Text & typography
Columns & threading text
Long copy rarely fits neatly in a single block. Popcorn Editor gives you two ways to lay it out: Columns split one frame into parallel columns, and Threading flows a single story across several separate frames. This page covers both, plus how to read and fix overset text.
Columns: split one frame
To break a frame into parallel columns, select it and open the Columns section in the Properties panel. There are two controls:
| Control | What it sets |
|---|---|
| Count | Number of columns, from 1 to 10 |
| Gutter | The space between adjacent columns |
The text reflows to fill each column top-to-bottom, left-to-right, staying inside the one frame. This is the right tool for a single balanced block — a menu, a terms-and-conditions panel, a specification list — where you want even columns without managing multiple objects.
Columns are available on wrapping rectangular frames. They don't appear on Auto width frames (which grow to fit their text and have no fixed width to divide) or on custom-shape frames. If you don't see the Columns section, check the Resizing mode — set the frame to Auto height or Fixed size and the control appears.
Threading: flow across frames
Threading links separate frames into a chain, so one continuous story runs from the first frame into the next, and the next after that. Use it when copy must run across pages or across a spread — a multi-page article, a story that jumps between panels — rather than sitting in a single balanced block.
Set the frame to Fixed size
Threading needs frames of a known size, so the first step is the Resizing mode. Select your frame and choose Fixed size. If you try to link a frame that isn't fixed, Design Editor tells you:
Linked text frames must be a fixed size.
Auto-sizing frames grow to swallow their own text, which would defeat the purpose — the point of a thread is that text overflows one frame and continues in the next.
Link to the next frame
With a fixed-size frame selected, open the Threading section in Properties and click Link to next frame…. The cursor arms for linking, and a hint appears:
Click a text frame to link, or empty space for a new one · Esc to cancel
From here you have two choices:
- Click an existing text frame to link it as the next frame in the story.
- Click empty space to draw a new frame that becomes the next link.
Press Esc at any point to cancel without linking. Once linked, text that didn't fit in the first frame continues in the second automatically.
Reading the thread
Once frames are threaded, the Threading section shows where the selected frame sits in the chain. The status reads:
Frame 1 of 2
If a frame holds more text than it can display — and there's more of the story waiting to flow — an Overset badge appears next to the status. Overset means the text is there but hidden: it either continues in the next linked frame, or, if there's nowhere left to go, it's waiting for one. Seeing an Overset badge on the last frame in a thread is your cue to add another frame or make the existing ones larger.
Managing a thread
Two controls let you restructure a chain from the Threading section:
- Unlink breaks the thread after the selected frame (the button's tooltip reads "Break thread after this frame"). Everything upstream stays connected; the downstream frames become independent, and text reflows to fit what's left.
- Dissolve thread removes every link in the chain at once, leaving each frame on its own.
Reach for Unlink when you want to split one long story into two, and Dissolve thread when you're done threading entirely and want plain, unconnected frames back.
How columns and threading fit together
The two features solve different problems, and you can combine them: a threaded frame can itself carry columns, so a multi-page story can run in two columns per page. Choose columns when you want parallelism inside one object, and threading when the story has to leave one frame and arrive in another.
Tip: When text breaks across fixed or linked frames, the Keep options — widow and orphan control — decide how lines are held together at each break, so you don't strand a single line at the top or bottom of a frame.
Where to go next
Start from the basics in Adding & editing text, fine-tune the type with Character & paragraph formatting, or set up a shared layout for a multi-page story with Page templates.