Text and Box Object
Text and Box objects are essentially the same object. The Box object is offered as a separate menu in the ribbon for convenience - it gives you automatic starting options for borders that appear around the text object. On the other hand, the Text object will not show any borders by default.
The following properties tab apply to the Text and Box options:
Borders
Borders are applied either through the Settings pre-defined border settings, or manually. To define the borders manually, start by choosing the color, width and style of the border you want to apply, then click on the appropriate button to add the border you want. To remove a border, click on the - None - line style then click on the border button you want to remove.
- Custom Line Settings
- Top, Bottom, Left, Right sides: Click one of these to select a side of the background box and apply the current line settings to it.
- Upper left, upper right, lower right, lower left corners: Click to switch between a right-angled and rounded corner, or to apply the current line settings to a rounded corner. If you want to apply the current line settings to a rounded corner that is not currently visible, click that corner. If the rounded corner is currently visible, click the corner twice: the first click switches to the right-angled corner style, the second switches back to the rounded corner style and applies the settings to that style.
- Left, Right diagonal: Click to apply the line settings to a diagonal that bisects the background box.
- Vertical, Horizontal line: Click to apply the line settings to a line that bisects the background box.
- Radius: Set the radius of the circle to use to create round corners. The maximum value is one half of the smaller of the Width and Height values set for the object. Units are as set in the User Options dialog box. This setting applies to all rounded corners in the background box. If you resize the text object such that the value of the radius exceeds the maximum allowed, PlanetPress Design automatically adjusts the value of the radius to the maximum. In the latter this case PlanetPress Design does not update the value of the radius in the Object Inspector or the Text properties dialog box; you can update the value by entering a new value that exceeds the current maximum value.
- Line width: Enter the width of the line to use in the border. Units are points.
- Line style: Select the style for the line.
- Line color box: View the current color for the line.
- Color button: Click to select a color for the line using the Color Picker.
- Settings: These are pre-defined border settings you can use:
- None: Select to make the border of the background box invisible.
- Box: Select to use a rectangle as the border of the background box.
- Shadow: Select to use a rectangle with a drop shadow as the border of the background box.
- Round: Select to use a rectangle with rounded corners as the border of the background box. Use the Radius box to define the curve that occurs at each corner.
Color
- Fill: Click to fill the object with a specific color or gradient. This enables the properties in the Fill group
- Color box: View the current fill color for the background box.
- Color button: Click to select the fill color for the background box using the Color Picker.
- Gradient fill
- Gradient fill: Select to use a gradient fill for the background box. The start color for the gradient is the fill color. Use the controls in this area to set the end color for the gradient, the number of gradations the gradient uses, and the direction of the gradient. Gradients are not available if the background box you select for the text/box object has one or more rounded corners.
- Color box: View the end color for the gradient.
- Color button: Click to select the end color for the gradient using the Color Picker.
- Steps: Enter the number of gradations you want to use in the gradient, or use the spin buttons to set the value. The number of gradations determines how obvious the transition is between the Fill color and the Gradient fill color. The maximum number of gradations is 100.
- Gradient direction: Select the direction for the gradient.
- Reverse: Select to reverse the start and end colors for the gradient.
- Shadow: Select to display a drop shadow with the background box.
- Color box: View the current color for the drop shadow.
- Color button: Click Color to select a color for the shadow using the Color Picker.
- Width: Enter the width for the drop shadow. Units are typographical points.
- Scale ratio: Enter the percentage by which you want to scale the text object to create the drop shadow.
- X shift, Y shift: Select the X and Y offsets respectively for the center of the drop shadow. The coordinates (0,0) align the center of the drop shadow with the center of the text object. Positive X values move the shadow to the right of the center of the text object, and negative X values move it to the left of the center of the text object. Positive Y values move the shadow below the center of the text object, and negative Y values move it above the center of the text object.
Text
This is the primary settings tab for the Text and box object. It contains different sections that help you manipulate the text in the object itself.
Menu:
- Format
- Font...: Opens the Font selector, which is essentially the same as the Style Toolbar as well as the Style Selector (See Apply a Style to Text in a Text Object)
- Margin...: Opens the Margins dialog which lets you set the Left and Top margins for the text object.
- Word Wrap: Enables or disables Word Wrap in the text object. Applies to all the contents of the text object.
- Skip Empty Variable Paragraphs: Enables or disables skipping any line where variables do not have any content. Does not apply to empty lines with no variables on them.
- Text in box: This option is only available when Word Wrap is turned off. Click to display a list of possible alignments available for the text in the box. 9 positions are available.
- Tabs...: Opens the Tabs dialog. See Set Tabs.
- Paragraph...: Opens the Alignment dialog. See Adjust Alignment and Lines Per Unit settings.
- PlanetPress Talk Before Paragraph...: Opens the PlanetPress Talk Editor to add PlanetPress Talk code before the currently selected paragraph.
- PlanetPress Talk After Paragraph...: Opens the PlanetPress Talk Editor to add PlanetPress Talk code after the currently selected paragraph. See PlanetPressTalk Before and After
- Edit
- Undo: Undo the last command. Note that not all actions can be undone.
- Redo: Redo the last command that was undone. Note that not all actions can be redone.
- Cut: Cut the currently selected text. If no text is selected, has no effect.
- Copy: Copies the currently selected text. If no text is selected, has no effect.
- Paste: Pastes any text that is in the Windows clipboard where the cursor is located. If text is selected, the pasted text replaces the selected text.
- Select All: Selects all the contents of the text box.
- View
- Control Characters: Click to show or hide control characters such as line returns, tabs and spaces.
- Vertical Ruler: Click to show or hide the vertical ruler on the left of the text box.
- Horizontal Ruler: Click to show or hide the horizontal ruler on top of the text box.
- Background Color of Editor...: Click to show a dialog that lets you select what color is used as a background for the text editor. Note that this does not affect the color or background of your actual textbox, but may improve readability of your text within the editor, for example if your text has a very light color.
- Variables
- Select Data: Click to show the data selector. When you choose a data location in the data selector and click OK, one variable per line is created, and they are added in the text box.
- Local Variables: Click to display a list of variables that are local to this text box. Those variables are not accessible by any other object.
- Global Variables: Click to display a list of variables that are global to your form. To change the value of these variables, you have to edit the global variable from the Document Structure Area.
- Variables...: Displays a dialog that shows you all local and global variables.See Use Variables in a Text Object.
- Tools
- Spell Check Options...: Opens the Spell Check Options dialog. See Spell Check Text in a Text Object
- Spell Check...: Open the spell checker. See Spell Check Text in a Text Object
- Thesaurus...: Opens the Thesaurus window. See Use the Thesaurus.
- Word Wrap Options:
- Normal (word-based): Click to select the word-based Word Wrap option. This option will only wrap when a space is present in the text and will not separate characters within words (or character strings, whatever they may be).
- Forced (character-based): Click to select the character-based Word Wrap option. This option will always wrap even if there is no space in the text. In this case it generates a line return to do word wrap. Note that this is not a "smart" wrap, and it will not add dashes or correctly separate words. Instead is simply wraps when the number of characters is reached on the line.