Easy way to create stacked boxes with equal margins

Question

I'm a bit of a n00b to Illustrator (at least I think so anyway)! I have a bunch of text that is columnar and need to create boxes that stack (one above another) and serve as a container for this text. So basically boxes in the background that are basically a box around the text. All of the margins and boxes need to be equal height & width.

Instead of creating a shape, copying it and manually fixing the margins so they're all equal, is there any easier way to accomplish this? I tried using the Grid tool but no dice.

Thanks for the help in advance!

Answer 1

Draw a rectangle the size of the entire area you wish to fill (all the boxes if they were combined).

Then choose Object > Path > Split Into Grid

Adjust the options and click OK.

You could then, if you want, choose Text > Threaded Text > Create to make all the boxes text containers.