900 Chapter 30 Create Visual Interest
Working with Text Boxes
When you create a document by using a word processing program such as Microsoft Word,
you enter text on the page in the area defined by the margins. When you create a publi-
cation by using Publisher, however, you place a text box on the page and enter text into
the text box. The text box is an object that can be sized to fit the text it contains, and can
be moved with its contents intact. You can create text boxes or manipulate the text boxes
that are part of a Publisher template. You can type text directly into the text box, paste
text from another file, or insert the entire contents of another file.
Tip In Publisher, the text in a text box is called a story. A story is any discrete block of text
that occupies a single text box or a set of linked text boxes. It can be a single paragraph or
multiple paragraphs.Manipulating Text Boxes
After you create a text box, or when you click a text box to make it active, you can move
it by dragging its frame.
Keyboard Shortcut To create a copy of a text box and its contents, hold down the Ctrl key
while you drag the text box to the location where you want the copy.
You can drag the handles of the frame to change the size or shape of the box. If you want
a specific size or shape, you can change the settings on the Drawing Tools Format contex-
tual tab or the Text Box Tools Format contextual tab. On these tabs, you can also specify:
● The background color of the text box, whether it has a border, and the color of the
border.
● Whether the text box has a shadow or three-dimensional effects.
● The position of the text box on the page, and how text in adjacent frames flows
around this text box.
● The vertical text alignment, the margins, and whether Publisher can automatically
adjust the size of the text box to fit the amount of text you insert in it.
When a text box is active, a green rotating handle is attached to its upper-middle handle.
You can drag this handle to change the angle of the text box and the text within it.
Tip You can rotate a text box and its contents by clicking the Rotate button in the Arrange
group on the Drawing Tools Format contextual tab and then clicking the rotation option you
want. You can change the direction of only the text within the text box from horizontal to
vertical by clicking the Text Direction button in the Text group on the Text Box Tools Format
contextual tab.