I’m a US patent attorney, and I’d like to try using Pages for preparing my patent applications. Best practice is to number paragraphs in the app using the following format, which is quite simple in Word:
[0001] First paragraph text…
[0002] Second paragraph text…
Unfortunately, Pages appears to have severe limitations on customized paragraph numbering styles, so I cannot find a way to automatically obtain sequential paragraph numbering in this style. Any suggestions? (I may just stick with Word.)
I don’t currently use Pages but I found this advice for an older version: try setting the “Heading 1” style (or whichever style-type in which you want to write) to “Numbered List”, then right-click on Heading 1 to save the style.
You can even write paragraphs with tiered numbering by setting “heading 2” style to “Numbered List”, then in the inspector palette choosing “text inspector” and then the “list” tab, then changing “numbers” to “tiered numbers” and then “continue from previous”.
Thanks for the response, bowline! I have tried this, but I am unable to get the style format to follow ”[00XX]” format. It appears that the formats aren’t customizable except for a dozen or so static choices. Am I missing something?
They are customizable beyond the “static” choices, but only with respect to font, size, text style and a few other items.
I tried to replicate your need using a text bullet rather than a numbered list, but there is no way to increment it.
You might be able to automate this, but I suspect that’s more hassle than you wish to experience. I would submit a feature request to Apple. They won’t get back to you about it, but if it is a feature they think they should add, it might show up one day in an update.
Seems that way, I agree. Word can do this, of course, and so can Nisus Writer Pro (I sometimes use NWP for formal documents). A quick search found these discussions about formatting in NWP:
I’ll ask Kate Adams about this next time I see her…
If I were you, Rick, I would stick with Word. I don’t know about your clients, but mine expect Word documents to edit and redline as work products. Nobody I work with or for uses anything other than Word anyway. Seems to me that Pages would be a nonstarter.
I agree that I should just stick to Word, but I was hoping to learn more about Pages. Also, the styles in Word sometimes get corrupted, as do the document files themselves. I was hoping to see if I could alleviate these with a change to a new program. (I’ve started from scratch with new document files in Word, and they always seem to eventually creep into some template problems.) FYI - Nevertheless, Word on Mac is SO MUCH BETTER these days!
Re corrupted styles and documents … are you sure that something other than Word is causing these. I’ve used Word for decades, including recent versions on Mac (and Windows), and I’ve never seen these problems. I’m not saying that you don’t see the problems, but wondering the root cause.
There’s a nice template on ShareLaTeX (now overleaf), which you could use in Overleaf or Texpad (my preference).
n.b. I’ve never done patent work or used the template above. I do use LaTeX and find it very robust, and like the way it separates content from styling.
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