Text in a Shape

I haven't used the balloons, but can't you flip the balloon first then enter the text?

Peggy

Maria L,

don't add text to the "flipped" balloon (after double-clicking into the object) but add a text box.

When you're finished with the shape, choose Text from the objects button in the toolbar to create a fixed text box. Add text, resize, and drag the text box over the shape. You can rotate the text box (press command and drag a selection handle).

When you've lined up the text box with the object, select the text box, hold down the Shift key and also select the shape. Join the two objects together (Arrange->Group) to be able to move your text-filled shape as one object.

Peggy,

no you can't. When you enter text, the object flips back to its original position. But after adding the text, both object and text shift back to its rotated position.

The only solution is to stack a text box on the shape.

Maria L,

I'm not sure about the ramifications. I can imagine that it's sometimes intended to flip the text with the object to create "special effects".

Text boxes are a great help in both Pages and Keynote and their possibilities are maybe not well documented. (Though I have to admit that I haven't read very much in the User manuals that came with iWork.)

Last weekend I purchased "iWork '05 - The Missing Manual" and I would recommend it to you.

What about when you want the text to fit inside a shape - like a trapezoid, just to pull a random shape out of the air, and the text box is a rectangle? Must I force carriage returns to approximate a fit within the edge of the shape it ought to sit within?

Curious and Open Mindedly Yours,
gg

Hello MariaL,

the most easy way to do a flipped shape with normal text orientation is, to grap a handle and drag it over to the other side. You can do this with every handle. Now the object shape is mirrored, but the text is not.

Frank.

Frank,

that only works as long as the the object is horizontally oriented. If you turn the speech bubbles by some degrees and want the text to stay in its original orientation, you can achieve this with a text box stacked on the bubble.

gg,

I fear you have to - at least with shapes that you don't find in Objects/Shapes.

Try the triangle from Objects/Shapes:

* Set the checkmark for "Fixed on page" in Wrap inspector.
* Unset the checkmark "Constrain proportions" in Metrics inspector.
* Drag the shape to the size you desire.
* Double-click on the shape to add your text. You maybe have to manually hyphenate some words.
* When you're finished and satisfied with the shaped text, remove Fill color and Stroke in Graphics inspector.

Matthias,

Appreciate your reply quite a bit. What about with resize-able shapes I have imported from, let's say, MS Word? I have just successfully copied bunches of these shapes to a new Word document, saved it, and then opened it with Pages. All shapes lost their "adjuster nodes" - the yellow diamonds on a shape in Word, the cuircles in Pages that let you adjust one variable in the shape - and any grouped shape lost resizing capability. The rest - well, you can play with them like a normal shape, fill them with color, etc. I successfully used four trapezoids to make a "room view" where the wall opposite the viewer is rectangular, whilst floor & ceiling, left & right walls are all the same trapezoid sized, flipped or rotated CW or CCW. Later tonight I will attempt to insert the text, perhaps I will be lucky? Such hopes have been dashed before...still, having lots more shapes that will resize is a good thing.

Once again, thank you,
geoffrey


Original 17" Powerbook Mac OS X (10.4.3) Apple Cinema Display; 2 gig RAM

Original 17" Powerbook Mac OS X (10.4.3) Apple Cinema Display; 2 gig RAM