Text in a path

Any path or shape can act as a frame or box in which you can place text. This is called area text. There are two ways to place text inside a frame:

• Click in the frame  You can place text inside a shape by pressing SHIFT+click with the Text tool anywhere inside the path's boundary. When you hold down the SHIFT key and position the cursor over the shape, the cursor icon changes to indicate the text will go inside the path . Note that if the path has no fill color, you need to press SHIFT+click on the path itself (instead of inside it).
• Attach text to the frame   If you already have created some text you'd like to place inside a shape or path, you can select the text and the path and click Text On Path on the Object menu, and then click Attach Area Text.

If your line of text is longer than the shape is wide, Expression Design automatically wraps the lines of text to fit into the box. (However, if the last line of text in a frame is too wide, Expression Design lets it extend outside of the box rather than clipping it off.)

Taking text out of the path

To release the text from the path (so that it becomes its own text object again), select the Text tool, click on the text, click Text On Path on the Object menu, and then click Release Text. You can also remove text from inside a path by selecting the text with the Selection or Group Select tool and then click Cut on the Edit menu, or click Delete on the Edit menu (or press DELETE/BACKSPACE). When you cut or delete text, the path remains. Alternately, you can release text from a path by selecting the path itself with the Selection or Group Select tool and deleting it. Note that if you cut or copy the text to the clipboard and then paste it elsewhere, the text will be converted to paths.