2023

User Guide | 134
Display the Colors palette (Window > Colors), click the Background Color ●
button , and then use the controls in the palette.
Use the controls in the Home tab of the Measurements palette. ●
The controls available are as follows:
Box or Background Color: Lets you specify the background color for the box. ●
Shade: Lets you specify the tint of the background color (0% = white, 100% = ●
full color).
Opacity: Lets you control the transparency of the box background (0% = fully ●
transparent, 100% = fully opaque).
You can also specify box color in an Item Style. For more about Item Styles, see
“Item Styles XTensions software”.
Applying gradients to boxes
A gradient is a gradual transition from one color to another.
To apply a gradient to the background of active boxes, see Creating gradients“.
Specifying number of columns in text boxes
To specify the number of columns in a text box,
Use the Cols field and the Gutter field in the Home tab and the Text tab of the
Measurements palette to specify how many columns the text box should have
and how wide their gutters should be.
The Line Between option available in the Text tab allows you to specify that a 
line will be drawn between columns in a multi-column text box and and its
height will be equivalent to the height of the text in the column.
You can control how text will flow in relation to the columns. See “Controlling 
column flow.”
Merging and splitting boxes
Options in the Merge or Split Paths submenu (Item menu) let you create
complex Bézier boxes from existing boxes. For example, if a rectangular box
overlaps an oval box, you can select the submenu and choose an option that will
create a single box with the same content. If you merge two picture boxes, one
picture will display in the combined box. If you merge two text boxes, the text
from one of the boxes will be deleted.