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Connecting text boxes

It's common to have more text than you can fit into one text box, or to resize a text box so all the text no longer fits. When this happens, the extra text, called overflow, is hidden and a small icon appears below the text box that says Text in Overflow:

You can connect multiple text boxes so that text flows from one box to another in what's called a story. If you resize or delete one of the connected text boxes, the overflow text is moved to adjacent boxes, preserving the text and flow of the story.

To connect a series of text boxes:

1. Lay out the design you want by adding and arranging the text boxes you want to link.

For this example, we deleted the second and third columns of the bottom article on Page 2 of our example newsletter, and then resized the first column so the text no longer fit. We then moved the text box to the bottom of the page and added two new text boxes next to it. (See the illustration for Step 2 below.)

2. Select the text box containing your overflow text. The box doesn't have to contain text yet; if you're laying out a design, you can select the first in a series of empty text boxes that you want to link.

3. On the Connect Text Boxes toolbar, click the Create Text Box Link  button.

The mouse icon changes to a pitcher.

4. Click the text box that should be second in the link:

The overflow text now appears in the box you clicked:

To connect additional text boxes, repeat the above steps.

For example, to connect the third text box in the example, click the Create Text Box Link button again, and then click the third text box:

Because the text of the story actually ended in the second text box, the third box remains empty:

However, the small Go to  button above the text box tells us the box is connected.

If you now delete the middle text box, the text that appeared in that box will move to the third text box:

 

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