Page main tab in Fred4 offers are several basic tools in the Toolbox: Frame tool , to create text containers (frames); Box tool , to create various boxes; Image tool , to create image boxes (placeholders): Rule tool ; to create straight rules, Open path tool to create open paths, Horizontal guide tool and Vertical guide tool to create page guides.

Create a body frame, box, image or rule

Click the related tool, and then click on the page and drag the area. Release the mouse button to get the object drawn.

Create different objects

Right-click the tool, or hold SHIFT while clicking the tool, and then in a pop-up menu, select the tool variation.

For example, variations of frame tool are rectangular frame (default), circular frame, frame with rounded corners and head-body tool.

Create frames of other types

On an unlinked body  frame, to change a frame type, click the icon in the Toolbox and then select a type. If a frame is linked, unlink it first.

Create headline and body

Press H and then drag an area on the page: this creates the headline box and as many body legs as the number of default columns covered by dragged area.

The headline height is proportional to the area height. To limit the headline heights to a list of predefined values, on the Edit menu, click Preferences, click Extra, click Split, and then in the Preferred headline heights enter a series of values, comma-delimited, e.g. 28,614pt,47.69pt,66.766pt,85.842pt,114.456pt.

Create headline, body and image box

1.Press H, and then drag an area on the page.

2.Press CTRL and hold it before releasing the mouse button

This creates a headline, body legs and the image box of variable size (depending on the object dimensions).

Create image placeholder and a caption frame

First, enable this function in your preferences (Edit > Preferences > Added objects > Image Caption, Add automatically… and set-up default values of caption height and offset, optionally also format name and metadata tags). This is your personal preference, stored permanently.

Click the image tool and then drag an area on the page.

Note about creating objects by copy & paste

If you paste linked frames, they remain linked to the original article. Press U to unlink them.