Highlighting text in pages

I used to have a "a" icon available to back highlight text.  Recently, it disappeared.  The only highlighting alternative I get is "none".  What can I do to fix this?

Use the button in the format bar as in this screenshot.

Similar Messages

  • Highlighting Text In Pages 4 and 5: How To/Best Methods?

    Hello Fellow Macers:
    I need advice on the best way to highlight text in Pages 4 and 5:
    I use and prefer Pages 4.3. Yes, I have Pages 5.2, and I find that using it good for some things (dictating into a document), but not so good for others - highlighting text.
    For example, I read tons of documents and like to make notes, comments and especially highlight text according to a color-code scheme that I have used for years.
    For those who use Word, this process of highlighting text is pretty straight-forward:
    You highlight your text and then simply click your highlight box on the Word toolbar (choose a default color, usually yellow) and you're done. If you need to use another color, just use the pull-down, as seen above. The drawback in Word - no Orange, or sectrum option.
    But let's face it - Word as a program is just too much. As someone who has used every word processing program under the sun, I find Pages excellent. It does what I need.
    However, I find highlighting text in Pages clumsy. Here's what I need to do to highlight text in Pages 4.3:
    Go to your toolbar, and then choose a highlight/background color. It's more labor intensive then Word, above, but you do have the option of more colors.
    Then there's this method, where basically you get to simply use yellow as your color:
    IMHO both are clumsy methods compared to Word, but have become even more so in Pages 5.2....
    Lots of clicks to achieve simple color highlights.
    Am I missing something, or is there a simpler way, in either Pages 4 or Pages 5, to achieve the above results???
    Any suggestions appreciated!

    Dear VikingOSX:
    As Ed MacMahon once said (before your time?) re Pages 5 Character Fill Color: "You are correct, sir!!"
    The gear icon IS where the function that I'm talking about is located. Still, it's annoying.
    Q: Why?
    A: Because from a work-flow perspective as someone who is highlighting it makes no sense. We in the Western world read and write from top to bottom, left to right. Making a mark on a doc should follow the same flow.
    You should not have to keep looking over to the right side of the doc to find your function. Logically it should be at the top (e.g., toolbar), on the left, or perhaps some contextual pop-up option.
    Furthermore, it's more "labor intensive" from this point of view: In Word, once you set the color (which, granted, you may need to change from time to time IF you, like me, use multiple colors as part of your highlighting workflow), you just click the box after highlighting the text - 1 click vs 2, and possibly 3.
    The "richer color" part of my comment was just to note that a flaw, in my view, of Word's basic scheme is that:
    1) It lacks an Orange. And we've all used an Orange highlighter at somepoint, right? Or perhaps, you were like me in High School and threw them instead. But you get the point...and
    2) Having a wider pallatte available as an option - which you do in Apple's scheme - is nice. I use color coding/highlighting to make notes and save time. The colors tell me what's important, what's next important, key terms, etc. Also, for example, if I wanted to outline my highlighting notes, the color scheme (which has a heirarchy based on color, right?) allows me to do this quickly because it's already there.
    As for the Dictation function working on Pages '09/4.3 - again, you are correct, sir! And that's great to know. I had tried to use it before when the new Pages 5 (hitting fn twice on Pages 4.3) but it didn't activate. I tried it after reading your response and Bingo! It's Alive! So thanks for that tip.
    Your keyboard shortcut scheme is an interesting idea, and I may try it as an experiment. My intuition is that it will not work as straight-forwardly as Word's toolbar pull-down will, but I might be wrong. We'll see.
    And yes, I do use Pages '09 (4.3) instead of Pages 5 for exactly this reason (see my discussion)
    Great reply! Thanks!

  • How do I highlight text in Pages?

    How do I highlight text in Pages - none of the menus, nor the 'Help' function seems to help...

    It's tough searching for something when you can't guess the terms to use. It's called a "background color." You can choose a color from the format bar.

  • How do you highlight text in Pages for iPad? The document I want to create and highlight is a pages document

    I am trying to create a document in Pages for iPad and want to highlight various bits of text but can not find a function in the inspector for this. Can anyone help,please?

    Hi stuartdj,
    I'm not finding a way to highlight text as one can do with iBooks (hold and swipe for black text, background yellow for example).
    One option is to actually color the text itself.
    Select the text, then in Style tools, tap the Font name at the top which shows the Text Options sheet where there is a Color option.  Would changing the font color to Red, Green or Purple accomplish your goals?
    If you do want black text on a colored background (highlighted) it would need to be text in a text box where you can change the fill (background) color.  Style, Style Options, Fill.  But this is not inline text and doesn't flow like just coloring the font itself.
    ivan

  • How do you highlight text in Pages v5?

    Hi guys,
    Was struggling a bit with the recent changes from Pages 5 and was wondering how we could highlight text (using different colours etc)?
    Thanks !

    Your question is answered in the following post:
    https://discussions.apple.com/message/23519269#23519269

  • Hot do you highlight text in Pages?

