iWork/Pages Formatting Question

[caribiner23]

I am a newbie to Pages, and I've run across a problem that is really aggravating because it should not be rocket science... but it seems to be, at least for me.

Let's suppose you're writing a letter and it only takes up two paragraphs. You have about a third of the page as white space, which means that everything below your text, to the bottom of the page, is blank.

To make it look presentable, you want to center the text on the page so there is equal white space above and below it.

In Word for Windows, you select File --> Page Setup --> Layout --> Vertical Alignment and choose "Center." Done.

How in the world do you do this Pages? I've scoured the manual and online help and can find nothing on this.

Thanks in advance!

[DXoverDY]

I am a newbie to Pages, and I've run across a problem that is really aggravating because it should not be rocket science... but it seems to be, at least for me.

Let's suppose you're writing a letter and it only takes up two paragraphs. You have about a third of the page as white space, which means that everything below your text, to the bottom of the page, is blank.

To make it look presentable, you want to center the text on the page so there is equal white space above and below it.

In Word for Windows, you select File --> Page Setup --> Layout --> Vertical Alignment and choose "Center." Done.

How in the world do you do this Pages? I've scoured the manual and online help and can find nothing on this.

Thanks in advance!


well... i can do it by loading up the Inspector... then clicking the Text panel... and then adjusting the first paragraph by using the "Before Paragraph" setting...

NOTE: there may be a better way of doing this.. but uh.. having only used pages for like 5 minutes. that's my best answer :-P

[MisterMe]

I am a newbie to Pages, and I've run across a problem that is really aggravating because it should not be rocket science... but it seems to be, at least for me.

Let's suppose you're writing a letter and it only takes up two paragraphs. You have about a third of the page as white space, which means that everything below your text, to the bottom of the page, is blank.

To make it look presentable, you want to center the text on the page so there is equal white space above and below it.

In Word for Windows, you select File --> Page Setup --> Layout --> Vertical Alignment and choose "Center." Done.

How in the world do you do this Pages? I've scoured the manual and online help and can find nothing on this.

Thanks in advance!You're kidding, right? Have you ever seen a letter formatted this way? Letters are simply formatted with the text flowing from top of the page to the bottom of the page. When you run out of things to write, you stop and leave white space below. You do not vertically center text in a letter. If your job prospects depended on a letter formatted as you describe, you would be in the unemployment line.

[wordmunger]

You're kidding, right? Have you ever seen a letter formatted this way? Letters are simply formatted with the text flowing from top of the page to the bottom of the page. When you run out of things to write, you stop and leave white space below. You do not vertically center text in a letter. If your job prospects depended on a letter formatted as you describe, you would be in the unemployment line.

I disagree. Business letters look much better centered on the page. I don't know about Pages, but with MS Word I always just hit return a few times until the text looks centered. I wouldn't trust a "center text" command anyway because it always looks more balanced if you just do it by eye.

[IJ Reilly]

Better yet and more aesthetically pleasing IMO: increase line spacing (AKA, leading) to make your text cover more of the page.

[wordmunger]

Better yet and more aesthetically pleasing IMO: increase line spacing (AKA, leading) to make your text cover more of the page.

As someone who used send a lot of 4-5 line business letters, I don't think this would work. Of course, this sort of correspondence is usually handled by email these days.

[IJ Reilly]

As someone who used send a lot of 4-5 line business letters, I don't think this would work. Of course, this sort of correspondence is usually handled by email these days.

I wouldn't get carried away with it, no. But if for instance two paragraphs look awkward on the page, a bit of extra line spacing can often improve it visually. Applications like InDesign allow vertical justification, which I find to be very useful (especially working in columns, where it's almost indispensable). I'd like to see Pages support this some day too.

[caribiner23]

Thanks for the responses, everyone.

I had the feeling this wasn't a built-in option for Pages, so if I intend on using it I'll have to pad the text to make it look right--- sort of like the old days with vi. :-) Maybe they'll add this to Pages 2.0.

And for what it's worth, I receive a lot of business correspondence (including resumes and cover letters) and centering on the page is by far the more common practice.

[IJ Reilly]

It just occurred to me that you could create a text object and center it using the arrange/align objects menu.

[zorgonak]

You're kidding, right? Have you ever seen a letter formatted this way? Letters are simply formatted with the text flowing from top of the page to the bottom of the page. When you run out of things to write, you stop and leave white space below. You do not vertically center text in a letter. If your job prospects depended on a letter formatted as you describe, you would be in the unemployment line.

Actually, it is highly unprofessional and informal to have a letter formatted this way. And as wordmunger said, it just looks better to have it vertically centered. I don't know where you got this idea, but in any even semi-formal situation, vertically centering when you don't have a full page of text is not only common practice, but the accepted way to format.

[colourfastt]

You're kidding, right? Have you ever seen a letter formatted this way? Letters are simply formatted with the text flowing from top of the page to the bottom of the page. When you run out of things to write, you stop and leave white space below. You do not vertically center text in a letter. If your job prospects depended on a letter formatted as you describe, you would be in the unemployment line.

If you ever take a business class you'll learn that letters ARE indeed formatted thus.

[GovtLawyer]

Why don't you simply insert blank lines above the first line of text, until the paragraph looks right? I doubt it has to be exactly vertically centered.