Software Vault: The Gold Collection/Software Vault - The Gold Collection (American Databankers) (1993).ISO/cdr11/mcd_june.zip/TEXTSTUF.TXT

Text File | 1993-07-01 | 11KB | 197 lines

From the June Mastering CorelDRAW newsletter

Amazing Text Features

Daniel Will-Harris

Text handling. Sounds kind of touchy-feely, doesnÆt it? Well, it is and it
isnÆt, depending on how you use it. Sometimes the less touchy-feely, the
faster and more productive you can be - and the more design variations
you can try in less time.
    To get the most out of text handling, youÆre going to need to
master two of Draw 4Æs new features: styles and linked text boxes.
    When I was creating the templates that ship with Draw 4, I had to
start designing them in 3. While it was possible to create documents with
a lot of text in 3, you obviously were limited to a single page per file and
your text all had to be in separate blocks that didnÆt flow when you
edited them - in other words, long text handling was possible, but not
probable.
    But Draw 4 really changes all that and makes it possible to create
multi-page publications - even text-heavy newsletters - with relative
ease, as long as you take advantage of styles and linked text boxes.
Relative is the key word here, because DrawÆs long text handling still has
some basic limitations and rough edges.

Style Power
Styles are nothing new; word processors and page layout programs have
had them for years. But it always surprises me how few people actually
take advantage of them.
    Just in case youÆre not familiar with the concept of styles, here it is
in a nutshell: Paragraph text styles contain all the formatting specs for
type, things like typeface, size, fill and outline color, leading, paragraph
spacing, justification, tabs, indents, bullets and hyphenation. Artistic text
styles are the same, with the exception of tabs, indents, bullets, and
hyphenation, as well as the addition of some effects, like perspective.
(There are also Graphics styles, applicable to drawn objects.)
    The power of styles is two-fold, (or three fold, if youÆre doing a
flyer). First, styles help you format your pages quickly; you donÆt have to
set text attributes manually for each paragraph - just select a style and
apply it. You can apply styles to individual paragraphs, or entire
Paragraph text blocks.
    Second, styles help make your text more consistent - you wonÆt
accidentally have one paragraph of body text in a different typeface or
size, or with different leading. Styles ensure that you maintain
consistency in your type specs, and that makes your pages cleaner and
more professional. It also helps when youÆre working with color to
ensure that you are only using the colors you specifically wanted in the
piece. Third, (I guess weÆre onto the three-fold here...) styles allow you
to make major changes or corrections in seconds (or minutes on slower
machines). Without styles the same tasks can take you hours.
    Fourth, (aha, a surprise) styles actually give you more creative
freedom. HowÆs that possible? Because styles are the perfect "what if"
tool - they let you change the formatting of all your body text or
headings in one swell foop. So you spend less time formatting, and more
time trying out variations and finding the one that works best.
    ThereÆs an added bonus, too. If you change typefaces or sizes
directly, using the Text roll-up or the Edit Text dialog box, bolds, italics
and other attributes go right out the old window (I donÆt know if itÆs
supposed to work this way or whether it just does, but it doesnÆt much
matter). However, if you change the face or size using styles, the other
attributes are left intact. So styles are much more efficient in every way.

NothingÆs Perfect
Now, IÆve got to be perfectly honest: Draw 4Æs text handling isnÆt
perfect. First, it still has pretty crude justification - you canÆt add
letterspacing and you canÆt control space size. Next, while styles are
powerful, they can also be powerful slow. Updating a style on a four-
page document can take several minutes, even on a æ486.
    And there are two things even more serious: Unstyled text can be
very dangerous when you update the Default Paragraph text style because
the text will update using the new default attributes and change your
layout unexpectedly. ItÆs not a pretty sight.
    Another problem: Undo! Undo doesnÆt always undo all style changes
- you may find that after an undo your text isnÆt formatted exactly as it
was.
    Most serious of all: DonÆt use the "Default" styles. Default
styles are always overwritten by the settings in the current
CORELDRW.CDT (the file that holds defaults between sessions.) This
doesnÆt make much sense to me, but this is how the program is designed
to work.
    Because of this, itÆs imperative that you create your own Paragraph
and Artistic styles, because if you use the default ones youÆll have to
update them manually each time you open a file, and this means nothing
but wasted time and unexpected changes.
    My own templates are designed using the default styles, because
this feature was changed late after the templates were completed. This
means you must update the default styles each time you open the
templates.