    I am trying to highlight specific text in Pages, like one word or one line. I found how to highlight the entire paragraph, but I only want to be able to highlight one line or a couple of words at a time. Is there a way to highlight specific text in Pages instead of the entire paragraph? Thanks
    Macbook Pro 15"   Mac OS X (10.4.9)  
    Macbook Pro 15"   Mac OS X (10.4.9)  

    Not exactly sure if it's what you want but you could change the text colour by double-clicking the word, opening the colour palette then crayons & selecting the colour required.
    Or leave the text black, click on Inspector, click on Graphic Inspector, click shadow & choose colour (e.g red), degrees 350, offset 0%, blur 1pt, opacity 100%. This gives black text with a red background. Adjust these settings to suit.
    Steve

  • Why can i not highlight text in pages in different colours?

    Dear Apple Dev.
    Why is there;
    a. no easy way to highlight text,
    b. no easy way to chage the colour or the highlighting?
    APPLE PLEASE ADD THIS MOST BASIC USEFUL FEATURE THAT MS WORD - and I do hate using ms word - and use pages at every opportunity, has been able to do for probably going on 20 years...
    Huge fan. need the basic work functionality.
    Sincerely,
    Frustrated.

    bryce_1 wrote:
    NOTE: you can highight an entire paragraph. not one word, or one sentence. infrastructure is there. but not functionality.
    Are you sure?
    Peter

  • Finding highlighted text in Pages using Applescript

    Hi guys, I'm writing a script that will parse through a Pages document and retun me the indices of the first and last characters of each block of text which is highlighted with a given colour. I do have a script that works, the only problem is it runs very slowly.
    Here's what I have at the moment:
    tell application "Pages"
              tell front document
      --colour to test for in RGB (0 to 65535)
                        set testColour to {65535, 0, 65535}
                        set lastCharColour to missing value
                        set N to (count of characters)
                        set indexArray to {}
                        repeat with i from 1 to N
                                  set thisCharColour to character background color of character i
      --add the character if it is highlighted
      --and the previous one wasn't
                                  if thisCharColour is testColour and lastCharColour is not testColour then
                                            set end of indexArray to i
      --or add the previous one if this one is
      --not highlighted and the previous one was
                                  else if thisCharColour is not testColour and lastCharColour is testColour then
                                            set end of indexArray to (i - 1)
                                  end if
      --update the previous character's colour
                                  set lastCharColour to thisCharColour
                        end repeat
      --if there are an odd number in the list,
      --the document must end with a highlight,
      --so we'll add the last character
                        if ((count of indexArray) mod 2) = 1 then
                                  set end of indexArray to N
                        end if
                        get indexArray
              end tell
    end tell
    I'm parsing over every character in the document, and adding the index to a list if its background has changed colour either to or from the specified colour. It seems to be that the "get character background color of character i" call inside the loop is what's taking a long time. I have tried caching off a list of all the colours as a first step and then just comparing against an item in that list, but it's not significantly faster (in fact it might even be slower, I aborted it because it was taking too long).
    I know in MS Word it is possible to do a find operation to find characters which are highlighted in a particular colour, so I was sondering if it was possible to do something similar in Pages, or can anybody think of a way to streamline my logic here?
    Thanks,
    Andy

    However, I've just realised, my reason for getting the character indices was so as I could, in a subsequent step, get the characters themselves. I can modify your script to get the actual characters as well as the character offsets, and then where there's a break in the character offsets I can split the characters into substrings, as below:
    set theBackgroundColor to {0, 65535, 0}
    getCharIndex(theBackgroundColor)
    on getCharIndex(bgColor)
              script o
                        property myList : {}
                        property charList : {}
              end script
              tell application "Pages" to tell front document
                        set o's myList to character offset of (characters whose its character background color is bgColor)
                        set o's charList to (characters whose its character background color is bgColor)
              end tell
              set tc to count o's myList
              if tc = 0 then return {}
              set i to 1
              set blockArray to {}
              set lastBlockEnd to 0
              repeat while i < tc
                        set N to item i of o's myList
                        repeat with J from (i + 1) to tc
                                  set N to N + 1
                                  set n1 to item J of o's myList
                                  if N is not n1 then
                                            set end of blockArray to ((items i thru (J - 1) of o's charList) as text)
                                            set lastBlockEnd to (J - 1)
                                            exit repeat
                                  end if
                        end repeat
                        set i to J
              end repeat
              set end of blockArray to ((items (lastBlockEnd + 1) thru tc of o's charList) as text)
      return blockArray
    end getCharIndex
    This has all your speed advantages, and still gets me the end result I'm after.

  • How do I highlight text on pages 5.5.2?

    Im trying to highlight specific parts of an essay question, however I cannot find an option to do so. Somebody please send help.

    The ability to place a true highlight behind text is on the Advanced Options pop over, not in the Insert menu as the Highlight menu item. You can apply this text background fill color by either clicking on the color well color itself, or by clicking the rainbow color chooser button adjacent.

  • Highlighting text in Pages for ipad?

    Is it coming or did I just waste 10 bucks? I need to be able to highlight corrections on students assignments... Changing font colors is used for one type of correction, and highlighting is for another type of grammatical correction.

