[Trumpetman]

Just a picky point here and I wonder if others have noticed this. Perhaps I can find a way to change it. When I use Pages, the default blank document starts off with the styles selected as being in the body of a paragraph. This has the effect of making any returns being thought of as being the end of a paragraph and spaces them at 12 points, basically double spacing them.

Did somebody mess with my Mac or is this default for Pages? This has to be the weirdest default I have run across.

Nick

[Brad]

I don't have a copy of Pages with me right now, but this can be easily adjusted from one of the tabs in the formatting palette. Yes, that's the default behavior.

[MCQ]

Yep, it's the default. Irked me too - I had to decrease the spacing in the Inspector, then save the document as a new template, and go into preferences to have it launch that document as the default template.

[Kickaha]

Well, a return is the end of a paragraph in pretty much any word processor/layout system I've used... I guess I didn't find it surprising. Then again, I'm primarily a LaTeX head, where return == paragraph, and the enclosing section can do all sorts of funky things with it.

Yeah, yeah, Word isn't that way. I also don't use Word.

If I may be so bold, what are you trying to do with the Return that you don't want it to treat it as a paragraph break?

[Brad]

Kickaha, you must remember that most people aren't used to logical, properly object oriented document editors like we are. Of course, that's mostly Microsoft's fault.

[Kickaha]

Yup, and it's going to take some new training to get folks to *NOT* think of Return as a layout tool.

[Gargoyle]

What is the correct way to get a list then?

[Brad]

*smacks forehead*

Use the bullet/number/letter/etc. list functionality?

[Kickaha]

Three ways.

1) Add the List element to your Toolbar.

2) Click on the List button in the bottom right of the Styles drawer.

3) Inspector -> Text -> List (this is where you can tweak it to your heart's content)


These then create lists that Pages *knows* are lists, and you can do all sort of neat formatting of them that takes advantage of this.

You can also set new List styles in the drawer, and then have quick access to them through the Toolbar button.

So, make a list, set it up once exactly the way you want it in the Inspector, add it to the Styles drawer, then have it always at the ready. Voila.

[Trumpetman]

Originally Posted by Kickaha Well, a return is the end of a paragraph in pretty much any word processor/layout system I've used... I guess I didn't find it surprising. Then again, I'm primarily a LaTeX head, where return == paragraph, and the enclosing section can do all sorts of funky things with it. Yeah, yeah, Word isn't that way. I also don't use Word. If I may be so bold, what are you trying to do with the Return that you don't want it to treat it as a paragraph break?

Simply put the return address at the top of a business letter. I understand that I can select the freeform style and have this default go away or even use the inspector to change the end paragraph formatting. I just thought it an odd default.

BTW, I know your going to be pissy with me because between this and mail-merge it really seems like no one at Apple ever has to type an address, but lots of us do in the real world.

Nick

P.S. - Does your formatting above indicate hitting return twice? I could understand Pages doing paragraph formatting with two returns. Pages exhibits the behavior I discussed with a single return. It makes it very hard to do small things like add addresses.

[Kickaha]

I'm not going to be pissy with you... I might *laugh* at you, but I'm not going to be pissy...

Have you tried, perhaps, looking at one of the Stationery templates? They look rather like letters, complete with Address sections. Start with one of those, modify it how you want, save it as a new Template.

A return is a break in text. In most typesetting standards, a break in text is a paragraph break by default, particularly in a style such as Body. Paragraphs have, traditionally, a gutter between them, and that gutter is adjustable.

If you're not typing Body-style text, then why would you use a Body style in the first place? It makes sense as a default (to me) in the Blank template because that *is* the style that most people will use for raw text. But if you have more information about what you're going to be typing (ie, an address) then why not select a more appropriate style? That's what they're there for, after all.

Yes, this is a radically different workflow than most people are used to, but coming from LaTeX, it feels natural. "What kind of document am I going to produce? What kind of information is this text block? This one? Is this next section logically a section, subsection, subsubsection?" It really makes you aware of the logical structure of what you're creating, and then the tool can take that information and make something visually stunning that is easy to tweak. Pages works much the same way. If you're writing a letter, grab a letter template. If none of them really suit you, tweak one until it does, and save it, or heck, make one from scratch.

And actually yes, double-return-as-paragraph-break is precisely what I'm talking about as using a visual formatting element for logical breaks. It's silly. Word attempts to do this, 'interpreting' double returns as paragraph breaks, and 'helpfully' auto-indenting and crap for you, and it's a BITCH to turn off and make stop. I know what I'm writing, I know how it should be broken up, and I know how I want it laid out. The intent of direction to the application should be in that order, if you're starting from scratch. (Starting from a layout reverses that order, but it essentially provides the last two steps ready-done, you just add the content.) Mixing the logical and visual structures is a poor way of doing things. It is much better to have the layout be determined by the logical structure, but independent. (cf: XHTML, CSS) Pages gets us a lot closer to that, if not perfectly there yet.

