Set text defaults

Every Pages template, including Blank templates, comes with text settings that specify default paragraph styles for text. You can modify the paragraph styles however you like. If you want to reuse the text changes you made and use them for future documents, save your changes as a custom template that you can use again and again.

For example, if you prefer to use Garamond 10 for body text, you could modify the Blank template so that the body text paragraph style is Garamond 10, then save it as a custom template. The next time you start a new document, choose your template from the My Templates section of the template chooser, and just start typing.

Create a custom template from a Blank template

In Pages, choose File > Open, then click New Document.
The template chooser opens.
In the template chooser, double-click a Blank template.
Click the Style button near the top of the sidebar on the right.
If you don’t see a sidebar, or the sidebar doesn’t have a Style button, click in the toolbar.
Click the paragraph stye at the top of the sidebar (in the example above, it’s Subtitle), then choose the style you want to modify.
Tip: You don’t have to modify every paragraph style in the template; for example, for a simple letter or document, you may want to modify only the body text style and a heading style.
In the Font section of the sidebar, choose a font and font size for the paragraph style you selected.
You can also use other controls in the Font section to choose character styles like bold and italic, and change the text color.
Click the Update button that appears next to the paragraph style.
The default style is updated with your changes. You can rename the style and delete styles you don’t want to keep.
If you typed in the template, delete any text that you don’t want to appear every time you open the template.
For example, you may want to include your name and address in a letter template, but not sample text that you typed to set up your paragraph styles.
When you’re finished, choose File > Save As Template (from the File menu at the top of the screen).
The original Blank template is still available from the template chooser.
Click Add to Template Chooser, then type a name for your new template.
The template is added to the My Templates category of the template chooser.

Tip: In Pages preferences you can set your template to always open when you choose File > New. To learn how, see Set a default template.

For more information about creating and installing custom templates, see Install and manage document templates.

Set a default text box for a document

Pages comes with a default text box style, but you can create your own default text box style for a document. Your default text box style applies only to the document where you create it.

Add a text box to your document and change it however you want.
For example, you can change the font and font size, add a border to the box, and so on.
Select the text box.
Choose Format > Advanced > Set as Default Text Box Appearance (from the Format menu at the top of your screen).

You can change the default text box style whenever you want, and it won’t affect any text boxes already in the document.

If you want to apply the same design changes to other text boxes that already exist in the document, you can save the default text box style as an object style, then apply the object style to other text boxes.