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How do you "Jump to Page" in Pages?

musique

musique

macrumors regular
Original poster
Apr 10, 2009
222
5
I'm in that place between using the old Microsoft Word (2011) for Mac and using Pages (on a MBP running High Sierra). I'd prefer not to upgrade to Word 2016 because of cost, bloat and features I don't need. Pages seems fine but then there are some things I can't seem to get "the way I want them."

For today, the thing in Pages: I can't figure out how to jump to a page. I have some longish docs (a few hundred pages or so) and I can't find a command that will let me "go to" page 126, for example.

Does anyone know how I can do this? Thank you.
 
As much as I'd like to use Pages day-to-day, I just can't. The lack of suitable navigation for longer documents is a major shortcoming. If you really must avoid Word 2016, you may be better off with LibreOffice (and it's free).
 
Thank you all. It's a bit comforting to find that I was not the only one disappointed by this. I may just have to bite the bullet and go with Word. I plan to at least look at some of the other options like Nisus. Again. Thanks much.
 
The problem with using another WP program is that the de facto standard today for business, government, and educational institutes is MS Office Word. I haven't found another WP program that was 100% "Word compatible". Most other programs including Pages can export and save in the Word (docx) format but it seems something always gets changed and doesn't look quite right. And that includes Open Office, LibreOffice, Nisus, Scrivener, etc.

You're probably better off going with Office 2016 or subscribe to Office 365. Also MS has indicated they're working on an update to Office 2016 (Office 2018, 2019?). In the meantime, Office 2011 will continue to work as long as Apple allows 32 bit programs to run.
 
Perhaps I've misread the OP, but it didn't sound like they were looking to exchange files between MS Office and iWork but at a point of making a decision about which productivity suite to use. If I've read that correctly, then, since the OP enjoys using iWork otherwise, I recommend that they track down a copy of iWork '09. (with the caveat that they don't need to use the iOS version of iWork to access those files). They're readily available on ebay for $10 USD.

Although I use the advanced functionality of MS Office 2016 and LibreOffice, when creating documents that I don't need to collaborate on, I prefer to use iWork (both the latest and the '09 version). The latest version of iWork can read/write the older '09 versions which is very helpful.
 
sracer said:
Perhaps I've misread the OP, but it didn't sound like they were looking to exchange files between MS Office and iWork but at a point of making a decision about which productivity suite to use.
Click to expand...

The OP mentioned they were struggling not so much with document exchange as getting a new word processor (Pages) to do what they want - in this case, easily navigate a long document. Pages is not functionally able to replace Word 2011 in this regard; in fact, there are lots of areas where the bloat/feature-rich Word trumps the simple/feature-stripped Pages.

I also find Word/Office to be bloated and despise the 'Ribbon' UI. But the reality is that its biggest weakness is also its greatest strength - among the features you will never use, you can be certain the one you actually need from time-to-time is there. For me, that includes the ability to display facing/multiple pages and, like the OP, navigate large documents easily via both a header-based navigation pane or page numbers.

sracer said:
I recommend that they track down a copy of iWork '09
Click to expand...

Pages, while beautiful in its simplicity, lacks these pretty basic functions and I don't see the point of iWork '09 as it's almost a decade old with no update path. High Sierra is already breaking UI/functionality so it doesn't have much life left in it, sadly: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/iwork-09-crippled-by-high-sierra.2076344/

One last thing on Word 2016. The desktop version is actually pretty slick and feels much more Mac-like these days. But I'm staggered by how utterly crippled the iOS version is. Considering you need to pay for an Office 365 subscription to use it on an iPad Pro (both 10.5 and 12.9, due to MS's screen size licensing policy), it's a huge disappointment - the aforementioned navigation tools are a glaring omission (that even Google Docs has!!!). Bizarrely, Word Online in a web browser is much more feature-rich than the mobile app!
 
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The_Interloper said:
The OP mentioned they were struggling not so much with document exchange as getting a new word processor (Pages) to do what they want - in this case, easily navigate a long document. Pages is not functionally able to replace Word 2011 in this regard; in fact, there are lots of areas where the bloat/feature-rich Word trumps the simple/feature-stripped Pages.

I also find Word/Office to be bloated and despise the 'Ribbon' UI. But the reality is that its biggest weakness is also its greatest strength - among the features you will never use, you can be certain the one you actually need from time-to-time is there. For me, that includes the ability to display facing/multiple pages and, like the OP, navigate large documents easily via both a header-based navigation pane or page numbers.



Pages, while beautiful in its simplicity, lacks these pretty basic functions and I don't see the point of iWork '09 as it's almost a decade old with no update path. High Sierra is already breaking UI/functionality so it doesn't have much life left in it, sadly: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/iwork-09-crippled-by-high-sierra.2076344/

One last thing on Word 2016. The desktop version is actually pretty slick and feels much more Mac-like these days. But I'm staggered by how utterly crippled the iOS version is. Considering you need to pay for an Office 365 subscription to use it on an iPad Pro (both 10.5 and 12.9, due to MS's screen size licensing policy), it's a huge disappointment - the aforementioned navigation tools are a glaring omission (that even Google Docs has!!!). Bizarrely, Word Online in a web browser is much more feature-rich than the mobile app!
Click to expand...
yep, i’m familiar with that thread...but nothing definitive about High Sierra breaking iwork 09. But i understand the hesitation in going back to an older version. regarding MS Office 2016 on macOS, it looks pretty but it is a bloated slug. MS Office for iOS is woefully primitive... i use it when I’m out and about and need to modify an Office file, but otherwise not very useful for my needs.

Your observation regarding MS Office Online is spot on. Using that on a chromebook is much more useful and satisfying than using the Android or iOS. versions.
 
OP, are you trying to jump to a page like 126 manually (for your purposes). Or are you trying to create a way for your readers to be able to jump through the document? In either case, consider using bookmarks.

If it's just for your purposes and not something you might want to keep permanently, you could also sprinkle in comments at strategic places- maybe every 10 or 20 pages and then use the left right arrows in the upper left of the page pane to jump 10 or 20 pages at a time to those placeholder comments. Or click the comments icon to display these placeholders in a stack and click the one closest to wherever you want to jump in the document.

If you are looking for a way to jump to a particular page, like the Word equivalent (Ctrl-G), I don't think there is a feature like that in Pages. If you display your thumbnails in the left pain, you can flick up or down to quickly scroll through them to pick a page to which you want to jump. I find that's pretty fast myself... though not as fast as a true "goto XXX page" function if it existed.
 
Just one last follow up to say thanks again.

Given that word processing is a ubiquitous task, it's not surprising that there are many valid opinions here. Fortunately, there are options out there. For our needs, we'll probably go with one of the Microsoft options. However, we are still evaluating Nisus and LibreOffice, among others.
 
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