Vdraw now has a text file layout mode that has capabilities rivaling those of PageSetter, yet it still gives you the ability to edit in COLOUR!
What can Vdraw's new text layout features do? Vdraw can import text from any ASCII text file (such as a Notepad file) and format this text into any arbitrary region on the screen. Other programs allow one to enter text into rectangles, Vdraw will format the text into ANY AREA YOU CAN DRAW! For each text region on the screen Vdraw allows you to specify:
- The FONT
- The POINT size
- The FORMATTING type
- The STYLE
How do I use the text layout mode? The easiest way of doing this is to first draw the layout of your text boxes on the page (this is not strictly necessary as Vdraw defaults to rectangles with no borders). Next you must open the file you are bringing text in from. You do this by clicking on the FROM DISK icon and selecting the appropriate file from the FILES requester that will appear. Now Vdraw knows where the text is to come from it is time to specify three more things, where the text should be placed, how it should be formatted, and what sytle should be used.
Let's first select the style of printing to use for the text. There are four icons on the right hand side of the screen for this, they are U, B, I, and E. And they control:
U - Underlining
B - Boldfacing
I - Italicizing
E - Extended width
Of these, the first three work, however I have not been able to find any Amiga fonts that support the extended width mode.
Once you have selected the text style you should specify what sort of formatting to apply within this area. There are four formatting modes to choose from, they are:
- Left Aligned
- Right Aligned
- Centred
- Justified
All the text placed in this box will be formatted according to the selected mode. If you find you need to use several different modes to print a piece of text you should separate the various text chunks with page change characters so that Vdraw will do one chunk at a time and allow you to change the formatting settings between chunks as is needed.
Now that the formatting mode and text style has been selected all that remains is to do the actual filling with text. This is quite easy to do, you just box the area on the screen that contains the outline of the area you wish to fill and then click somewhere in the area to be filled. You will see the text being formatted into the area in the desired format mode and style. Once the area is filled the filling will stop, and if you want to continue filling with this file just box and click the next area to be filled.
There is one last point to explain, how to change text fonts and point sizes. To do this just click on the FONT TOOL icon on the bottom edge of the screen. You can now load the required font into the system and then return to text filling by clicking on the AREA FILL tool icon and then clicking on the TEXT FILL icon. If you had a text file open it will remain propperly positioned throughout this procedure so you do not loose you place.
