Adding text boxes

You should be able to do this in any theme. I assume you just mean a rectangular area for displaying text, and not a text box in terms of form creation.

You can do it by adding a DIV to your page (be sure to use the Text editor and not the Visual editor):

<div style="border: 1px solid red; padding 5px; margin: 5px;">
This is some text enclosed in a red box.
</div>

You can add styling in-line, like I did above, or assign a class to the DIV and style it using CSS (which might be better if you are planning on inserting more than one text box in different pages).

Hi CrouchingBruin:
I am a “Bruin” as in UCLA grad – right Bruin?

Thank you for the input, but what if I am deaf, dumb, and blind with respect to HTML? Any WYSIWYG way to do this?
Thanks again,
George

Yes, UCLA class of ’82.

what if I am deaf, dumb, and blind with respect to HTML? Any WYSIWYG way to do this?

Not that I know of, WordPress is pretty crude as far as WYSIWYG design. You are better off learning some HTML and CSS, it’s not that difficult. Especially if you intend on doing anything beyond very simple text entry (like the text boxes you want). There are some good tutorials here.

I’ll look into it.
A youngster! I am class of 1965. BS Engineering, and did all class work towards Master’s; then got job offer I couldn’t say no to, so master’s thesis went out the window.

Almost working;
I have the border I want, but I am not getting the margin – the text starts right at the edge of the border. I tried removing the : after “margin”, but that had no effect. Also, I get </div> at the end of the text. That is the only code that appears in the page.
Thoughts?

My mistake, I forgot to add a colon after padding:

<div style="border: 1px solid red; padding: 5px; margin: 5px;">
This is some text enclosed in a red box.
</div>

Also, if you post a link to your page, it will be easier to see what needs to be fixed.

Hey, Crouching, it works!
Thank you very much, most appreciated.
George

Great. The only other thing you should learn is how to “float” the box in case you don’t want the box to span across the entire width of your content area. For example, let’s say you want to put a box in as an aside, with the rest of the text from the page wrapping around it. You could code something like this:

<p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nunc imperdiet risus sit amet risus aliquam viverra. Mauris adipiscing mauris at magna ornare quis accumsan mauris placerat. Fusce vitae elit ut tortor porttitor posuere eget id leo.</p>
<div style="border: 1px solid red; padding: 5px; margin: 5px;clear:both;float:left;width:25px;">
This is some text enclosed in a red box.
</div>
<p>Fusce velit ipsum, egestas sed mollis in, dictum eu ligula. Vivamus ante lectus, hendrerit eget consequat nec, varius sit amet tellus. Phasellus turpis urna, sollicitudin lacinia pretium nec, semper aliquet ligula. Integer sed dolor sit amet ante mollis fermentum a nec nibh. Aliquam vel risus quis quam sodales congue.</p>

I get it; you are dragging me, kicking and screaming,into learning HTML, PHP, and CSS.

For years, I designed embedded microprocessor systems, including the code to make them run [machine language, modified Basic and C++], and managed to stay far away from what I now need.

George

Hey, That’s neat!
This just might be fun.

The only thing that bothers me about HTML is the rigid protocols- like leaving out a colon, and it doesn’t work. With the languages I used before, there were ways to debug, and a slipped protocol usually would not crash the code.