CorelDRAW Ideas Portal
why is the text going off the side of the project? why is there no way to adjust the text inside the box's formatting without stretching the text? i can't even find a non-video tutorial, i tried to read the manual, but it doesn't explain anything about using the text box feature
I suspect you've made artistic text rather than paragraph text. CorelDRAW has two kinds of text and they behave completely differently — which isn't obvious unless someone tells you.
Artistic text — what you get by clicking with the Text tool and typing. There's no wrapping, so it just keeps running off the page. And because it's treated as a single object, dragging its handles scales it. That's why your text stretches.
Paragraph text — created by dragging out a frame with the Text tool before you type. It wraps inside the frame, and dragging the handles reflows the text instead of distorting it.
The stretching is the giveaway. Paragraph text doesn't do that.
To fix what you already have: select it with the Pick tool and choose Text > Convert to Paragraph Text (Ctrl+F8). You'll get a frame you can resize normally. If the frame turns red, there's more text than fits — enlarge it, or use Text > Paragraph Text Frame > Fit Text to Frame.
You're right that nothing in the interface tells you which of the two you've made, so there's no way to discover that the distinction even exists.
Two suggestions of my own for Corel:
Show on the text property bar whether the selected text is paragraph or artistic, with a way to switch between them — a button would do.
When text is selected, have the Hints panel say which type it is and how to convert it.