Linked Text Boxes
Linking provides a way to flow text through more than one Paragraph
text frame. While not covered much in the manual, this feature is
essential to handling long blocks of text. You connect text boxes by
clicking on the empty little box at the bottom of a text frame and either
dragging to draw a new text frame, or clicking inside an existing text
frame. Once linked, thereÆll be a + sign in the bottom of the text frame
youÆre linking from and one in the top of the frame youÆre linking to.
    If the existing one has text, that text will be placed at the end of
the linked text flow. When you import text using File Import, a new text
frame is always created, and if the text file is large then additional frames
and pages are created and automatically linked.
    Once linked, the only way to break the link is to delete the text
box. Deleting the box doesnÆt delete the text, just the box. If you delete
a box that is linked on the top and bottom, the link will remain from the
box above it to the box below it.
    When you edit text in a linked box, the outlines of all the text
boxes in the link will be displayed. The more text you have linked, the
longer it will take to make editing changes.
    You can select text in several boxes at once by placing the cursor at
the top of the first linked box and dragging it to the end of the last box.
YouÆll then see all the text highlighted. You can even link into and out of
enveloped Paragraph text boxes (what a segue!).

Enveloped Text - Inside and Around
Text inside an irregular shape: You can place text inside any shape, not
just those that are listed in the Add Preset list (choose Envelope Roll-Up
from the Effects menu to display this.) If youÆre working with a block of
text that isnÆt square, choosing something like a circle will give you an
oval. Rather than trying to make the text block the right shape, create
the shape you want and use Create From. YouÆll find that Create From is
actually the fastest way to get exactly the shape and size you want.
Text around any shape: If you want to wrap text around another
object, click on the Paragraph text you want to wrap and select Add
New from the Envelope roll-up. An envelope box will appear the same
size as the frame, and you can use the standard node-editing tools to
change its shape and create a wrap. YouÆre really putting text inside this
irregular object in order to wrap it. ItÆs not fast, itÆs not easy, but it
works.
    Big Warning: Text inside an irregular path has one gigantic, silly,
inconvenient drawback: Enveloped text canÆt be edited directly on-
screen. YouÆve got to use the Edit Text dialog box, and if youÆve used
that lately, you know it will only display one paragraph at a time. The
result: ThereÆs absolutely no way to combine two paragraphs once
youÆve enveloped except to clear the envelope, edit the text, then create
the envelope again. This is a real pain - so the best route is to always
create an object from which to Copy From. You can set the outline and
fill to None so it wonÆt print, and you can then use this æpatternÆ to
recreate the envelope if you have to remove it for text editing. It takes
no longer to work this way, and it can save a lot of time.
    Long Text Tips: If youÆre bringing text in from another program
and you want bold, italic and other attributes to be saved, import the
text by choosing Import from the File menu. Cutting to the Clipboard
from some word processing programs loses attributes and adds
unnecessary returns. However, if youÆre using Word for Windows, you
can also choose Paste Special from the Edit menu and select Rich Text
Format to paste while maintaining text attributes. Strangely, Draw itself
does not support RTF: When you cut and paste text in Draw, you lose
all formatting.
    Speed Tip: Choose Special from the Preferences menu and click
on the Display button to set the greeking value. The larger the number
you set, the more text that will be greeked, and the more text thatÆs
greeked, the faster you can work on the main layout (but obviously not
the text).
    So there you have it - many different ways to make text handling
faster and easier.

Daniel Will-Harris, designer and editor, is the author of Dr. DanielÆs
Windows Diet: A Fast Cure for your Slow Windows Pains. He also hosts a
series of instructional videos on Corel Draw and other Windows
programs. He may be reached via CompuServe at 73257,2606, via MCI
Mail at DWILL-HARRIS, or at Box 1235, Point Reyes, CA 94956.

    Tip: Finding fonts with Mosaic
    If you want to know what fonts are used in a Draw 4 file, all you
have to do is run Mosaic. Click on the thumbnail of the file, then choose
Get Info from the Edit menu. The box on the bottom will list the fonts
used in the file. Two caveats: This only works on .CDR files, not CDTs;
and DRAW 4 has the regrettable habit of including the Default style
fonts in this list, even if they arenÆt actually used in the file.


Contents Copyright Kazak Communications, 1993.


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