Importing Text and Graphics

Designing Information Material 4(1+3)

Lesson 11 : Pagemaker

Importing Text and Graphics

To import text or an image into your publication, go to the File Menu and click on Place. Choose the desired graphic or text document from the window that appears. Once you have selected the desired text document or graphic to be imported, click OK. You will notice that your cursor has changed to one of these icons: for a graphic, for a text document.

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Click the cursor where you would like the text or graphic to appear. If you import text that is longer than one page a little red triangle appears at the end of the text block. This means that there is text below the block that you cannot see. If you click once on this triangle the cursor will become the cursor again so that you can import the rest of the text somewhere else. Before importing text or graphics, it’s a good idea to set your guides first, so that way you will already know where things should be placed. In addition to guides, you may also want to enable the Auto flow function found in the Layout Menu. With Auto flow, you can just click the cursor where you would like the text to appear, and it will automatically place the text so it ‘flows’ in the guides that you’ve set up and it will continue to place text in the subsequent columns and/or pages until the entire text document is laid out.

Text Wrap
Text Wrap is a function that you can use to make text flow around an object without having to change the size of the text boxes. First use the arrow tool to click on the object you want to create a text wrap around. Then click on Text Wrap under the Element Menu.
You should then receive a Menu like this:

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When you click ‘OK’ you should now see a dotted line encircling the object. This is the Standoff Guide which marks the distance from between the text and the object.

Notice how the text moves onto the next line once it reaches the Guide. You can adjust the Standoff by clicking on one of the sides and sliding it to the desired distance or by adjusting it in the Text Wrap Window. Clicking on the sides to adjust the standoff keeps the guide straight. If you use the corners to adjust the guide, the guides will then angle to adjust to the position of the corner. You can use Text Wrap around text as well, but to do so you will need to draw a box around your text like the example on the left. It is the box that has the text wrap around it, and the text inside stays protected.

Formatting Text
Already existing text can be modified by highlighting it with the text tool, then changing the type specifications under the Type Menu. However, changing all of the specifications can be a tedious task especially if you have a lot of separate text flows.
To solve this, you can define your own style of text under Define Styles in the Type Menu. A Menu will then appear with a list of the existing styles created. You may create a new one by clicking ‘New’ or modify an existing one by clicking on the name and then ‘Edit.’ Either one will get you to another window similar to this one:

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Now you can select Type, Paragraph, Tabs, or Hyphenation to define your own style. In both windows, it will indicate what is currently defined for that style. For instance, the style ‘Hanging Indent’ uses Times font, size 12 with auto leading, with a left indent of 0.167”, a first indent of -0.167” and hyphenation.
Once you’ve defined your styles, you can open up the ‘Style Palette’ from the Window Menu. Similar to the Toolbox, the Style Palette lists already defined type styles for easy access. Now to modify text, simply highlight the text then double-click on the name of the style you want to change it to.

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Last modified: Monday, 30 April 2012, 10:46 AM