I am often asked by students in my QuarkXPress class for some really great design tricks within QuarkXPress. Putting an image inside text is one of them. In this lesson I will teach you how to get an image to appear inside of your text.

The first step is to create a text box and type the text you want an image to appear inside of. Remember that an image is going to need a lot of room to actually show inside the text, so I would recommend picking a thicker font. If you are not sure what fonts you have, and you would like to preview the word you have written in all the fonts you have activated or installed on your machine, select the text, and use the shortcut of Option + F9 (Mac) or Control + F9 (Windows). This will cycle you through the fonts you have loaded on your machine. If you mistakenly pass a font you would like to use, add the Shift key to the shortcut to back up.

Using the shortcut to choose a different font.

Now that you have chosen the text you want, it is time to bring in the image. You cannot import the image into live text, however. Conundrum! What to do? You need to reduce the text to its outline form. In Quark this is accomplished using Style> Text To Box. When you choose this command it makes a copy of your text and converts it to outlines. You then have two copies of your text: one still an actual font in a text box, and the other a Bezier outline of the text. I recommend holding down Option (Mac) or Alt (Windows) before activating Style> Text To Box. This will make the text into outline paths and leave it in the same place as it was in the text box. (Just as a side note, I do like to increase the tracking of the text before I do this, because it seems the text often grows slightly. If necessary, you can always undo Text to Box, adjust your tracking and apply again.

Using the Text To Box Feature.

Now that the text has been reduced to its outline form, select the outlines with the Item tool. Then choose Item> Import Picture and select whatever picture you want.

Importing an image into text.

And there you have it! Images inside of text inside of QuarkXPress!

(For more on this topic, see Convert Text to Outlines.)

Robert Underwood

Technical Consultant, Instructor Aquent Graphics Institute

Rob has nearly 12 years of print production experience on top of his formal education in the graphic arts. He worked in production and later as Systems Administrator for Media News, publisher of multiple weekly newspapers in suburban Boston, prior to becoming a consultant and instructor for Aquent Graphics Institute.

Rob’s expertise lies in editorial workflow systems, he is an expert in News Edit Pro, K4, and Woodwing. He teaches both QuarkXPress and InDesign and and has a full understanding of Quark Copy Desk and InCopy. Rob has the ability to observe a production workflow and make suggestions on how to enable people to work more efficiently. Either with a database solution, or something much simpler. He also teaches Illustrator, Photoshop, and Acrobat.

Rob has used QuarkXPress for more than 12 years now and has been teaching both QuarkXPress and InDesign for nearly 3 years. Rob travels around the country seeing real production problems every day. He has the unique perspective of someone who knows what both QuarkXPress and InDesign are capable of, and how they measure up against each other in the different fields they are used in. He has coordinated countless upgrades and conversions between the programs and enjoys meeting new people and examining the different ways people accomplish the same task, and the many different ways people use page layout programs. His real world experience with everything from building templates, font management, and color correction, make him a valuable asset during transitions and upgrades.

On his own, Rob is still a freelance designer, and loves page layout. His favorite interests include his two daughters, Lynda.com, and anything related to Star Wars.