Find out how

Setting the Margins

Inspector windows give you almost complete control of the way your Pages ’08 documents look. That includes such basic formatting as the margins, which you can set or change at any time. Here’s how:

1. Click the Inspector button in the Toolbar to display an Inspector window. (If you already have one open, clicking the Inspector button hides the window.)
2. Click the Document Inspector button (the leftmost button in the window).
3. Use the Left, Right, Top, and Bottom text boxes to set up or change the margins for the left, right, top, and bottom edges of all the pages in your document.

Easily Add Comments to a Document

Comments offer an effective way to include margin notes, questions, opinions, and suggested changes or corrections. And they’re very easy to add in Pages ’08.

1. Click the paragraph (or select the text) where you’d like to add a comment.
2. Click Comment in the Toolbar (or select Comment from the Insert menu)

Pages ’08 immediately opens the Comments pane and creates a new yellow comment bubble. To help you (and your collaborators) know who inserted the comment and when, Pages adds your name and includes date and time stamps. Pages also draws a line from the comment bubble to the text to which it refers, making it easier for reviewers to find the copy to which the comment refers.

Add your comment and you’re done.

Sharing Pages ’08 Documents With Someone Using Microsoft Word

It’s easy to share the documents you create in Pages with others. Here’s how:

1. Choose Export from the File menu.
2. Click the Word option in the Sheet that drops down from the Toolbar; then click Next.
3. Enter a name for the Word document, indicate where you’d like it saved, and click Export.

And you’re done. Friends or colleagues can open your document using MS Word on a Mac or PC, and Word will preserve virtually all of the formatting, tables, graphics, footnotes, and other elements you’ve included.

Adding Photos to a Template

With Pages ’08, it’s easy to add photos to a document from your iPhoto library. In fact, many Pages’ templates already have placeholder images in them.

1. Click the Media button in the Toolbar and Pages will open the Media Browser, revealing the contents of your iPhoto library.
2. Click the album or event where you’ve stored the photo, and Pages will display all the photos in that album or event.
3. Drag the photo to the placeholder in the template.

Adding Photos to a Blank Document

Working on a word processing document that doesn’t have image placeholders? Not to worry, you can add photos to any Pages document just as easily.

Here’s how:

1. Click the Media button in the Toolbar to have Pages open the Media Browser.
2. Click the album or event where you’ve stored the photo or photos you’d like to include.
3. Drag the photo from the Media Browser to your document and release the mouse button.

Don’t worry if it’s not perfectly positioned. You can grab it and drag it to the place you’d like it to appear. In fact, Pages displays x and y coordinates that allow you to place it precisely.

Add a Footer Row to a Numbers Table

In Numbers, you can call attention to data you want to emphasize by adding a Footer Row to your document. You can add a Footer Row in a number of ways. WIth the table selected:

1. Click the Footer button in the Format Bar.

or

2. Click, first, the Inspector button; then the Table Inspector button; and, finally, the Footer button in the Headers & Footer row

or

3. Choose Add Footer Row from the Table menu.

Sharing a Numbers ’08 Document With Someone Using Microsoft Excel

It’s easy to share the documents you create in Numbers with friends or colleagues using Microsoft Excel on a Mac or PC. Here’s how:

1. Choose Export from the File menu.
2. Click the Excel option in the Sheet that drops down from the Toolbar; then click Next.
3. Enter a name for the Excel document, indicate where you’d like it saved, and click Export.

Numbers converts each table into a separate worksheet in a single Excel spreadsheet and generate a summary worksheet outlining the worksheets into which each table was placed. It also alerts you—via a Document Warning dialog—of any potential conversion errors, but these are usually minor. You should check formulas, however, as some Excel formula calculations may may differ from those in Numbers.

Removing Photo Backgrounds

To eliminate the photo’s background, so that it doesn’t cover up the headlines, subheads, and other editorial and graphic elements already on the slide, you need to convert the background of that photo into an alpha channel, a transparent layer that lets everyone see the elements on your slide right through the photo. And that’s what Keynote’s new Instant Alpha tool lets you do. Here’s how it works:

1. Select the image whose background you’d like to eliminate
2. Click the Alpha tool in the Keynote ’08 Toolbar (or choose Instant Alpha from the Format menu).
3. Click the background color you want to make transparent; then slowly drag the Alpha tool over it.

As you drag, the Alpha tool also renders transparent contiguous areas with colors similar to the one your clicked on originally. By clicking and dragging over additional areas of your photo, you’ll quickly eliminate or “knock out” the entire background from the photo, leaving only those elements you want to include on your slide.

Adding Hyperlinks

You can create a dynamic presentation by including hyperlinks that open a webpage. It’s easy to do, and all you need is an Internet connection when you give your presentation. To add a hyperlink to your presentation:

1. Go to the page from which you’d like to open the webpage and select the text or the object you’d like to use as your hyperlink.
2. Open an Inspector window (by clicking the Inspector button in the Toolbar), click the Hyperlink Inspector button, and click the checkbox next to “Enable as a hyperlink.”
3. From the pop-up menu, choose Webpage.
4. Type the website’s address in the URL field and, if desired, use the Display field to change the text that will appear as a hyperlink in your presentation.

And you’re done. Go back, test the link to see if it takes you to the right page, and you’re ready to create a link to another page.