Intorduction:

I hope you understood the basic concepts of Pagemaker. Today we will learn more about Pagemaker Toolbox. The PageMaker Toolbox contains all of the selection, drawing, and viewing tools for creating and manipulating text and objects. This document will familiarize you with the tools in the Toolbox. Displaying the Toolbox PageMaker Toolbox Displaying the Toolbox To maximize your work space, you can toggle between a hidden and visible Toolbox. To display the Toolbox, from the Window menu, select Show Tools The Toolbox is displayed. PageMaker Toolbox When a new document is created or an existing document is opened in Pagemaker the toolbox appears on the screen (windows>show tools). The toolbox (sometimes called the tool palette) contains Pagemakers simple graphic and editing tools. The tool palette in Pagemaker 6.0 does not contain the frame tools but is otherwise similar.

Figure: The Pagemaker Toolbox

This table describes each available tool and its function. Figure: The eight selection handles around a graphic object placed in Pagemaker. To select more than one object , click on the first object then hold down the shift key on the keyboard and click on the second (etc.). Double clicking on the pointer tool icon calls up the preferences dialogue box where the units and graphics display (covered later) can be set.

The text tool The text tool is used to type, select and edit text. Double clicking on the text tool icon calls up the type specs dialogue box where the size, font, colour and leading (etc.) of text can be set. The ellipse tool For drawing circles and ellipses. Double clicking on the ellipse tool icon calls up the fill and line dialogue box where some of the shapes properties can be set. The rectangle tool For drawing rectangles and squares. Double clicking on the rectangle tool icon will allow the creation of rectangles with rounded corners. The unconstrained line tool For drawing straight lines. The constrained line tool For drawing straight lines that are constrained to multiples of 45 degrees. Double clicking on both the constrained and unconstrained line tool icon calls up the line dialogue box allowing some of the lines properties to be defined. The polygon tool The polygon tool is used to create polygons and star shapes. Double clicking on the polygon tool icon allows the user to select the number of sides the polygon is to have. The magnifying tool The magnifying (or zoom) tool is used to magnify or reduce an area of the page. Select the tool and click on the page to zoom in (option/alt clicking zooms out). To zoom in on a specific area, select the tool, hold down the mouse and drag over the area. Double clicking on the magnifying tool ensures that the active Pagemaker document is displayed at its actual size ( view>actual size). Double clicking whilst holding down the alt or option key fits the document to the size of the document window. The rotate tool To rotate an object select it using the pointer tool, pick rotate tool from the toolbox, click on the page and drag with the mouse. Release the mouse when the object has been rotated to the correct position. TIP: Holding down the shift key whilst rotating an object constrains the angle of rotation to 45 degree increments. The cropping tool The cropping tool is used to trim graphics that have been imported into Pagemaker from other pieces of software (such as Photoshop). Click on one of an imported graphics handles and drag to crop. Clicking and dragging on a cropped image with the cropping tool pans the image within its new cropped size. TIP: It is best to crop images in Photoshop The frame toolsPageMaker 6.5 introduced frames for holding text. Frames in Pagemker are similar to frames in QuarkExpress - they are shapes that hold text. Frames are not covered in any of these tutorials which instead use the traditional free-flow method of handling text.