Consistent alignment guides in Pages text processing?

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Level 1

12 points

Consistent alignment guides in Pages text processing?

How do I set consistent alignment guides across every page of a Pages document in word processing mode? Going over to the page layout mode seems impossibly cumbersome, as it would require splitting text manually across hundreds of manually managed text boxes.

Consistent alignment guides are a pretty basic requirement for laying out a book with any graphical elements.

The earlier (inconclusive) discussions on this topic I found seem to be some years old now, so if there are any new insights, developments or workarounds, I'd be interested.

I have tried looking at writing an Apple script to put shapes in fixed places on a page, but Pages refuses to co-operate even on that front.

Mac Studio, macOS 15.6

Posted on Sep 28, 2025 7:39 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

VikingOSX

Level 10

123,152 points

Sep 29, 2025 4:05 AM in response to arkki

Pages alignment guides are a per-page setting, not a per-document setting.

You can engage better dynamic alignment by configuring Pages Settings > Rulers > Alignment Guides as:

Guide colors to your preference.

Although the AppleScript support in Pages '09 was robust, when Apple rewrote Pages and reintroduced it as Pages v5 in Oct 2013, the AppleScript support for it was (and remains) an abomination and limited in its capabilities. The following AppleScript will place a shape exactly at the specifed position on the current document page, but does not allow one to choose the shape, or its color in the AppleScript.

use scripting additions

tell application "Pages"
	activate
	
	if not (exists front document) then
		make new document
	end if
	
	tell current page of front document
		set theShape to (make new shape with properties {height:200, width:200, position:{100, 100}, opacity:25, object text:"Example"})
		tell theShape
			set color of its object text to "red"
		end tell
	end tell
end tell
return

Tested: Pages v14.4, macOS Sequoia v15.7

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Answer 2

arkki Author

Level 1

12 points

Sep 29, 2025 9:42 AM in response to VikingOSX

Thanks very much VikingOSX: this allowed me now to write an AppleScript approximation at least. I'll join those (undoubtably many) who have been asking for this feature to be added to Pages.

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