Working with Text in Adobe PageMaker

2008-08-29

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PageMaker’s Text Boxes

A text box is a “container” for your text. It is a confined area on your document that is designed to hold text. The text you type into your document will automatically be enclosed in a text box. You can determine the size by creating the text box before you begin typing. You can also resize and reposition your text boxes using the Pointer tool. Here’s How to create a text box:

PageMaker’s Text Tool

Creating a New Text Box

Click on the Text tool in the Toolbox.
Move your cursor back to your document. Your cursor will turn into an I-Beam once you move it over your document.
Click anywhere on your document within the margin guides, and then drag the mouse to the right to create a rectangular box.
Release your mouse when you have a text box of the size you want. Your cursor will automatically position itself inside the box.
Begin typing in your text. You may also paste text into the text box.
Once you are done typing in your text, simply click on the Pointer tool in the toolbox to de-select the text box.

Quick Tip: If the text is too small for you to read when you start typing, click on the View menu and the select Zoom In.

Using the Text Tool to Edit your Text

Once you have created a text box and entered your text, you can then edit it much as you would in Microsoft Word. For this purpose, you will primarily use the Text tool and the Type menu.

Click on the Text tool from the toolbox.
Position the cursor at the beginning of the text you want to format.
Click and drag the I-beam across the text to select it.
Edit the selected text as follows

To delete text

Tap the Delete key or simply start typing, which will replace the selected text.
Click on the Edit menu, and then select Clear.

To copy or move the text

Click on the Edit menu
Select the Cut, Copy or Paste command

To change the type style

Click on the Type menu
Select your desired option

Typing Large Amounts of Text

PageMaker is specifically designed as a desktop publishing application, and is therefore not very well-suited for typing large amounts of text. It is better suited for typing and formatting titles, headlines, captions as well as headers and footers.

If you have a lot of text to add to your document, you can use the Place command to import text from a word processor, such as Microsoft Word or WordPerfect, or you can use PageMaker’s Story Editor.

To learn more about typing and editing large volumes of text for PageMaker, refer to these two tutorials later in this series of PageMaker tutorials:

Using the Place Command to Import Text and Graphics
Using PageMaker’s Story Editor

This post is part of the series: PageMaker 7.0 Basics

This series of Adobe PageMaker tutorials provides step-by-step instructions on using PageMaker to create professional, high-quality publications such as newsletters, brochures, reports, pamphlets, newsletters and other publications.