A paragraph is a text box with a width. Type into it and the words move onto the next line when they reach the edge, and the box grows taller to hold them. Use it for anything longer than a heading: a description on an event poster, the rules on a classroom chart, the steps of a pattern.
Plain text is the other kind: it never wraps, and each line is as long as you type it. Both have the same fonts, styles, sizes and colors — see adding and styling text.
Adding a paragraph
Use the Paragraph button in the poster header, a P with a plus, next to the add-text tool. The new paragraph spans the width of the canvas and opens with a heading, a short description and a numbered list, at a font size picked to fill the space.
Edit it as you would any text: double-click it in the browser and desktop apps, or tap it once it is selected on Android and iOS.
Width and height
- The side handles — the pills on the left and right — set the width. The text re-wraps as you drag.
- The height follows the text. There is no top or bottom handle, and nothing is cut off: add a line and the box grows.
- The corner handles scale the paragraph: the font size and the width change together, so the lines break in the same places.
Text that runs past the edge of the page is hidden on the canvas, as anything else is, because only what is on the page prints. Selected, its box still runs off the page, so you can grab it and bring it back.
Converting between text and a paragraph
To paragraph in the text toolbar turns a text into a paragraph. To text does the reverse and keeps your lines: each place the paragraph wrapped becomes a line break. Two things change:
- A list item that wrapped becomes one long line, since a line break inside it would start a new item.
- Justify becomes Left, because plain text has no box width to spread its lines across.
Alignment
Align offers Left, Center, Right and, on a paragraph, Justify, which spreads the lines to fill the width of the box. Alignment applies to the whole paragraph, not to selected words.
In the browser and desktop apps, with a text or paragraph selected or being edited:
| Shortcut | Alignment |
|---|---|
| Cmd/Ctrl + Shift + L | Left |
| Cmd/Ctrl + Shift + E | Center |
| Cmd/Ctrl + Shift + R | Right |
| Cmd/Ctrl + Shift + J | Justify (paragraph only) |
Lists
List turns lines into Bullets or Numbers, and None turns them back. Each line you start with Enter is one item. While editing, the list applies to the lines the caret or selection touches; with the text selected but not being edited, to all of them.
- Long items wrap with a hanging indent: the second line starts under the text, not under the bullet.
- Nesting goes up to five levels. Bullets change from • to ◦ to ▪ by level, and numbers from 1. to a. to i., then start again from • and 1. at the fourth level.
- Indent and Outdent in the List sheet move an item a level in or out.
- In the browser and desktop apps, Tab and Shift + Tab do the same while you are editing.
- Numbering counts the items at one level and starts again after a line that is not in the list.
- Enter on an empty item ends the list. Backspace at the start of an item removes its bullet or number first.
Starting a list by typing
At the start of a line that is not already in a list:
1.or1)followed by a space starts a numbered list.-or*followed by a space starts a bulleted list.
The characters you typed are replaced by the list's marker, and one undo brings them back. Pasted text is left as it is.
Spacing
Spacing opens two sliders, each with its value in a box you can also type into. A drag is one undo step.
- Letter spacing is the space between characters, from −200 to 800. Negative values pull letters together. It is measured against the font size, so it keeps its look when you resize the text. While editing it changes the highlighted characters, or the whole text when nothing is highlighted.
- Line spacing is the distance between lines, from 0.5 to 2.5. It is set per paragraph — the text between two line breaks — so a heading can sit tighter than the body under it. While editing it changes the lines the caret or selection touches; otherwise, all of them.
Both work on plain text as well as on paragraphs.
Languages written without spaces
Japanese and Chinese wrap between characters, and Thai between words, so a paragraph in any of them breaks its lines where a reader expects.
Right-to-left languages
Arabic, Hebrew and Persian read right to left. Each paragraph — the text between two line breaks — takes its direction from its first letter, so a line in English and a line in Arabic can share one text. A paragraph with no letters, such as a line of numbers, follows the one above it; a first paragraph with no letters follows the language the app is in.
- New text and paragraphs start aligned Right when the app is in Arabic, Hebrew or Persian. Left, Center and Right always mean the side they name, in every language.
- Justify ends the last line of a right-to-left paragraph on the right.
- Lists put the bullet or number on the right of a right-to-left paragraph, with the indent, and a number reads ".1", as it does in a browser.
- Words in another script, such as a product name or a number, keep their own reading order inside the line.
- A paragraph that opens with a Latin word reads left to right, even if the rest is Arabic. To keep it right to left, start it with an Arabic word.
Paragraphs in the export
Paragraphs print exactly as they wrap on the canvas, in every export format. In a vector PDF each line is real text, justified lines included. The exceptions are a paragraph in a font that paints its own colors, and one with a letter its font does not have: those print as an image. The default font has no Arabic or Hebrew letters, so for real text in those languages pick a font that has them, such as Noto Sans Arabic or Noto Sans Hebrew.