Add text boxes

A text box holds paragraphs of its own in a box with a size, a fill, and an outline. Use one for a callout, a pull quote, or a label that sits on top of a picture or beside your text.

Add a text box

1. Place your cursor where you want the box.
2. Open the Insert menu and choose Text box.
3. Type the box's text. It wraps inside the box, and the box grows to fit it.
4. Press Esc when you're done. The box stays selected, so you can change how it looks.

A new box sits on its own line, 6 cm wide, white with a thin black outline. Text box is grayed out in a header or footer, in a footnote, inside another text box, and in a code block. On a phone, Insert has no Text box.

Edit the text in a box

Click the text in a box and type. The toolbar and the Format and Insert menus now work on the box's text, so you can make it bold, align a paragraph, or add a link. ⌘Z on a Mac (Ctrl+Z on Windows and Linux) undoes your typing as it does in the rest of the document.

You can also select a box and press Enter to type at the end of its text. Press Esc to leave the box, and Esc again to put the cursor back in your text.

Formatting your document's text, such as making a whole paragraph bold, leaves the text in its boxes as it is.

Move and resize a box

Click the edge of a box to select it. The edge is where you move it: drag it to another place. A box with no outline and no space around its text has no edge to click: click its text, then press Esc to select it. Once a box in front of or behind the text is selected, you can also drag it from anywhere inside it, and a click inside it puts you back in its text. A box on its own line moves between lines of text, and a box in front of or behind the text moves anywhere on the page.

Drag a handle on a corner or a side to change the box's size. The box never gets shorter than its text: the height you set is the least it takes, and the box grows when you type more.

Change how a box looks

On a wide screen, selecting a box opens the Text box panel on the right side of the editor:

• Width and Height: type a size in centimeters. Grow with text is checked while the box takes the height of its text. Type a height to make it taller, and check Grow with text again to go back.
• Style: put the box on its own line, float it left or right with the text wrapping around it, or place it Behind text or In front of text.
• Align: when the box is on its own line, choose left, center, or right.
• Fill and Outline: pick a color, or None. With an outline, choose its Weight and its Style: Solid, Dashed, Dotted, or Double.
• Rounded corners: round the box's corners.
• Horiz. and Vert.: the space between the box's edges and its text, in centimeters.
• Align under Text: put the text at the top, the middle, or the bottom of a box that is taller than its text.

Format → Text box has the same styles and the Fill. It works on any screen, a phone included. On a phone you can select a box and change its style and fill, but not type in it.

A box behind the text sits under your text, which runs over it. Click where no text covers the box to type in it, or hold Alt (Option on a Mac) and click to select it.

Good to know

• A box in a table can't go behind or in front of the text, so the panel and Format → Text box don't offer it there.
• The find bar searches the text in boxes, and Tools → Word count counts it.
• A comment on a box covers the whole box.
• A box copied and pasted into another document stays a box with its look.
• In the PDF and the web page a box looks as it does in the editor. In the Word file it's a Word text box. See Export a document.