Text Box

Click the Text Box tool in the Comment Toolbar to make visible comments. Drag a window and enter text. The text box expands to accept longer text. When entering a text, make a selection, right-click in the box and choose Properties… from the shortcut menu to modify text properties for the selection in the toolbar shown below.

Use the Hand tool or the Text Box tool to select an existing text box and double-click to change the text. To change text properties, select part or all of the text, right-click and choose Properties; the following toolbar appears:
 

Click Set to specify current settings as default, or specify default values for text boxes by selecting Edit > Preferences > Comment.   

To move or resize a text box, use the Select Object tool in the Standard Toolbar or the Hand tool. To change its appearance, right-click and choose Properties to specify border style, thickness and color, a fill color, and an opacity value for the text box. You can also access the text box Author, Subject and History properties. To avoid accidental modification, choose the Protected checkbox.

Click the Callout tool in the Comment Toolbar instead of the Text Box tool, to add an arrow headed line pointing from the text box to a place on the page.

Text added as a Text Box or a Callout remain as annotations. To work further with them, see below.

Handling Text Boxes, Typewriter Boxes and Typewriter Texts

This section gives practical guidance on using the Text Box tool, the Typewriter tool and Typewriter Box tool and how they differ from each other. Spell checking is available for all three item types.

To place an item

Choose the Text Box tool (Comments toolbar) or the Typewriter Box tool (Advanced toolbar), click on the page, drag-and-drop to the desired size; a cursor appears ready to accept text in the box. The boxes resize vertically to accept further text. To place typewriter text, choose its button (Advanced toolbar), click at the desired location and type in the desired text.

Tip

All these tools remain active after items are placed, each new click is likely to create a new item. As soon as you do not wish to create more items of the same type, choose the Hand tool. As an example, if you finish placing Typewriter Boxes and its tool remains active, but decide to return and select an existing box to modify it, you must click very precisely on its border, with the cursor’s midpoint lying on the border. A click anywhere else creates a new typewriter box.  

Comment panel listing

Text Boxes and Callouts are annotations, so they appear in the Comments panel, they accept replies and conversations, have a review status and can be migrated. Typewriter items do not appear in the Comments panel.

To select an existing item

Text Box: Use the Hand tool or the Text Box tool (this allows text changes) or the Select Object tool (this allows Text Box property changes).

Typewriter Box: Use either Typewriter tool and click inside the box border. The Touchup tools can also select typewriter items, to modify or move them.

Typewriter Text: Use either Typewriter tool or the Touchup Text tool and click on the text to create an editing box, just like the Touchup text tool does on real PDF text.

Changing format for a text selection

Text selections can be modified in all three cases. Select the item as described, double-click for a text cursor, make a text selection, right click and choose Properties. To change all text in the item, you must select it all. Changing Properties when the cursor is placed but no selection is made has no effect on the text. In text boxes with no selection, changed values cannot be set as default. With typewriter texts and boxes, changes without a text selection can be set as defaults and are applied to subsequent typewriter items.

Preferences and defaults

Formatting changes set as defaults under Edit > Preferences > Comments affect newly drawn text boxes only. They do not change texts in existing text boxes, and are not applied to typewriter texts. Defaults can also be changed by clicking Set in the Text Box Text Properties dialog box and then clicking OK to confirm. Defaults for the typewriter tools can be set in the same way. One set of defaults is stored for both Typewriter Text and Typewriter Box text, and these defaults do not apply to Text Boxes.

Flattening and Document Inspection

Text Boxes can be changed from annotations to document objects (so they become like typewriter texts) with the command Flatten Document. They can be removed by Document Inspection. Typewriter texts are not affected by flattening or document inspection.

Text Box