Creating and Managing Free Boxes for Version 7.0

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About Creating and Managing Free Boxes

1) Free boxes are similar to Comment boxes, except that they are not attached to or associated with a task or milestone.

2) Free boxes are similar to text boxes in Microsoft PowerPoint.

3) Unlike Comment boxes, Free boxes can only be created in the chart by using the OnePager ribbon's Insert tab and Free Box button along with manipulation of your mouse and left-click button.

Default Free Box Settings

4) Also, unlike Comment boxes the Free box's setting options are limited and preset within OnePager Pro and Express.

5) That is, there are no Template or Chart Properties form tabs devoted to Free boxes.

6) The Shape Properties form shown below represents the default properties of any Free box created using the OnePager Pro or Express Insert tab Free Box button on the ribbon:

P70-14 0 1-70-(1A-1)-10072029.png
P70-14_0_1-70-(1A-1)-10072029.png

7) As shown in the above Shape Properties form, the editing options are limited to text string, typical text string editing tools, Free box positions value setting, color choices for the Free box's background and border line, and Transparency checkbox.

8) The Maintain aspect ratio checkbox is discussed below.

Editing Free Box Global Setting in the Chart

9) As mentioned above, OnePager does not provide any global editing controls for Free boxes.

Creating a Free Box Using the Insert Tab on the OnePager Ribbon

Creating a Free Box Using the Free Box Button

1) To create a Free box in the chart, go to the Insert tab on the OnePager ribbon and click the Free Box button as shown below:

P70-14 0 1-70-(1)-10072029.png
P70-14_0_1-70-(1)-10072029.png

Mouse Cursor Actions For Creating a Free Box

2) Next, move the mouse cursor to the location on the graph where you want to place the Free box's initial corner, click once, hold down the left-click button, and drag the mouse to place the Free box's other corner in the document area:

P70-14 0 1-70-(2)-10072029.png
P70-14_0_1-70-(2)-10072029.png

3) You can create a Free box in any direction from the initial corner and by dragging the mouse in the document area you can adjust the size of the Free box.

P70-14 0 1-70-(3)-10072029.png
P70-14_0_1-70-(3)-10072029.png

4) When you release the left-click mouse button the Free box looks something like this:

P70-14 0 1-70-(4)-10072029.png
P70-14_0_1-70-(4)-10072029.png

Changing the Properties of a Free Box

1) Once a Free box is created its properties can be edited using the Shape Properties form accessed by right-clicking the Free box and selecting the Properties ... command.

Shape Properties Form

2) The Shape properties form shown here:

P70-14 0 1-70-(9)-10082029.png
P70-14_0_1-70-(9)-10082029.png

Text Strings

3) On this form, the window at the top is used for inserting or editing the text string that occupies the inside of the Free box.

4) The text string can be of any length and consist of several individual lines.

5) OnePager configures long text strings into multiple lines to fit within the defined Free box and adjusts the font size to retain the fit.

6) Resizing the Free box alters the appearance of the text string in the Free box to maintain the minimum number of text string lines by further adjusting the font size.

7) Throughout all text string editing, OnePager maintains the selected text string alignments in the Free box in the horizontal and vertical directions.

8) You can insert multiple lines' in the text string window by placing your own carriage returns in the text string as shown here:

P70-14 0 1-70-(10)-10082029.png
P70-14_0_1-70-(10)-10082029.png

9) You can edit the Free box’s Font properties, its text alignments, its dimensions, its fill color and its line color through the use of the standard controls shown in the Shape Properties form above.

Editing Free Box Text Fonts

9) There are eight (8) controls in the Font control group shown above which are standard in most applications involving text editing.

10) These controls include:

a) Font Style, implemented on the ribbon as a dropdown list, includes the font styles installed on your computer.
b) The Font Size control is a dropdown list of possible sizes from 1 to 48. You can also click in this window and type in a desired font size integer value.
c) The Bold button is a toggle that sets the selected text string as Bold text.
d) The Italics button, also a toggle, sets the selected text string as Italic text.
e) The Underline button operates as a toggle that setts the selected text string as Underline.
f) The Increase font size button steps the selected text string's font size up one with every click.
g) The Decrease font size button steps the selected text string's font size down one with every click.
h) Clicking the Text Color button accesses the standard Color Chooser form.

