New to Photoshop, cannot resize text box without resizing text

Forum|Forum|1 year ago
March 3, 2025
3 replies
289 views

I have the most recent version of PS, trying to use it with a free trial to see if it's worth the cost. I have a text box, the text box is in already in paragraph mode. I want to make the text box larger without resizing the text within. When I double click the text box, there are no visible resize handles. When I resize when not in edit mode, the text is also scaled. Every answer to this question seems to be "convert the text to paragraph mode" but right clicking the box does not offer this and it is grayed out in the Type menu at the top of the screen. Please tell me how to do this simple thing, I've used many image editing programs, I don't understand what I'm doing wrong here 😞

Windows

Conrad_C

Community Expert

It depends on how the layer is selected, as shown in the demo below. First I show it working the way you don’t want, and then working the way you want.

If the text is selected as a layer, and you use Edit > Free Transform, and you see a solid outline, that will resize it as a graphic, stretching or squeezing the text in it.

If the text is selected as an active text field (when it’s possible to select and edit text), you see a dashed outline. That will resize the text container, redistributing the characters in it.

There are two ways for you to get into that mode:

Click in the text with a text tool.
If the Move tool is selected, double-click the text.

So you can boil it down to: Is the layer in text edit mode? (where the selection border is a dashed line)

If yes, it resizes the text container.

If no, it resizes the layer as a graphic.

T

tyler_0174Author

Participant

I appreciate your response, maybe this is more of a bug, idk- the "Special Rules" and "Overflow" titles which were from the template I am currently using do not have handles pop up when I double click on it. No handles at all. I can edit the text itself, so it is a functioning text box handled with the paragraph text mode, but I cannot resize the box. When they are not in text edit mode, single-click with the V tool, handles appear and I can resize, but that's free transform scaling and not text box resizing. What I discovered is when I double-click the second "Special Rules" title, that one pops up with text box handles, because I made it today. I can make new text boxes, I was just confused as to why I needed to. I thought maybe I was missing something.

Conrad_C

Community Expert

Well, let’s see…From your screen shot we can see that the Special Rules and Quentin… layers are legitimate type layers because they have a T icon, so they should be editable (and reflowable if paragraph text).

But the screen shot does not show the Overflow layer. What icon does that have in the Layers panel?

If the Overflow layer does not have a T icon, it might be a pixel or vector shape layer. If it is either of those and not an editable type layer, then text container resizing and text editing will not work because it’s been converted to a graphic. Under the Overflow text in the document window, I see icons mixed in with the text, but Photoshop does not support inline graphics in text, so that makes me wonder if maybe the Overflow layer was created another way or is no longer editable/reflowable text.

Also, if you don’t see handles, check the setting for the command View > Extras. It should be enabled (checked/ticked); if it’s disabled some UI elements may be hidden such as borders or handles. You can also check what’s visible in the submenu View > Show.