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Layering
When you have text and graphics overlapping each other and you only want to work on one, you have to bring it to the front or send the other to the back. For example, if you have a caption behind a picture, clicking on the caption would select the graphic (clicking selects what is in front). To select the caption, you would click on the graphic, go to the Element Menu and choose Send to back. Then you can click on the text block to select it, because it will be in front. The most common usage of Send to Back/Bring to Front is when you place text on top of a filled box. When you click on the box to change the border, PageMaker automatically brings it to the front covering up the text that was there. Sending the box to the back will make the text “reappear.”
Finding Missing Objects
Try to keep in mind all the objects that you’ve placed on the page: filled–in white shapes with no border can cover up other text boxes or objects that you might not be aware off. Thinking that the object or text may have disappeared, you may accidentally create two or three versions of the same thing. If you’ve forgotten what objects are on the page, click the arrow tool, and then choose ‘Select All’ from the Edit Menu. This will highlight any and all objects on the current screen.
Or to just look for objects in a section of the page, use the arrow tool to create the dashed rectangle around the area you wish to search. The objects on the right are a white rectangle with no border and reversed text.
Moving Objects
Suppose you’ve created a layout on the top right hand of the page but now want to move it to the bottom left without changing the layout. You can ‘grab’ several objects by holding the shift key and clicking on each of the objects you want to move with the arrow. After you’re done grabbing all of the objects, release the shift key and click and hold any part of the group of objects to move it to the desired location. Another way to grab a group of objects is by using the arrow tool to create a rectangle (just like creating a text box with the text tool) around the objects you wish to grab. If you want to move this same group of objects to the next page, drag the group of objects completely off the page, click the page you want to place the objects on in the lower right hand corner, and then move the objects back onto the page.
Control Palette
Another handy window is the Control Palette which can be selected from the Window Menu. The Control Palette changes to give you information about the object that is selected. When text is selected by the text tool, the Palette looks like this:
From here you can make modifications of the text directly without having to go through the various windows from the Type Menu. When a shape or line is selected the Control Palette changes to allow you to adjust lines, change position coordinates, lengths and widths.
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