How do I prevent page breaks from dividing bullet lists in Apple Pages in OS X?

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Level 1

27 points

How do I prevent page breaks from dividing bullet lists in Apple Pages in OS X?

I am trying to format a Pages document, the bulk of which is a series of bullet lists, each of which has a heading. I thought I could do this with styles so I wouldn't have to worry about mucking it up when I inevitably add bullet points in the future, but apparently each bullet is its own paragraph, and I can't figure out how to ensure groups of paragraphs of the same style stay stuck together on the same page.

I found the "Keep with the next paragraph" option but I'd have to modify the style for the last bullet point of each list and then remember to fix that when I add bullet points in the future, and I'd rather not have to remember to do that. Is there a solution that doesn't require something equally kludgey like putting each list in a table cell? Thanks.

Posted on Aug 16, 2024 1:50 AM

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Answer 1

Aug 16, 2024 5:31 AM in response to guspasho

You don't prevent it unless you want to put the bullet lists inside Text boxes which never get split across Pages. Depending on the content of the bullets, even a two-column per page solution would allow the bullets to flow down one column, up and down the next, and then on a page break, continue flowing in the left column on the next page.

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Answer 2

guspasho Author

Level 1

27 points

Aug 17, 2024 3:45 PM in response to guspasho

"You don't" is an unacceptable answer to me so the solution I found for myself is to follow each list with a new empty line and to create a new style I called "Divider" with a 1pt height to assign to each of these lines. This style doesn't have "Keep with next paragraph" selected so the page break will occur after one of these instead of in the middle of one of my lists. I'd prefer not to use empty lines with custom styles but this is a much better solution than resorting to troublesome text boxes.

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Answer 3

Aug 18, 2024 7:56 AM in response to guspasho

It is good that you found a solution. Your fellow users who reply here cannot possibly know all approaches to Pages formatting issues.

Only if your workflow intent is to export your work to Word, should you verify in MS Word that your custom list style is handled correctly in that application. The export translation from Pages to Word is an enigma that could potentially alter your list style effort. Better to test sooner than later… Don't trust Apple's Quick Look, or LibreOffice Writer, but use a recent version of MS Word for the most accurate assessment.

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Answer 4

guspasho Author

Level 1

27 points

Aug 18, 2024 7:25 PM in response to VikingOSX

This doesn't have anything to do with what I asked. Why do users who "cannot possibly" know the answer feel compelled to reply with unhelpful, bad, or unrelated advice anyway? Wasting other users' time in this way is actually worse than getting no answer at all.

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