Editing Comment Box Text Formats

11) In the Format control group shown above only the Text Color button (shown as a paint bucket) is enabled when a Comment box is selected.

12) The Format... button shown above as a color palette icon is disabled as Comment boxes are not supported by the Change Task/Milestone Properties form.

Editing Comment Box Text Alignments

13) There are two sets of three alignment buttons in the Alignment control group shown above related to the text strings in Comment boxes.

14) The top three alignment buttons align the selected text string in a Comment box vertically within the space enclosed by the Comment box.

15) The bottom three alignment buttons align the selected text string in a Comment box horizontally within the space enclosed by the Comment box.

16) When the size of the Comment box changes either in a horizontal or vertical direction, the vertical and horizontal text string alignments are maintained.

17) OnePager automatically increases or decreases the number of lines of the text string within the Comment box to prevent the text string from overlapping a Comment box boundary.

Fill Color and Line Color Options

10) You can edit the Fill color in the Free box as well as Line color or Border color on the Free box to accent its appearance.

11) There are also No fill options on the Free Box’s Fill color and Line color by using the OnePager standard Color Chooser form accessed through the dropdown buttons on these two controls.

12) To access this feature bring up the Shape Properties form and do the following:

a) Go to the Fill color control and click the dropdown button to reveal the Color Chooser form as shown below:
P70-14 0 1-70-(11)-10082029.png
P70-14_0_1-70-(11)-10082029.png
b) Check the No fill checkbox which causes the Color Chooser form to close.
c) Then, click OK and the selected Free box looks like this:
P70-14 0 1-70-(11A)-10082029.png
P70-14_0_1-70-(11A)-10082029.png

Editing Free Boxes

1) Once a Free box is created in the document area, you can move it around, resize it, edit its properties, or delete it just as you do for a Comment box.

Moving Free Boxes

2) Free boxes can be easily moved to different positions in the document area by first selecting the Free box with a left-click.


3) Then, with the mouse cursor left-click button held down drag the Free box to the desired position as shown below:

P70-14 0 1-70-(14)-10072029.png
P70-14_0_1-70-(14)-10072029.png

4) Note that the mouse cursor is changed to the four-pointed arrow when the mouse is left-clicked inside the selected Free box shown above.

5) Release the left-click mouse button and the Free box is re-positioned as shown below:

P70-14 0 1-70-(15)-10072029.png
P70-14_0_1-70-(15)-10072029.png

Resizing a Free Box

6) To resize a Free box, left-click to select it and position the mouse cursor on one of the eight (8) grab boxes or grab circles shown below:

P70-14 0 1-70-(16)-10072029.png
P70-14_0_1-70-(16)-10072029.png

7) When you do this, the mouse cursor changes shape to a Plus sign as shown below:

P70-14 0 1-70-(17)-10072029.png
P70-14_0_1-70-(17)-10072029.png

8) Drag the mouse cursor so that the Free box is resized to the desired dimensions in the direction of the grab box you are using as shown below:

P70-14 0 1-70-(18)-10072029.png
P70-14_0_1-70-(18)-10072029.png

9) When the desired dimensions are achieved, release the mouse button and the Free box is resized as shown below:

P70-14 0 1-70-(19)-10072029.png
P70-14_0_1-70-(19)-10072029.png

Using the Free Box's Context Menu

10) To access these functions, select the box with the mouse and right-click to bring up the context menu shown below:

P70-14 0 1-70-(5)-10072029.png
P70-14_0_1-70-(5)-10072029.png

11) The Free box context menu has exactly the same five (5) commands as the Comment box context menu and these commands along with the sub-commands on the Delete and Order sub-commands function in the same way for both types of boxes.

12) This similarity in commands, sub-commands, and function being the case, please use the Comment box editing instructions in the article at this link as a guide: Creating and Managing Comment Boxes. 13.0.1-70

13) For more specific information on the use of the Delete and Order commands shown in the Free box context menu above, please use the links below:

Deleting a Free Box 14.0.1-70
Ordering Free Boxes 14.0.1-70

14) Discussions for the three (3) remaining commands in the Free box content menu are covered below at these links:

Make a Copy 14.0.1-70
Properties ... Command 14.0.1-70
Putting Free Boxes in All Snapshots 14.0.1-70

Using the OnePager Home Tab's Font, Format, and Alignment Control Groups for Editing Free Boxes

15) As an alternative, you can use several of the controls on the Home tab shown below to change the properties of text within Free boxes.

