PageMaker 7.0 Basics: Workspace, Toolbox & Rulers

You'll find all the powerful toos and features of this versatile program in the PageMaker workspace. It features a menu bar across the top of your  screen, the PageMaker window that contains your document, and a range of tools and palettes that you can use to create and edit a document. Start with the workspace, then learn about the Toolbox feature, rulers and guides.

The PageMaker window is designed to provide a number of elements to facilitate creating and editing a document. Learning the purpose of these elements will make working in PageMaker much easier. Here are the elements that you are most likely to use:

Title Bar 

The title bar will display the name of your document. If you are working with a brand new document and have yet to name it, the title bar will simply read: Untitled-1.

Rulers

PageMaker provides two customizable rulers, which run horizontally and vertically along your screen. You can set the rulers to measure in either inches or picas (picas are a unit of measurement unique to typography. One pica is equivalent to 12 points, which is about 1/6 of an inch).

Pasteboard

This is the background that lies behind your PageMaker document. It is a handy element to use if you need to move text or images between pages. You can also place these items on the pasteboard until you decide where to position them on the page. Any text or images that you place on the pasteboard won't print.

 Page Icons

The numbered page icons at the bottom left-hand corner of your screen each represent the pages of the document you are working on. The icon of the particular page that you are viewing will be highlighted.

The L and R icons in the extreme left represent your master pages. Any items on the master pages appear on all of the document's pages.

Page Boundaries

These represent the edges of your paper. Any text or images that lie outside the boundaries or overlap them will not be printed.

Scroll Bars

Much like Word and other Microsoft programs, these are designed to enable you to move from one point to the other on the page you are working on. However, you won't use the scroll bars to move from one page to another.

Resize Box

This is located in the lower right-hand corner of the screen, and is used to adjust the size of the window. To resize the window, you will click and drag here to adjust the window to the size you desire.

Previous Size Box

Also called the "Refresh Box," this feature is in the upper right corner and is used to refresh your screen display. It is particularly useful if you are experimenting with different styles and sizes. Using this feature clears the screen of previous edits so you can start afresh.