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Keyboard Shortcuts for text styles in Pages?

Is there any way to apply text styles with keyboard shortcuts?


The styles do give the option of using function keys, but I find it hard to remember these and also, there aren’t enough function keys for all my styles (especially as Pages only goes up to F8).


I’ve tried using the Keyboard shortcuts in System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts, but it doesn’t seem to work?


Is there anything else I can try (maybe something with Applescript?)

Posted on May 31, 2019 3:25 AM

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Posted on May 31, 2019 4:41 AM

You cannot assign keyboard shortcuts other than F1 - F8 to the Character Styles. You can set bold, italic, underline styles via the respective ⌘-B, ⌘-I, and ⌘-U keyboard shortcuts. These are toggles, so repeating them is an undo of the same selected text.


The AppleScript dictionary for Pages 8 does not provide access to character styles. One can check every word, or placeholder text string in a document, and if it matches a predefined word/s, that word/s can be set to an arbitrary color, font, or font size. A different approach would be needed to address text changes within a shape or text box.

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

May 31, 2019 4:41 AM in response to big_smile

You cannot assign keyboard shortcuts other than F1 - F8 to the Character Styles. You can set bold, italic, underline styles via the respective ⌘-B, ⌘-I, and ⌘-U keyboard shortcuts. These are toggles, so repeating them is an undo of the same selected text.


The AppleScript dictionary for Pages 8 does not provide access to character styles. One can check every word, or placeholder text string in a document, and if it matches a predefined word/s, that word/s can be set to an arbitrary color, font, or font size. A different approach would be needed to address text changes within a shape or text box.

May 31, 2019 4:45 AM in response to VikingOSX

VikingOSX wrote:
The AppleScript dictionary for Pages 8 does not provide access to character styles. One can check every word, or placeholder text string in a document, and if it matches a predefined word/s, that word/s can be set to an arbitrary color, font, or font size. A different approach would be needed to address text changes within a shape or text box.

Does this also mean you can't use AppleScript to access Paragraph Styles? (Paragraph styles are different from Character styles).


May 31, 2019 5:01 AM in response to big_smile

The AppleScript dictionary in Pages v5 through v8 is quite limited, and no, it won't give you access to paragraph styles either.


The scripting dictionary for the older Pages '09 v4.3 on the otherhand, was far more robust and would allow one to access and apply these styles. Pages '09 v4.3 is a 32-bit application, and not for that reason, it was dead on Mojave until 10.14.5 miraculously revived it.

Keyboard Shortcuts for text styles in Pages?

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