How to make noncontiguous selections in Pages, Numbers, and Keynote

Image: Apple

Install the April 2024 iWork update and you’ll gain access to a “new” feature that’s decades old: noncontiguous text selection. Put simply, it means you can select text that doesn’t flow continuously from one letter to the next. This lets you select multiple areas of text for manual formatting or character styles all at once instead of one at a time. (Apple doesn’t let you use Find & Replace to select everything that matches the Find field, however.)

To make a noncontiguous selection:

Start by selecting any text in Pages, Numbers, or Keynote.

Hold down the Command key.

Select additional ranges: drag for a select, double-click to add words, or triple-click to add paragraphs.

You can remove text from the selection by dragging or Shift-dragging while keeping Command held down.

With a noncontiguous selection, all the normal formatting options are available in the Format sidebar (View> Inspector> Format).

After making a noncontiguous text selection, I set the selected text to a different type weight.

After making a noncontiguous text selection, I set the selected text to a different type weight.

Foundry

After making a noncontiguous text selection, I set the selected text to a different type weight.

Foundry

Foundry

While I joked above about Apple being late to the party, it’s absolutely true. I can’t find the earliest citation of noncontiguous text selection, but Nisus Writer–still in production today–was promoting this special feature in an ad in MacUser magazine back in 1991. Years before that, this kind of selection was also available with lots of keystrokes in pre-graphical-user-interface word processors.

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