About this lesson
Building blocks are pre-designed text boxes that save you time from creating from scratch.
Lesson versions
Multiple versions of this lesson are available, choose the appropriate version for you:
2016, 2019.
Quick reference
Textbox - Building Blocks
Pre-designed text boxes that save you time from creating your own from scratch.
When to use
When you need a fancy text box in a hurry, like a calendar or 10% off advertisement, use the Building Blocks tools.
Instructions:
RULE: All text must be inserted into a Text Box in order to type onto a Publisher publication.
When you need a symbol that is not on your keyboard, use the Symbol tools.
Insert Ribbon:
Draw Textbox: Symbol: Date & Time
Use Building Blocks to quickly add pre-formatted text boxes and designs:
Insert Ribbon:
Page Parts offer a variety of pre-formatted text boxes:
Calendars: 
Borders and Accents:
Advertisements:
- 00:04 I'm going to finish up the text box area, and
- 00:06 then we're gonna go over to Building Blocks.
- 00:08 But there's just a couple more things in the text box area.
- 00:11 I'm on my Insert ribbon, and I wanna use a symbol, which is grayed out.
- 00:14 Symbol is, basically, any symbol that's not on your keyboard.
- 00:18 And so it's grayed out because it is text.
- 00:21 All text has to be inserted into a text box.
- 00:24 So I'll go ahead and click on Draw Text Box, actually click and drag a text box.
- 00:29 Notice my Text Box Tools come up, but I wanted Symbol.
- 00:32 So I'm gonna go back to my Insert, and
- 00:35 I'm gonna come over to Symbol which is now lit up and I can use it.
- 00:38 When I click that, here's your options.
- 00:40 And there's, of course, More Symbols as well.
- 00:42 But maybe you want the divide sign, or maybe you want the yen.
- 00:46 You can have that on here as well or the trade mark sign, for
- 00:50 whatever reason, you can put all these little symbols on there.
- 00:53 So just so you know that they are hidden right there.
- 00:56 I also want to enter a date and time, so when I click the Date and
- 01:00 Time button, you can choose today's date, today's date and time,
- 01:05 hit okay and that will enter automatically for you.
- 01:07 It just saves me typing and a possible typo.
- 01:09 All right, we had previously shown you the Business Information, but
- 01:13 I wanna show you the Building blocks right over here.
- 01:16 Now, business Information simply as all my preformatted vital information, but
- 01:20 Building Blocks, these are just fun little things you an put on your flier.
- 01:24 So when I click Page Parts,
- 01:26 there are just a bunch of fancy text boxes already pre-designed.
- 01:31 You don't have to become your own designer here.
- 01:33 Plus, when I put it in there, look at that.
- 01:35 It's already formatted for me as well.
- 01:37 Even the font style is nice and big,
- 01:40 whereas with business information, I was responsible for the formatting.
- 01:44 So I'm gonna click off of that, and you can just go ahead and scroll through and
- 01:47 look at all the options available.
- 01:49 Excellent call outs with pictures already in them, and then you can just click and
- 01:54 drag them wherever you want.
- 01:55 So I know it's gonna look a little messy as we're kinda building this but
- 01:58 it's kinda fun to do anyway.
- 02:00 I'll Control Z a couple of times and get rid of those.
- 02:03 Look at this one, the Calendars.
- 02:05 Go ahead and just pick which calendar format you would like on your screen and,
- 02:09 look at that, it already knows what date, what month and year you're using.
- 02:15 So it puts a calendar right there on your screen.
- 02:18 There will come a time, if it hasn't already,
- 02:21 that you just need to put a calendar on your flyer.
- 02:24 Here's another one, Borders & Accents.
- 02:26 This is awesome.
- 02:27 Now, the Borders and Accents, there's many, many types.
- 02:31 And so I'll go ahead and use this one.
- 02:32 And what happens is it's gonna drop it right here.
- 02:35 Well, what if I want this border across the top of my screen?
- 02:40 I'm sorry the top of my flyer.
- 02:42 Now I'm going to go ahead and land it right there in the corner.
- 02:45 I'm gonna grab this left re-size, and I'm gonna drag it across.
- 02:49 Now it appears to be stretching it, but when I let go it simply duplicated it.
- 02:54 It didn't stretch these out at all.
- 02:56 Now I have this nice, fancy border across the top.
- 02:59 Take a look on the left hand side.
- 03:00 You can see everything starting to happen.
- 03:03 So that was borders and Accents and then of course, we have advertisements.
- 03:07 Now this is actually kind of fun.
- 03:08 Look at all these advertisements.
- 03:10 So if you are creating a for sale flier, have fun.
- 03:13 Just go ahead and whatever you want,
- 03:15 just go ahead and put your advertisement right on your flyer.
- 03:20 Maybe on the 3rd, we'll have a 10% off day.
- 03:26 So I can go ahead and make a 10% off on the 3rd.
- 03:31 It's kind of great.
- 03:33 Please use these items, again, that's in the Building Blocks area, Page Parts,
- 03:37 Calendars, Borders Accents, Advertisements, awesome stuff.
- 03:41 Thank you.
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