iWorkTipsnTricks

[PeterBreis]

Document Design

How to make various common designs

[PeterBreis]

Letterhead and follower sets

It is normal practice for a Stationery set to have both:

1. Letterhead which has the full set of Logotype + symbol and address, telephone etc.

2. Follower the subsequent pages usually with only the symbol on it or logotype + symbol but without the clutter of address, telephone etc.

To create a Stationery set in Pages:

1. Open a blank Word Processing template in A4 or US Letter

2. Set your Margins, Header and Footer (if wanted) in:

Inspector > Document > Document > Document Margins > checking/unchecking Header/Footer

Inspector > Layout > Section > Configuration > First page is different

3. Click inside the main Text area between the margins

Menu > Insert > Page Break to force a 2nd page

4. Go to the 1st page and add your logotype + symbol + address details

Select everything and:

Menu > Format > Advanced > Move Object to Section Master

5. Go to the 2nd page and add just the symbol or logotype + symbol, with no address.

Select the logo:

Menu > Format > Advanced > Move Object to Section Master to have the logo repeat on other pages.

6. Menu > Format > Advanced > Capture Pages… > Name: > StationerySet (or whatever) > Include: First 2 pages or All pages

7. If you created this from an existing template you need to clear out the old pages:

Menu > Format > Advanced > Manage Pages… > Select the unwanted Pages and click the minus button.

You can also rename your page templates here by double clicking on the name and retyping it.

8. Menu > File > Save as Template…

It will default to saving in "My Templates" inside the User/Library/Application Support/iWork/Pages/Templates folder

When you call up the Template Chooser you should see a new My Templates category, after the Layout category, with your new template in the Preview area.

The 1st page will have all your letterhead details on it and the following pages just the logo.

WARNING

Any new Section you start will have the letterhead on the 1st page of the section.

To avoid this create a 2nd copy of the logo only follower in its own section and capture that as above, labelling it as Follower only.

[PeterBreis]

Labels & Business cards

If you are using an Avery label or Business Card sheet you can DL the word template from the Avery template site and open it in Pages.

Pages can merge address information from a Numbers spreadsheet or entries from Address Book.

Normally it only merges one set of addressee data (them) and one set of addressor (you) per page. If it has more than one set of addressee data it will make a page for each set and fill in the information.

To make more than one set of data per page there are a few techniques but probably the easiest is to use a Numbers spreadsheet and an AppleScript written by Yvan and available from his iDisk /For_iWork/iWork '09/for_Numbers09/for_labels.sparseimage.zip

If you want to reproduce the same label or business card design on a sheet remember they are just rectangles of the appropriate size.

You make one label or business card the way you like it, and duplicate it:

1. Select all the Label/BCard and Menu > Arrange > Group

2. Select the group and hold down both shift and option keys and drag a copy sideways.

3. Select both copies and hold down both shift and option keys and drag copies down until you have filled the page.

4. Space and Align them using either:

Inspector > Metrics > Position or

Menu > Arrange > Align/Distribute objects

[PeterBreis]

Double folded Greeting Card

Make a dummy of the folded card out of a sheet of paper, then unfold it to act as a guide.

1. Make a blank Layout mode document to the unfolded size

2. Drag out 1 horizontal guide and 1 vertical guide to the centre of document dividing it into 4

3. Make appropriate text boxes/image shapes on the 4 sections and selecting the text and images format as desired.

4. Rotate them into the correct position

Inspector > Metrics > Rotate

5. Make text and images into placeholders

Menu > Format Advance > Define as Placeholder Text / Image

6. Capture the page

Menu > Format > Advanced > Capture Pages… > Name > OK

7. Delete any previous layouts:

Menu > Format > Advanced > Manage Pages… > Delete old page/s > OK

8. +Menu > File > Save as Template…

Post a copy to iWorkCommunity

[PeterBreis]

Numbered Tickets

Pages has no specific method to add incremental numbers to a sequence of tickets, vouchers or security passes, but you can use its page numbers to get the same result.

Method 1

1. Make one document per page, even if it is small.

2. Design and typeset a Layout Mode document using floating text and image boxes.

3. Where you need the incremental number:

Menu > Insert > Page Number

If you need a fixed number of digits like 000001, put a marker like <#5> (for 5 zeroes), <#4> (for 4 zeroes) etc in front of the number and replace it sequentially with the zeros later. You will need the first for pages 0-9, 2nd for pages 10-99 etc.

4. Capture the pages in turn:

Menu > Format > Advanced > Capture Pages… > Name: Ticket5/Ticket4 etc > Include: First Page Only

5. To mass produce the pages:

Select the page in the Thumbnails > right click > Duplicate

Continue selecting each multiple and duplicate until you have as many pages as you want tickets.

6. Menu > Print > Pages per sheet > Up to 16

or print to pdf and print those up however you wish.

Method 2

Set up a string of text, actually just word spaces (because they are not visible) with a marker between them such as #. Make as many of these of these in a Word Processing template.

Then replace one of the markers with a page break, copy the page break and space and do a find and replace on the remaining markers and space to replace all of them with page breaks.

Presto you have a large number of pages, each with a number on them.

Method 3

Set up a sequence of numbers in a Numbers column and export those as text, using that to make the string of text above.

Method 4 (this example duplicates the number)

Begin with a Word Processing Blank Template.

Insert a Table

Inspector > Table > Body Rows = 2 / Body Columns = 2

Eliminate the Header Row.

In the first cell, enter the expression: =2*(ROW()-1)+COLUMN()

With that first cell selected, Command-C.

Command-V to the other three cells.

Your cells should now be numbered from 1 to 4, two numbers per row.

