Creating transparency to stack text boxes in Pages

"Apparently the key was to unwrap the text, although I don't know why, exactly."

Every object inserted or pasted into a Pages document has Text wrap set to automatic by default. That means when you bring such an object close to any text (including text in a text box) Pages will automatically follow instructions and push the text away from the object being moved into that text's territory.

Setting the object's Wrap to 'none' turns off that instruction, allowing the object to be moved close to, or even 'on top of' the text without forcing that text to move.

Regards,

Barry

I am neither a Word or Pages zealot.

Unless you optionally add a fill color to a Text Box, then no fill won't act on what is already transparent. If you turn off wrap on those text boxes you cannot fail to overlay them, provided your front/back layers are set.

Everything in the following was done with layered and then grouped Text boxes:

By default, Text boxes in Pages are transparent, and once you select the individual (or both) Text boxes, and set Text Wrap to None in the Arrange panel, you can easily overlay Text boxes, and prove to yourself that they are already transparent.

I know that if WORD can do this, Pages can!

Nothing further from the truth, because there is not one line of MS Word code in Pages, and the latter was never designed to be a Word clone.

Hi Rose,

"is there an easy way to group the (stacked) text boxes? When the underlying one is smaller than the top one, I found it hard to shift-click to group them."

Easy to do, but not as easy to describe.

Start by Selecting the larger box.

Go Arrange > Move to back.

Click on the smaller box (now in front of the larger one) to select it (and deselect the large one)

Go Arrange > Move to back (placing the selected smaller box behind the larger one)

Command-click on the larger box, in a place that is NOT on or in the smaller box. (This adds the larger box to the selection.

Go Arrange > Group Objects.

If needed, use the Arrange menu to move the grouped boxes to the desired layer (forward or back).

Regards,

Barry