Write Elements

The palette's Write category holds the elements whose content is words. Everywhere else in the palette you place something with a shape and then maybe label it; here the text is the point and the shape is just what carries it.

There is no Page element among them: on a tab of pages the page itself is where you write, and an article is the place for paragraphs. Write holds the words you put on a page.

What the category contains

A Text element is a free-standing label with no box around it: just words on the page. T drops one. Use it for titles, column headings, and anything that labels a region rather than an element, since a shape's own label is the better way to name a shape. See Text and Fonts.
A Sticky note is a coloured note card, the one that reads as somebody's contribution rather than the author's structure. N drops one. See Sticky Notes.
A Pointer note is a short note with a line out to a dot. Drag the dot onto a corner or edge of a shape and the note follows that shape wherever it moves: use it for "this is where it fails" remarks. See Pointer Notes.

Picking between them

All three put their words on the page, where everyone reads them without doing anything. The question is what the words belong to.

A Text label belongs to the page: it is part of what the page says. A Sticky note belongs to whoever wrote it: it reads as a remark or an idea rather than the finished design. A Pointer note belongs to one spot: it says something about a particular element and stays joined to it.

There is another way to attach words, and it is not in this category: any element can carry a note or a comment of its own. Those belong to the element they are on and move with it.

Cards, not pictures

Shapes show as a grid of pictures, because the picture is the explanation. The Write elements are all text, so at tile size they would look nearly alike. In their palette panel each one is a card with a one-line description instead, because "a free-standing text label" against "a note with a line to one spot" is what you are actually choosing between.

Working with them

Each behaves like any other element once placed: select, restyle, lock, rotate and move it freely, and each can carry a link like anything else on the page.

Text styling is shared with the rest of the canvas rather than special to this category: font, size, weight and alignment all come from the same controls that style a shape's label. See Text and Fonts.

T and N drop a text label and a sticky note without opening the palette at all: type, N, type, N.

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