Using the Story Editor in PageMaker

The Story Editor

The Story Editor is yet another way to type and edit text in PageMaker. Just click the text you want to edit, press Ctrl + E (or use Edit > Edit Story from the menu), and your story appears in its own word processing window. All the text tool’s editing commands (insert, deletec cut and paste) are available in the Story Editor. The Story Editor is also equipped with two powerful features that are not there when you use the text tool: a spelling checker and a search-and-replace feature.

You will probably not format a text very often in the Story Editor (even though you are allowed to) because it does not display most formatting effects on the screen. When you are in Story Editor, you are interested in the content, and not the form. Though Story Editor does show the type styles (Bold, Italics, etc.), it does not show the page layout, graphics or formatting. When you are in Story Editor, you are in what is called the Story View, as opposed to the Layout View, the one we had been using so far. While the story view looks different, it contains exactly the same text. Any editing changes you make in story view are automatically made in layout view, and vice versa. While Story view focuses on the publication text, layout view emphasizes on the final format. 

You may use the Story Editor in certain ways. You can use it to edit text that is already placed in the publication. You can correct typing mistakes, check the spelling in the story, or use the search and replace feature. Secondly, although you may not want to do the formatting in the Story Editor, you may want to use it to change your formatting, using the find and replace feature. For example, if the subheads are in 14 point Times New Roman, the Story Editor can automatically change them to 16 point Helvetica. Another way to use the Story Editor is to create and type an entire story from scratch using the Editor. The Story Editor offers several advantages. You can type and edit much faster in story view than in layout view because the Story Editor does not display fonts and graphics on the screen, nor does it concern itself with line or page breaks.

Using the Story Editor:

To edit an existing story in the Story Editor, click in the text with the text tool, or select the text block, with the pointer tool, and press Ctrl + E or choose Edit > Edit Story. You can also load an existing story in the Story Editor by triple clicking on the text block with the pointe tool. To create a new story in the Story Editor, press Ctrl + E without any text or text blocks selected. At this point, you can either type in the story or, if already exists in a word processing file, you can import it into the Story Editor. 

When you load the Story Editor, you are actually opening a window. The Story Window lies on top of the publication window, and it has its own buttons and scroll bars. The Story Editor’s menu bar is slightly different from the one you see in the publication window because you have different capabilities in each view. A new option, Story is available. The Element menu is not present because you do not see graphics in the story view. The Layout menu is also not offered because it is irrelevant in story view; you work here with a continuous stream of text rather than with pages.

A story window is partitioned into two vertical areas separated by a solid line. The right area is where you type your story; the left area displays the style name (the Styles will be discusses later). You can toggle the style name column on and off by choosing Display Style Names on the Story menu.