Pages: format within find & replace

Question

Level 1

8 points

Pages: format within find & replace

This may be more of a feature request than a question. In Pages, I want to replace all instances of a word with a bolded version of the same word. Pages does not support formatting within the Find & Replace dialog, so what should be easy is instead impossible.

I am trying it with an apple script provided for an older question. It has taken over 10 minutes, with a 27-page document, and it's still not finished, nor does it stop when I try to stop it.

I'm trying to use Apple applications rather than Microsoft/Google, and I'm regretting that right now.

I'm using Pages version 14.3 (7042.0.76) on an Apple silicon Macbook pro, OS 14.0

Posted on Mar 17, 2025 08:28 PM

Reply

Answer 1

VikingOSX

Level 10

122,118 points

Mar 18, 2025 05:47 AM in response to AlizaG

Since Pages '09 was retired in Late Summer 2013, the rewritten Pages v5 (Oct 2013) and later from that timeframe has no advanced find/replace to perform what you want. Here are your options:

Provide Pages Feedback (feature request) from the Pages application menu. That goes directly to the Pages product team who do not participate in this strictly user-supported community.
Export your Pages document to Word DOCX and open it in either Microsoft Word or the free LibreOffice Writer (Word clone). Make your advanced find/replace changes, then save changes to a current Word document that you reopen in Pages.

Apple never designed Pages to be an MS Word clone and thus, it lacks a great many features found in that Microsoft application.

Reply

Pages: format within find & replace

Similar questions