    Since  no one seems to be jumping in with any suggestions here, I am going to make a few comments.
    First, I don't have Pages for iOS, because I only have an iPod Touch, and I wouldn't want to try editing a Page document on that. So I can't test anything.
    Since Pages for Mac supports highlighting as a character style, it is quite possible that Pages for iOS also supports it, but lacks a way to create it. If that is the case, you can create a document on a Mac using the highlighting styles you want, import that document to your iPad, and copy the style from that document to apply to the corrections in the student assignments.

  • Is it possible to highlight text in Pages

    I have a document that I am working on with a friend. I would like to be able to direct his attention to particular words or phrases by highlighting them, e.g., by placing them in a yellow background.
    Is this possible in Pages? If so, how do I do it?
    Thanks,
    Eric WEir

    Thanks, Walt. I was aware that they can be hidden, but for what I'm working on -- a document that's been under constant revision for a while -- I find it helpful occasionally to the document with the comments.
    But thanks just the same.
    Sincerely,
    Eric Weir

  • How do I highlight text in the new Pages?  It's not clear.

    I have the new version of Pages.  And it appears that highlighting of text is an issue.  This is a basic function.
    I found there is one quick key version, but doesn't clearly explain how to change highlighting colours.  How to get into it.
    I have to explain this to my 80 year old mom, who we told to get a Mac because it was easier!
    So if anyone has it laid out step 1, 2, 3, that would be helpful, because it's not clear to me either.
    Thanks!
    Apple - please to a quick fix for this one, it should be the same as changing the size or the font or like bold or italic.  Simple, clear, fast and doable..... for anyone!

    TO Peter,
    Thanks for the list. I had found it in LibreOffice, tucked away in the Background tab of the Character pane opened by the Character... menu item in the Format menu, and named "Background Color. A few steps further down than in Pages. Apache OpenOffice has it in the same place. But both also have a hilight icon in the toolbar.
    I didn't fin highlighting or Color fill in Text Edit (v1.8). Might need a further search.
    But this well-equipped party of (one) oscurantist did find a shorter path to highlighting text in Pages '09, cleverly hidden in plain view! See the image below.
    TO hscortez,
    I'm aware that changing the text colour is not highlighting.
    But YeOldMacFan pointed out how to change text colour AND how to change background colour of text, using Character fill, found in the Advanced Options (Pages 5) or the More (Pages '09) tab of the Text Inspector.
    Character Fill fills the space around the character with the chosen colour. As shown above, it's essentially the same effect as dragging a hiliter pen along a line of printed text.
    Unfortunately, whats shown above is the Character fill well on the format bar of Pages '09—right out in the open like the highlighter pen button in LibreOffice, and presumeably in MS Word. I don't have Pages 5 (avoiding it until a few more of the missing features arrive), but I do note that Pages for iOS offers highlight as one of the options in the contextual menu that appears when a block of text is selcted.
    The process appears to be:
    tap twice to select some text.
    drag the handles at each end of the selection to adjust what's selected.
    tap Highlight in the menu that has appeared on the screen.
    One thing missing appears to be colour choice. The default is a 'hiliter yellow'. I didn't see a way to select a different colour.
    "Hopefully, this will make it on their upgrade list. "
    Hope is good, but taking action is useful.
    Pages menu > Provide Pages Feedback > Make your request that this be added to Pages 5. Requests made through Provide ...Feedback go directly to Apple. Comments and questions here are read by users like yourself, and we don't have the ability to change the way the apps work. Not directly,anyway.
    Regards,
    Barry

  • Is there a way in Pages to show and print all the added "comments?" (those you add by highlighting text)  I'd like students to be able to view my comments on printed version of their papers.

    Is there a way in Pages to show and print all the added "comments?" (those you add by highlighting text)  I am a teacher, and I would  like students to be able to view my comments on printed versions of their papers. I know word displays the comments off to the side of the document, and those comments can be viewed all at once and printed alongside the document.

    There doesn't appear to be a way to print conmments in either Pages or Numbers in the Mavericks versions.
    Jerry

  • I am trying to highlight text on multiple pages, but Adobe will not autoscroll via cursor.

    I am trying to highlight text on multiple pages, but when I select the text and bring the cursor to the bottom of the screen Adobe does not advance the document. How do I make it so I can highlight from page to page without having to release the mouse button?
    Also, how do I get adobe to realize that there is a header and footer on each page, but the actual text in the file is in two columes. Is there a way to make this clear and embade it in the document so other programs recognize this too?

    Regarding your first question, change the view to Single Page Continuous.

  • How do you highlight text in document in Pages

    How do you highlight text in document in Pages

    but Pages is NOT a 3rd party app.  it's an application that's programmed by apple.  it's supposed to act something like Word in MS office, but that is not at all true. 
    choices for editing text, highlighting, et al., like what you find in MS Office Word, should be immediately available whenever you are inside of a Pages document, but that is not the case. 
    don't you wish that when you buy an apple app for apple/macs that is supposed to be like a windows something or another that it really is? 

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