[julesstoop]

Try shift-return. Works for me.

[Kickaha]

Aha! Do what he said.

If you Show Invisibles, you can see the difference on how it is being interpreted by Pages. Return = paragraph break, Shift-Return = line break.

[Trumpetman]

Originally Posted by Kickaha I'm not going to be pissy with you... I might *laugh* at you, but I'm not going to be pissy...

Yes well laugh away but the reality is that Apple should not expect one to go through the templates or the kludges in them to do basic tasks.

BTW, you didn't answer whether you indicated one return or two.

Have you tried, perhaps, looking at one of the Stationery templates? They look rather like letters to me, complete with Address sections. Start with one of those, modify it how you want, save it as a new Template.

Yeah except this is a hell of a lot of work just to type a soft return. Since Pages appears to be a hybrid type app they should have a preference for hard/soft returns on the first return.

BTW, I did as you asked and looked at what Apple did in their letter templates. I told Pages to show me invisibles and behold there was a hard return after each line of the address. Apple's solution was to create a custom style called address info that assigned a value of zero to after paragraph spacing.

So it seems like Apple had to fudge around with this a bit as well. Perhaps you should stop being such a fanboy and call a flaw a flaw instead of a feature.

A return is a break in text. In most typesetting standards, a break in text is a paragraph break by default, particularly in a style such as Body. Paragraphs have, traditionally, a gutter between them, and that gutter is adjustable.

This is all fine and well but a gutter of 12 is not the default behavior for any other app I have encountered under OS X. It is not even the default for textedit. Please understand that I have shown an understanding for line vs. paragraph breaks, soft vs. hard returns, full use of the inspector to edit these and so forth. I am simply saying it is an odd default behavior when nothing else in OS X behaves this way.

If you're not typing Body-style text, then why would you use a Body style in the first place? It makes sense as a default (to me) in the Blank template because that *is* the style that most people will use for raw text. But if you have more information about what you're going to be typing (ie, an address) then why not select a more appropriate style? That's what they're there for, after all.

I believe I already addressed this when I noted I could use the freeform style. Also when the app comes with so many different templates, some that start with titles, others with addresses, others still with pictures, why would one assume a paragraph style on a blank document from the get go? It seems like you use the strengths to excuse the weaknesses. Pages is much more than a word processor, but hey, lets have it act like a word processor from the late 80's early 90's with some default behaviors.

Yes, this is a radically different workflow than most people are used to, but coming from LaTeX, it feels natural. "What kind of document am I going to produce? What kind of information is this text block? This one? Is this next section logically a section, subsection, subsubsection?" It really makes you aware of the logical structure of what you're creating, and then the tool can take that information and make something visually stunning that is easy to tweak. Pages works much the same way. If you're writing a letter, grab a letter template. If none of them really suit you, tweak one until it does, and save it, or heck, make one from scratch.

I'm sorry but the point of Pages should not be to help us all relate to tools that were created when what you see was not what you got and thus we had to learn all these conventions to overcome the application limitations. I fully understand that it can help with organization of thoughts, allow more power with a deeper understanding, etc.

The reality though is that the most common default behavior for applications with single spacing is not to assign a gutter of twelve with the first hard return. I cannot think of another app that does this be it cocoa, carbon from Apple or from Microsoft.

Nick

[Kickaha]

Originally Posted by Trumpetman Yes well laugh away but the reality is that Apple should not expect one to go through the templates or the kludges in them to do basic tasks. BTW, you didn't answer whether you indicated one return or two.

Actually, I did, unless it took you 18 minutes to post the response. Look at my edit.

Yeah except this is a hell of a lot of work just to type a soft return. Since Pages appears to be a hybrid type app they should have a preference for hard/soft returns on the first return.

Oh brother. I utterly disagree. "Make it a preference!" Bollocks.

BTW, I did as you asked and looked at what Apple did in their letter templates. I told Pages to show me invisibles and behold there was a hard return after each line of the address. Apple's solution was to create a custom style called address info that assigned a value of zero to after paragraph spacing. So it seems like Apple had to fudge around with this a bit as well. Perhaps you should stop being such a fanboy and call a flaw a flaw instead of a feature.

Wow, now who's being pissy? Not to mention completely missing the point. I fear this is going to end up like that other thread, and I really don't care to waste my time again.

