Do you know how to anchor an object outside a text box to a line of text within the text box? Sounds confusing, but it really isn’t. Here’s how you do it.

First, draw a text box and add a few sentences in it. Space out the sentences as if they were paragraphs (A).

Place your text cursor at the first word of the first line of your second sentence and go to Object > Anchored Object > Insert. This opens the Insert Anchored Object dialog box. Select Graphic from the Content Object Option. The rest of the settings can remain at their defaults. It’s easier to manually place your object instead of trying to figure out the X and Y axis position. Click OK.

A one-inch square box will align with the baseline of the text you placed your cursor in (B). With the new box still selected, go to File > Place and choose an image to place into the box. We chose our cashew illustration. Adjust the size of your image and the size of the box if needed.


Use the Selection tool to move your anchored box outside the text box. We moved our image to the left of our text box and aligned the top of it with the cap height of our second sentence (C).


The image is now anchored to the first line of the second sentence at an X and Y coordinate outside the text box–this is in reference to where the cursor was placed when we created the anchored object.

The image moves vertically on the left side of the text box when the text reflows and stays anchored in its position. To test that the image was anchored properly, we added another sentence above the first two. The anchored object moved down and stayed anchored to what is now the third sentence (D). Perfect!


An anchored object can hold graphics or text and it can be formatted as any other object. If the text box is moved, the anchored object will move with it. This is a great technique to use for adding chapter icons, tip boxes, definitions, and call outs.