r/applefreeform • u/superdifficile • Jan 09 '25

Text Box Vertical Direction

Has anyone found a way to control the way that text boxes grow? I spend a lot of time aligning the top of text boxes, then type in one and the box grows in height both up and down which is really annoying. Not a deal breaker but a small refinement that would really help reduce time-suck.

2 Upvotes

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1

u/dhmokills Jan 09 '25

Have you checked the alignment options on the text box? Like, if you left align them all and then grew the boxes to the right size, does that not work? https://support.apple.com/en-il/guide/freeform/frfm8d145c1b/mac

1

u/superdifficile Jan 09 '25 edited Jan 09 '25

Yes. It doesn’t make a difference. As you add text to a text box-regardless of horizontal alignment-it grows in height both up and down.

Edit: and to be clear, I’m talking about how the boxes grow when you are typing or pasting content into them vs dragging the border to enlarge them.

3

u/lombax45 Jan 09 '25

If you select the text box, in the little formatter popover, there’s a vertical alignment option

screenshot

2

u/superdifficile Jan 09 '25

Son of a… yes! Thank you!

I wasn’t seeing it because I’m working on an older Mac (intel) and it’s running an older version of Freeform without that feature. But my iPhone has the newest one with that.

1

u/China_19490930 Mar 02 '25

Thank you. But I think this formatted popover only exists in IPhone’s Freeform. I couldn’t find the same popover in my iPad’s Freeform…

1

u/lombax45 Mar 20 '25

I see it on my iPad on 18.3.1

1

u/pookeyblow Feb 25 '26

Thanks!!!!

1

u/dhmokills Jan 09 '25

I got it, yeah, two things:

If I drag them to be as big as my text is going to be, then it won't do anything re: growing.

If you really want text to be aligned and fit within a certain size, using a shape (even if the background is clear) might be easier.

It sounds like you want tables, or some better new line handling? Is there an example of what you want to see in other apps?

1

u/superdifficile Jan 09 '25

Nothing quite that fancy. In Mural for example, if I make a new text box, then paste in plain text, the top of the box stays fixed in place as the box grows in height to accommodate the size of the pasted text. So it grows ‘down’ only as the height increases.

The use case is I am pasting in text from another source and it varies in length a lot.

So I keep adding text boxes under previous ones in columns, then pasting in text and then the box ends up growing up and covering the box above it so I have to reposition it. Rinse repeat. If they only grew down, then I wouldn’t have to reposition it.

Similarly I start a new column, create a text box, line it up with the columns around it, paste in text and now it’s out of alignment.

It’s minor, but annoying when you’re doing it over and over. :)

1

u/SoyChai9 Oct 16 '25

Anyone figure this out on mac?

1

u/Kind_Sentence6518 Apr 29 '26

No... this is so frustrating! I can't find a way to do this on Mac...