File:P70-13 0 1-70-(5)-10022019.png
P70-13_0_1-70-(5)-10022019.png

Editing Free Box Text Fonts

16) There are eight (8) controls in the Font control group shown above which are standard in most applications involving text editing.

17) These controls include:

a) Font Style, implemented on the ribbon as a dropdown list, includes the font styles installed on your computer.
b) The Font Size control is a dropdown list of possible sizes from 1 to 48. You can also click in this window and type in a desired font size integer value.
c) The Bold button is a toggle that sets the selected text string as Bold text.
d) The Italics button, also a toggle, sets the selected text string as Italic text.
e) The Underline button operates as a toggle that setts the selected text string as Underline.
f) The Increase font size button steps the selected text string's font size up one with every click.
g) The Decrease font size button steps the selected text string's font size down one with every click.
h) Clicking the Text Color button accesses the standard Color Chooser form.

Editing Free Box Text Formats

18) In the Format control group shown above only the Text Color button (shown as a paint bucket) is enabled when a Free box is selected.

19) The Format... button shown above as a color palette icon is disabled as Free boxes are not supported by the Change Task/Milestone Properties form.

Editing Free Box Text Alignments

20) There are two sets of three alignment buttons in the Alignment control group shown above related to the text strings in Free boxes.

2) The top three alignment buttons align the selected text string in a Free box vertically within the space enclosed by the Free box.

22) The bottom three alignment buttons align the selected text string in a Free box horizontally within the space enclosed by the Free box.

23) When the size of the Free box changes either in a horizontal or vertical direction, the vertical and horizontal text string alignments are maintained.

24) OnePager automatically increases or decreases the number of lines of the text string within the Free box to prevent the text string from overlapping a Free box boundary.

Free Box Right-Click Context Menu Options

1) Right-clicking on a displayed Free box accesses its dropdown menu as shown below:

P70-14 0 1-70-(5)-10072029.png
P70-14_0_1-70-(5)-10072029.png

Deleting a Free Box

3) To Delete a Free box, right-click on the selected Free box and choose Delete from the context menu shown below.

4) You have two (2) option to consider to Delete the Comment box as shown below:

P70-14 0 1-70-(6)-100742019.png
P70-14_0_1-70-(6)-100742019.png

5) The From this snapshot sub-command causes the selected Free box to be deleted from the current snapshot only.

a) The same Free box appearing in other snapshots are not deleted and remain available when the snapshot is displayed in the Chart Editor.
b) These remaining Free boxes can be individually edited and all edits are applied to the identical Free box appearing in other snapshots.
d) A Free box once deleted from one or more snapshots can be restored to appear in all snapshots by selecting the Free box in a snapshot in which it appears, accessing the Free box's context menu and clicking the Put in all snapshots command.

6) The From all snapshots sub-command causes the selected Free box to be deleted from all snapshots associated with the chart.

7) When a Free box is deleted from all snapshots it can no longer be accessed in any snapshot.

8) Generally, it is more common to delete a Comment box from all snapshots, unless you want it to reappear in a different snapshot later on.

Ordering Free Boxes

9) Free boxes, when created, are automatically displayed in front of all other graphics as shown here:

P70-14 0 1-70-(7)-100742019.png
P70-14_0_1-70-(7)-100742019.png

Send to Back Example

10) If you want to avoid covering up tasks/milestones or text labels, for example, you can use the Order command to adjust the display of Free boxes on the Z-Axis as described below:

a) Right-click on the selected Free box and then click on the Order command as shown in the illustration above.
b) Mouse over the Order command to access the four sub-commands as shown above.

11) As shown above, the Free box appears to be hiding task shapes.

12) If you want the task shapes to appear on top of the Free box, click the Send to back sub-command and the chart looks like this:

P70-14 0 1-70-(8)-10072019.png
P70-14_0_1-70-(8)-10072019.png

13) The Free box in the illustration above is using its default Background color to better illustrate the Send to back sub-command.

