Macintosh Tips & Tricks

Topic:

Writing letters in ClarisWorks with full page Cliptures borders.

Tip:

It's much easier to create a letter with a full page border in a ClarisWorks Draw document instead of in a Word Processor document. In a Draw document, you can insert the border, adjust its size if you need to, and lock it in place. Then you can create a text block inside the border to write your letter. This is much easier than having to mess around with margins in a Word Processor document.

Here's the basic steps:

1. Put the Cliptures CD in your disc drive.
2. Start ClarisWorks and start a new Draw document.
3. Under the Format menu, select the Document... option.
4. Set each of the 4 margins to .5 in. (1/2") and click on the OK button.
5. From the File menu, select the Insert... command.
6. In the file dialog window that opens up, click on the Desktop button on the right.
7. Double-click on the Cliptures CD disc icon.
8. Double-click on the Color folder icon.
9. Double-clcik on the PICT-Raster folder icon.
10. Locate the name for the border you want to use and double-click on it's file name. This will "Insert" the border image into your ClarisWorks draw document.
11. Click on top of the border and drag it so that the upper left corner of the border is in the upper left corner of the document.
12. Scroll down to the bottom right corner of the document.
13. With the mouse arrow on top of the little black square on the lower right corner of the border graphic, click and hold down your mouse button.
14. While continuing to hold down the mouse button, drag the little black square to the lower right corner of the Draw document and release your mouse button. You have now sized the border to fill your page!
15. Before you do anything else, and with the border graphic still selected, go to the Arrange menu and select the Lock command. This will lock the border in place so you don't have to worry about it moving around.
16. You're now ready to add your text block to write your letter in. To create the text block, click on the text tool in the tools palette. (It's the "A" at the top of the tools palette on the left side of the document.)
17. Scroll the document so you can see the top left corner of your layout.
18. With the text tool still selected, click and hold down your mouse button near the top left inside area of the border graphic.
19. Continue to hold down the mouse button and drag down and to the right at the same time. (What you are doing is creating a text block that you can type your letter in. Don't worry about trying to get the size of the text block just right. Unlike a word processor document, a text block in a draw document can be moved around and resized whenever you like.)
20. As you are dragging the mouse, you will see an outline for the text block you are creating. When you have dragged down near the lower right part of the page, release the mouse button.
21. The very next thing you want to do is start typing. You don't have to finish your letter by any means, but you want to get some text started in the text block. (If you create a text block but you don't type anything into it, it will disappear when you click off of it.)
22. You can go back to the text block at any time and change, add, delete, or modify the text in it. You can also change the position and the size of it too! Using this technique will let you have much better control of the formatting for your letter with a border. ) This is also a great technique to use if you are creating a letter with a row or column graphic like the ones in Cliptures Vol. 28 - Please Write.)

So now you have started to create your letter with a border! The directions look sort of long, but that's only because we tried to include every single step to get you going. Once you've done this a few times to where you don't have to stop and think about each step, you can set up a document like this easily within a minute! All you need to do is practice a little.

There are lots of things you can do in a ClarisWorks draw document. You can do all the same text formatting things you can do in a word processing document, but you also have the flexibility of moving and changing the size of the text block and you can even have multiple text blocks too!

Your ClarisWorks manual has lots more information on working with draw documents and the text formatting options you can use. Take the time to study it a little and you might find that you use Draw documents more often that you do Word Processor documents!