How do I add text boxes to book chapters? SOLVED

Previous topic - Next topic

Ritergal

I need to add text boxes to my book document. I want a light gray background with no border and an inside margin of .2". I've searched dozens of pages and not found instructions for doing this.

So far I have defined paragraph styles for the title and contents of the box and added a gray rectangle behind it. The problem with this approach is precise placement.

Does anyone know a better way, the equivalent of creating a text box in Word that has a specific size and wrap margins to set it apart from surrounding text? In this case I only want top and bottom wrap, not an insert. But how would I add a narrow text box with text flowing around it?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Ritergal

Aha! While waiting for replies, I kept digging and eventually pieced together enough information from here and there to solve this puzzle. When I finish my current project, perhaps I'll write a proper tutorial, but for now, here's a quick overview of what I did, for whatever help it may be to others. BTW, these steps may need to be streamlined along the way.

Key concepts:
1) Create a textbox the size you want in blank space, in your working document or a new one. Enter and format text as usual, using styles if you're doing several, or directly if it's just this one. Columns and Text Distances under the Text options are the place to add padding inside the box.

2) Add fill or whatever using Properties for the text box. I know there are several ways to control outer padding, but the one I'm using right now is a white line as a box border, the width of the desired padding.

3) Text boxes are shapes. Shapes can be converted to text containers. Okay! Text wrapping is controlled for text boxes as for all shapes, in the Shape section of Properties.

4) Move that box into final position within the text. Drag or cut and paste.

Not so difficult after all, and now the pieces of the puzzle are more or less assembled in one place.