This function is used to assign any frame you wish as a background to a text frame or text piping chain. This can be, say, not just a coloured raster area, but equally well a raster graphics frame or vector graphics frame with a suitably interesting subject or decoration. The background frame adapts itself during assignment automatically to the size and proportions of the text frame(s). The background frame to be assigned must already be present on the page (be ready for assignment). The combination between the text frame and background is handled internally in a similar manner to normal frame groups, but the text still remains editable.
First select the text frame that you want to furnish with a background. (With a text piping chain, it does not matter which text frame you choose.)
Then click on this icon. A popup appears in which you can select various options:
The first two entries of the popup underlay the selected frame, or the whole text piping chain to which it belongs, with a background. So to assign the frame background to a single frame, select the first popup menu entry.
The popup closes again and the Select frame background
icon
remains inverted. Now click on the background frame. To complete the
assignment, you have to click on the Select frame background
icon again. It will return to its normal, unselected, state and the
assignment will be executed.
As an alternative you can select both frames (text and background frame – which in this case may not be a text frame!) at the same time and then click on the icon twice in succession.
As in most cases you are likely to want a raster area frame as a
background for a text frame, there is also a direct way to achieve
this: If you select one of the raster area shapes in the Raster area
module while a text frame is selected, then the text frame will be
provided automatically with the corresponding raster area background
(provided you answer Yes
in the alert box that appears).
The third and fourth entries of the popup menu delete the background of a text frame or text piping chain respectively, and the fifth puts the background back on the page as a frame of its own. The position and dimensions of the frame created by this correspond to those of the text frame.