This is all fine and well but a gutter of 12 is not the default behavior for any other app I have encountered under OS X. It is not even the default for textedit. Please understand that I have shown an understanding for line vs. paragraph breaks, soft vs. hard returns, full use of the inspector to edit these and so forth. I am simply saying it is an odd default behavior when nothing else in OS X behaves this way.

Nothing else in OS X is a layout app, is it?

I believe I already addressed this when I noted I could use the freeform style. Also when the app comes with so many different templates, some that start with titles, others with addresses, others still with pictures, why would one assume a paragraph style on a blank document from the get go? It seems like you use the strengths to excuse the weaknesses. Pages is much more than a word processor, but hey, lets have it act like a word processor from the late 80's early 90's with some default behaviors.

You're being sarcastic, right? If that's the behaviour you want, TextEdit is your app.

I'm sorry but the point of Pages should not be to help us all relate to tools that were created when what you see was not what you got and thus we had to learn all these conventions to overcome the application limitations. I fully understand that it can help with organization of thoughts, allow more power with a deeper understanding, etc.

... I'm stunned. 'overcome the application limitations' => reason for logical/visual layout separation. I really and truly give up if that's your belief, and ground assumption. There's simply nothing I'm ever going to be able to say that will convince you in this discussion if that's where you're coming from.

The reality though is that the most common default behavior for applications with single spacing is not to assign a gutter of twelve with the first hard return. I cannot think of another app that does this be it cocoa, carbon from Apple or from Microsoft.

MS has always fucked it up, Cocoa and Carbon provide simple text boxes with minimalist formatting. Pages builds on those text boxes, adds a whole new layer of functionality, *and* gets the logical/visual dichotomy much closer to right.

Look, just delete it from your hard drive if you're that unhappy with it, and just use TextEdit. Seriously. It sounds like it would match your expectations a lot more, since it *is* essentially a 15 year old word processor model.

You've been handed solutions. Several of them. If you don't like any of them, delete Pages.

[Mr Beardsley]

Nisus Writer Express uses styles a lot like Pages, and it is a much better system for formatting your document. Setting the trailing space for paragraphs, headings, and lists is so much better than hitting a bunch of returns. If you want the the trailing space to be the same as a wrapped line, then just make a style. It only takes 10 seconds, and you can reuse it several times. Just my thoughts.

[curiousuburb]

The return key as "carriage return/paragraph" and shift-return as "line break" are standard behaviour in many professional print layout tools... it's also standard in professional web layout tools like DreamWeaver.

Double returns for paragraph separation have gone the way of double spaces after periods to separate sentences. Deprecated style. (Most would argue that underlining for emphasis in print is on the same path... unless it's for URLs or formal annotations, modern style guides suggest font style alternatives now that we're beyond the era of the typewriter and it's limited range of attention getting options.) If users add spaces in their double return lines unintentionally, Word tends to get confused and sometimes exports this as outline mode hierarchies or odd lists.

Design courses now teach single spacing after sentence termination, single return after paragraphs (learn to use "space before/after" for proper vertical spacing), and use of alternate font face, colour, or variant rather than underlined text for emphasis.

I always teach designers to ask for plain text with no formatting or extra spacing/returns.
Shoot a PDF if you want me to see a WYSIWYG reference of 'how you used to do it/how Word wants it', but realize that multiple media will often require unique tweaks for each form.

The amount of time I waste cleaning client's bad style habits from Word to adapt to modern design style for print, web, or presentations just boggles my mind. A new alternative like Pages which 'retrains' some of those users away from archaic habits sounds great.

Pages is known to need stronger tools in adjusting line spacing, but it's a lot cheaper than ID or Quark, which are the next league up in terms of precision control and price.
Workarounds for the spacing issue have been mentioned, and others may be in the pipe for the next rev (1.0.1 fixed deleting pages).

I'm with Kickaha in some ways... about time we got a new model for the way this works.

[Kickaha]

Let me take this moment to point out that T and I have been around and around about Pages before on another site, and this is really getting old.

My advice to delete Pages and look elsewhere is *not* sarcastic, or vengeful, it is dead serious. If an application doesn't meet your needs, if it doesn't work like you expect, and you're not willing to put in the time to learn a new system, then it is just plain silly to keep using it and causing yourself a migraine. Find something else that does fit your needs and expectations better, and move on. No harm, no foul. No application is going to be everything to everyone, especially when it comes to creating a new way of going about document creation and layout. Pages is unique. If you don't like the way it does things, find an app that you do, and use it, you'll be happier.