Click off the table and then click once on the table to select the table in its entirety.

Set the Cell Border lines to None.

In the Text Inspector select Center Horizontally and Center Vertically icons.

Back in the Table Inspector, set the number of Rows to 100. Your formulas will automatically duplicate to the new rows.

Set the Table's Column Width to and Row Height to match the page size.

[PeterBreis]

Calendars

There isn't a calendar function in Pages but you should be able to pick a calendar up in:

http://www.iworkcommunity.com

Or simply open a Word .doc calendar.

You should also be able to build your own quite easily to any design you wish.

The basic principles of a calendar are that day follows day and all the lengths of months are set except leap year Februaries. Therefore you can create a string of numbers that simply flows through a calendar and can be pushed one day further each year relative to the days of the week.

How exactly you tackle this varies with your design.

1. You can use word/letterspacing to position monospaced fonts.

2. You can use the cells of a table*.

3. You can use tabbed text, with the proviso that Pages has a bad design that a tab at the end of a line spills over to the next, missing the end of the line.

Copy these sets of strings of text to construct your own (English Version):

M T W T F S S

Mon Tues Wed Thurs Fri Sat Sun

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

J F M A M J J A S O N D

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

January February March April May June July August September October November December

As it is not possible to have tabs in these postings, do a search on the word space between items and replace them with tabs.

*Create Calendar using a Table

1. Create a Month calendar by clicking on the Table icon on the Tooolabr

2. Select the table > Inspector > Table > Table > Headers & Footers > click on centre icon > 0 > Body Rows: 7 > Body Columns > 7

3. Click on the table so just the table is selected (tiny squares on corners and mid-points

4. Select the font, size and style you want for the text

5. Inspector > Metrics > Size > Width: 7cm (3.5") > Height: 7cm (3.5"). This is just a starting point you can quickly change the size by just dragging out the Table corners.

6. Select all the top row cells > Inspector > Table > Table > Edit Rows & Columns > Merge Cells. This will be for the month title.

7. Click in the first cell 2nd row. Type Mon > tab > Tue

8. Fill in the first 2 cells of each row under with the dates from a calendar for the year

9. Select all the cells from the Mon down to the 2nd cell of the bottom row

10 Drag the white dot that appears in the bottom right corner across to the the right hand side of the table. This fills in all the missing days and dates.

11. Tidy up extra days and fill in preceding and succeeding month days if you wish.

12. Change the strokes, dividers, colors & fills > Inspector > Table > Table Cell borders. Use None if you only want the numbers.

13. Format the text, alignments and insets as you like in the Text Inspector.

[PeterBreis]

Over-printing Pages with Address Book data

Examine your work and separate it into:

1. The design work that must be done in Pages

2. The data that needs to be added from a database such as Numbers, Address Book, Bento, iData or similar.

Assess which is the most work, reconstructing the data in Numbers for a complicated merge or assembling cards in Pages?

Usually assembling cards or labels in Pages or from .pdfs made in Pages is more transparent and leaves the data in a more useful form.

Overprinting business cards/labels made from Pages with data/text from Address Book is another alternative.

1. Design the cards in Pages as a sheet suitable for your printing stock.

2. Print it onto label or business card stock

3. Feed it back into the printer

4. Overprint the individual data from Address Book.

Importing data into Address Book.

Make your data labels to match the Address Book field names.

Import using one of the 4 available methods.

Printing from Address Book

Basic operation:

1. Make a Group of the VCards you wish to print, by dragging the individual cards from the Name column to a selected Group in the Group column.

2. Menu > Print > Address Book > Style: > Mailing Labels > Layout > Page > Avery Standard/Avery A4/DYMO > choose the sheet number

3. Test print to check alignment and fine tune the layout.

Format inside Address Book's print dialogue

1. Choose Style: Mailing Labels/Envelopes/List/Pocket Address Book

2. Addresses: All/home/work/other/Distribution List (Computer)

3. Print: Alphabetic order/Postcode order

4. Print: Company/Country (even exclude your own)

5. Change color and add an image.

6. Style the text completely, down to drop shadows

7. Layout: Customise page size/rows/columns/margins and gutters

8. When you are finished save it as a Preset

Using Address Books output as text or graphics

Print to pdf and open in Preview, where you can select the text and copy it out into a regular document where you can use and change it as you wish.

Individual pages from the pdfs in Preview can be dragged from the sidebar in Preview to the desktop or application in OSX 10.6.2 and up. In OSX 10.5 they can only be dragged directly to another application.

Using a Commercial Printer

If you are going to a commercial printer ask first if they want individual designs that their software will handle. Most do not want you to impose the sheet into multiple cards. A commercial printer can also print the basic card or label stock to which you add the individual data on your personal printer.

Use window face envelopes

Window face envelopes let you address the material directly by printing the address on the stock to align with the window. The biggest advantage is the time saved in labelling and ensuring the right material has gone in the right envelope.

[ambok]

oh. . .this is really a good one. . . .
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[kellidedo]

Thank you so much for sharing such wonderful information that was posted here, it is really helpful.

[hipvilla]

This is a really good read for me. Must admit that you are one of the coolest bloggers I ever saw. Thanks for posting this informative article.
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Introduced to innovative Stand Hall

[theprint]

You are awesome!! Thanks for sharing this very helpful information and steps. Good work..

Thanks again...
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[mikethompsonuk82]

Really helpful posts here Peter. The one on double folded greeting cards was a great help so thanks for that!

[xtremepicks]

REALLY SO INTERESTING.............

[seabee]

I will try your "fix".
Thanks Peter,
seabee