Pages - Modifying Paragraph Styles

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Modifying Paragraph Styles

Change a paragraph’s appearance, tab stops, margins, background color, page breaks,
and more by modifying its paragraph style.

To modify a paragraph style:

1

Click the Styles Drawer button in the format bar to open the Styles drawer.

Select the paragraph style that most closely matches the style you want to design, or
select Free Form.

2

Type some text and format it to look the way you want. For information about

formatting the look of text, see “Formatting Text Size and Appearance” on page 82.

3

Set the text alignment, character and line spacing, and the spacing before and after

the paragraph using the controls in the format bar or in the Text pane of the Text
inspector. For more information, see “Setting Text Alignment, Spacing, and Color” on
page 90.

4

If the paragraph style requires special tab stops, set them in the Tabs pane of the Text

inspector. For more information, see “Setting Tab Stops to Align Text” on page 94.

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5

If you want the paragraph style to be indented relative to the page margins, set the

paragraph indents in the Tabs pane of the Text inspector.

Set the first-line indent.

Set the right indent
for the paragraph.

Set the left indent for

the paragraph.

6

Click More in the Text inspector to select more formatting options.

Choose border and rules
formatting options for
selected text.

Select options to

determine how the

paragraph breaks

across pages.

Choose a language for the
spelling dictionary to use.

Remove automatic

hyphenation or ligatures,

if they are selected for

the document.

Set the text above or below
the surrounding text.

Choose a paragraph style
to follow the current one
when you press Return.

Add a background

color to a character

or paragraph.

7

In the Styles drawer, click the arrow to the right of the paragraph style name, and then

choose an option.
Create New Paragraph Style from Selection: This doesn’t alter the existing style, but
creates a new style based on the formatting choices you’ve made in the previous
steps. If you select this, type a name for the new style, and then click OK.
Redefine Style from Selection: Redefines the existing paragraph style for the whole
document. If you choose this, your formatting changes will apply to all other instances
of this style throughout the document. (But any character styles that have been
applied will not be affected.)
Revert to Defined Style: Removes style overrides and the selected text takes on the
default attributes of the selected style.

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Chapter 6

Working with Styles

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Chapter 6

Working with Styles

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