What alternative to sections and chapters in Pages.app layout document?

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What alternative to sections and chapters in Pages.app layout document?

I have been using iBooksAuthor for the last ten years to produce illustrated books about my holidays and family history. These are for my private use only, not for publishing.

Since Apple is abandoning iBA, I have turned to Pages.app. My experience with the "layout" format in Pages is very frustrating. It does not support chapters or sections, nor even a contents table. Since each of my books run to over 100 or even 150 pages, having a clear overall view of the contents and an easy way of quickly navigating from one chapter to another is vital.

How could I recreate a chapter/section structure for layout documents in Pages.app for macOS?

iMac 27″, macOS 12.6

Posted on Oct 31, 2022 11:44 PM

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Answer 1

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VikingOSX

Community+ 2024

Level 10

116,645 points

Nov 1, 2022 5:58 AM in response to deomedea

There are two types of Pages documents: 1) word processing, and 2) page layout.

In a word processing document, when you create a new document from a blank (example) template, the first page that you see is both a section and a page. As content spills from the first page to the second and so forth, these are pages in that first section. Thus, there is a means to isolate chapters as sections because you can create a new section after the first. Providing you are using paragraph styles you can also generate a Table of Contents once you have enabled those styles to appear in that ToC.

In a Page Layout document, every page is a section and one must use single or linked text boxes to contain typed text, either on the same, or across sections.

See Pages User Guide for Mac - Apple Support

Also: Transition from iBooks Author to Pages - Apple Support

Although Apple enabled Pages v10.1 or later to import iBooks Author (.iba) documents, it drops all of the interactive content, and simply is not a replacement for iBooks Author. Although perhaps Apple alluded to a some day scenario, it hasn't happened yet because I believe, they would have to completely rewrite Pages again to achieve IBA functionality. Sort of like Apple trying to bring back AppleWorks now.

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Answer 2

deomedea Author

Level 1

13 points

Nov 9, 2022 12:46 PM in response to VikingOSX

Thank you VikingOSX for taking time to reply. Unfortunately, you were not able to help me.

The fact is that sadly Pages is too unwieldy and not sophisticated enough for creating complex books.

And there seems to be no obvious alternative…

I am going to complain again to Apple in the hope that they will add to Pages the functions that it lacks compared to iBA.

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What alternative to sections and chapters in Pages.app layout document?

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