift+Command+N.

If you've already done much of your work, it might be wiser to put up with that quirk. If not, open a new document in Word Processing mode and copy-paste your work into it.

Life is not fair!

A Remembrance Poppy

2011-10-21T12:39:00.000+02:00

If you are working on a Remembrance Day project you may want to design a Red Poppy.

Here are the elements of a Remembrance Poppy:

And here is the finished clipart:

Please read Remembrance Poppy: Designed in Pages.

'True Black': How-to

2011-10-20T06:00:00.000+02:00

True black

A reader asks:
I have a problem. When I send a project to a professinal printing company they complain that the text in pages isn't 100 percent black. It's in CMYK.

I've written here about 100 percent black text in CMYK files – 'true black'. But it seems that quite a lot of Pages users stumble upon this when they go to printers.

Here is how to do it:
- select all text in your document;
- in Text Inspector click on the colour well (the bar with which you change colour);
- when Colour Viewer opens, click on the Slides option (second from left);
- choose CMYK in the drop-down menu and set CMY to zero, and K (black) to 100 percent.  

Repeat the same for text boxes and captions.   That should give you what they call 'true black'.  

Licorice

The problem occurs when you use a preset black for your document, for example Licorice from the Crayons Box in the Colour Viewer. It looks black, but in fact is a composite of several basic colours - Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black. Professional printers prefer 'true black', because it gives text the best crispness on paper.

How to Draw Segments in Pages

2011-10-17T14:37:00.000+02:00

I was asked recently if it was possible to draw segments in Pages. The Shapes menu has all the basic geometrical shapes, but not half-circles, quarter circles etc. They can be useful for simple blueprints or schemes, or just a design effect.

It’s very easy to do it in two or three steps.

Insert a shape called ‘Oval’ (in fact it is a circle). In Graphic Inspector set it to have no Stroke (outline), choose colour.

Next insert a rectangle, remove stroke and choose white for colour. By default they would have the same dimensions, but just in case check that they do in Metrics Inspector.

Then move the white rectangle until the blue guideline ‘snap’ it to the edge of the cirlce. That way you get a 3/4 full circle with a 1/4 cut out.

Now, if you need a 1/4 segment, insert another restangle, make it white, remove Stroke and move it over the circle until it snaps to align with the centre of the circle. Presto, you have a quarter segment.

The grey colour I used in these examples is from the Financial Newsletter template (CMYK breakdown: 41, 19, 9, 0.

If you need to change the size of the segments, select all shapes, group them (Arrange>Group), in Metrics Inspector check ‘Constrain proportions’ and then drag handles to resize.

These are simple shapes, good to give an approximate idea of how things should look (for example to show where doors open, or the field of vision. For a more exact scaling use pie-charts in Pages or in Numbers, which have a number of attractive visual options, including 3D views.

Steve Jobs 1955-2011. The Man Who Gave Apple Its Bite.

2011-10-06T07:45:00.000+02:00

Steve Jobs died on 5 October 2011

Steve Jobs' Apple grew out of freedom. A hippy, he rejected the accepted way of thinking and behaving. His philosophy was to look at the established differently, think laterally, pursue simplicity, reliability – and beauty.

That is what makes him as a man and his creation, a Mac, stand out.

You can do things that you have already been doing, but in a more efficient and enjoyable way.

I was trained as an editor and writer in a just-precomputer era, when machines were big, complicated, ugly and intimidating. Cut, copy and paste was just that, literally – pen, paper, scissors and glue.

I saw my first Mac in the Tokyo bureau of AP. A Japanese colleague let me have a quick go and I said: 'I want one too'. 'Sure, you do', she said.

Then, when I was part of the first joint Russian-American publishing venture in Moscow, the We/Mbl newspaper, I went on an Apple-Mac DTP professional course. What struck me then was how a Mac was built to replicate all the basic human wrtiting, editing, layout and design operations – with ease and elegance.

I've stayed loyal to Apple-Macs ever since, even when, in the late 90s, the brand was on the verge of dying out, and even though I had, during the course of my career, to work on Windows computers.

Today, when I work on a modern Mac, I feel sometimes that it knows what I'm going to do even before I do, a weird, but, again, enjoyable feeling.

'The man who gave Apple its bite' is probably the best tribute to him. Here is a quick remake of the Apple logo I made in Pages:

Photo by Joi Ito.

The Rest Is Practice: Why Learn Touch-typing

2011-10-04T11:06:00.001+02:00

Left index finger goes on F.

First, you see typos as soon as you make them, and are able to correct them more efficiently, without having to stop typing and going through the typed text again. Second, and more exciting, you will soon notice that when you touch-type you can think as you write. After a while you also discover that you can type-write or type-retype much faster. Then, you can also perform many computer operations through keyboard shortcuts – save, select, copy-paste, etc., also without looking down.

зфпуы - рщц ещ ьфлу сщщгкув щк сщдщгк сщвув увпуы шт ф ьфпфяштуб икщсргку щк ищщл -

The text above was supposed to be in English, I just forgot to switch language mode from Russian to English – and carried on typing while looking at the keyboard and not at the screen. What a nuisance and a punishment for not concentrating. And not remembering to stick to touch-type. When you've mastered touch-typing, you can type without looking at the keyboard, your fingers find the necessary keys all on their own. Much like you tie your shoelaces or press on pedals in the car without looking down.

Why is it important to learn touch-typing (blind typing)?

With so much around us operated through keyboards, it may be considered a basic life skill. At first you may find that touch-typing slows you down, but the more you practice the more you find it liberating to see the text as it appears on screen.

Here is how to start. First, learn the 'home' position of your hands. F and J keys on a QWERTY layout usually have little knobs studs – that's where your left and right index fingers should rest in the basic position. Move left finger to the right to type G and right finger to the left to type H. On QWERTY put the little finger of your left hand on A and the little finger of your right hand on ;. Thumbs should rest on the Space Bar. If a word finishes with a letter in the left-hand segment of the keyboard, hit space with your right thumb, if it's on the right, use your left thumb.

From here learn where all other keys are, relative to the basic position. Start with the basic position and progress to all-fingers touch-typing.

The rest is practice.

There are numerous courses and resources on the web to learn touch typing. Have a look at this BBC animated site, designed primarily for youngsters, but content-wise good for anyone.