Format hyphens, dashes, and quotation marks in Pages on Mac
By default, Pages moves words that don’t fit on a line of text to the next line. You can have Pages hyphenate those words instead as you type. You can adjust this setting for your entire document or for specific paragraphs. You can also add or remove hyphens for all existing text in your document, or just for individual paragraphs.
You can use smart dashes to automatically convert double hyphens (--) to dashes (—) in your document.
You can also set the style of quotation marks (for example, curly quotation marks, brackets, or double brackets), and use smart quotes to automatically convert straight quotation marks to curly quotation marks.
Change automatic hyphenation for a document
The hyphenation setting applies to the entire document, except to paragraphs where you specifically added or removed hyphens (see the next task). The setting affects only words that break at the end of a line, not hyphenated words you typed yourself.
Click
in the toolbar.Select or deselect the Hyphenation checkbox.
Add or remove hyphens in specific paragraphs
This setting affects only words that break at the end of a line; it doesn’t affect hyphenated words you typed yourself.
Click the paragraph or select multiple paragraphs.
In the Format
sidebar, click the More button near the top.If the text is in a text box, table, or shape, first click the Text tab at the top of the sidebar, then click the the More button.
In the Hyphenation & Ligatures section of the sidebar, select or deselect the “Remove paragraph hyphenation” checkbox.
The hyphenation for these paragraphs doesn’t change if you later change the hyphenation setting for the whole document to be different (see the previous task).
Turn smart dashes on or off
Turning smart dashes on or off doesn’t affect existing hyphens and dashes in your document, only new text that you type.
Choose Pages > Preferences (from the Pages menu at the top of your screen).
Click Auto-Correction at the top of the preferences window.
In the Formatting section, select or deselect the “Use smart quotes and dashes” checkbox.
Convert existing double hyphens to dashes
If your document uses double hyphens instead of dashes, you can quickly replace them with dashes for the whole document or just in specific text.
To apply formatting just to specific text, rather than the whole document, select the text.
Choose Edit > Substitutions > Show Substitutions (from the Edit menu at the top of your screen).
In the Substitutions window, select the Smart Dashes checkbox.
Do one of the following:
Replace all dashes in the document: Click Replace All.
Replace dashes in only selected text: Click Replace in Selection.
Choose a default quotation mark style
You can specify a quotation mark style to use for single and double quotation marks in your document. The setting applies to all of your Pages documents, and only for new text that you type. Existing quotation marks aren’t changed.
Choose Pages > Preferences (from the Pages menu at the top of your screen).
Click Auto-Correction at the top of the preferences window.
In the Formatting section, select the “Use smart quotes and dashes” checkbox.
Click the pop-up menus for double and single quotes, and choose a style for each.
Change the style of existing quotation marks
You can quickly change the quotation mark style for a whole document or just for specific text.
To apply formatting just to specific text, rather than the whole document, select the text.
Choose Edit > Substitutions > Show Substitutions (from the Edit menu at the top of your screen).
In the Substitutions window, select the Smart Quotes checkbox.
Click the pop-up menus for double and single quotation marks, and choose a style for each.
Do one of the following:
Replace all quotation marks in the document: Click Replace All.
Replace quotation marks in only selected text: Click Replace in Selection.