Bring to Front

14) In a similar way, the Bring to Front sub-command results in the selected Comment box to appear over the baseline element in this illustration:

P70-14 0 1-70-(7)-100742019.png
P70-14_0_1-70-(7)-100742019.png

Bring Forward and Send Backward

15) The Bring forward sub-command is treated as a stepping feature since the Z-Axis in the Chart Editor display on your screen consists of several layers you can step-wise bring the Free box forward one step at a time by successively using the Bring forward sub-command. You can do this until the display of the selected Free box is at a desired Z-Axis layer.

16) Similarly, the Send backward sub-command is also treated as a stepping feature like the Bring forward sub-command discussed above whereby you can step-wise send the Free box backward one step at a time by successively using the Send backward sub-command. You can do this until the display of the selected Free box is at a desired Z-Axis layer.

Make a Copy

17) You can create more than one Free box from an already created Free box by using the Make a copy command in the Free box right-click context menu.

18) To accomplish this, use the Make a copy command accessed by selecting the existing Free box and then click the Make a copy command.

19) These actions access the Shape properties form where you can specify the new Free box’s text label and other properties as simply illustrated here:

P70-14 0 1-70-(12)-10072019.png
P70-14_0_1-70-(12)-10072019.png

20) This copied Free box possesses all the attributes of any Free box created in the chart.

21) From this Free box even additional Free boxes can be copied.

22) Copied Free boxes can be edited, moved, resized, replicated in all snapshots, and deleted as any other Free box in the chart.

Properties ... Command

23) Considering again the context menu accessed when a Free box is right clicked, the Properties ... command accesses the Shape Properties form as shown below:

P70-14 0 1-70-(1A-1)-10072029.png
P70-14_0_1-70-(1A-1)-10072029.png

24) After accessing the Shape Properties form, you can edit all the available properties for the selected Free box as described in this article.

25) Clicking the OK button at the bottom right of the form applies your edits to the selected Free box in the current snapshot and in any other snapshot that the selected Comment box appears.

Putting Selected Free Boxes in All Snapshots

26) Use the Put in all snapshots context menu command shown below to assure that the selected Free box appears in all currently available and future snapshots in the chart.

P70-14 0 1-70-(13)-100742019.png
P70-14_0_1-70-(13)-100742019.png

27) As discussed above, once a Freet box is proliferated to other snapshots it can be edited, moved, resized, replicated in all snapshots, and deleted as any other Free box in the chart.

28) The default setting for created Free boxes is to put the Free box in all snapshots.

a) Sometimes a Free box is only appropriate for a selected snapshot and should not appear in all snapshots.
b) If this is the desired result, it is necessary to selectively delete the Free box from any snapshot that you do not want the Free box to appear.

29) Should you subsequently decide that this Free box should be included in all snapshots, right-click on the Free box and click the Put at all snapshots command in the context menu as previously demonstrated above.

Changing the Properties of a Free Box

1) To change all other properties of the free box, click the Properties … button in the context menu which brings up the Shape properties form shown here:

P52-14 -(9)-06042015.png

2) On this form, you can type as much text as you want and place the text on as many lines as you want.

3) You can change the free box’s font properties, its text alignment, its dimensions, its fill color and its line color as shown below:

P52-14 -(10)-06042015.png

4) The No Fill option on the Free Box’s background color is also available. To access this feature bring up the Shape Properties form and do the following:

a) Go to the Fill color control and click the dropdown button to reveal the Color Chooser form as shown below:
P52-14 -(11)-06042015.png
b) Check the No Fill checkbox which causes the Color Chooser form to close.
c) Then, click OK and the selected Free Box looks like this:
P52-14 -(12)-06042015.png

Notes

1) You can eliminate the border for a free box by checking the No Fill checkbox in the Color Chooser dropdown menu selected from the Line Color window in the Shape Properties form shown above.

2) When this is done, the free box looks like this:

P52-14 -(13)-06042015.png

3) Unchecking the No Fill checkbox is a three step process described above in this article: Changing Individual Task/Milestone Properties (Color, Shapes, Labels, etc.) 9.2.1-70

Related Links

Creating and Managing Comment Boxes 13.0.1-70

The Chart Legend (Portal) 15.0.1-70

Changing Individual Task/Milestone Properties (Color, Shapes, etc.) 9.2.1-70

(14.0.1-70)