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TYPETW
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1994-09-08
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Type Twister
by Judy Litt
According to Aldus, Type Twister is an "easy-to-use type
enhancement program for Windows and Macintosh that turns words into
wild, colorful art." The emphasis of this program is to make easily
available to the non-artist special type effects.
Aldus certainly fulfills their mission - this program is easy to
use with virtually no learning curve involved. The manual is
roughly 30 pages, and perhaps half of that is devoted to
installation and support. You can certainly be up and running
without reading the manual.
Installation is quick and painless. There are instructions in
the manual and on the first disk. The installation screen shows you
how much space Type Twister will occupy, although not how much space
you have free on your hard drive (a minor inconvenience, since the
program only occupies approximately 2 MB hard drive space!).
Installation automatically inserts your registration number. You
also have the option, at the end, to fill in the registration form
on your screen and then print it out. If you choose to skip this
phase, as I did, there is also a registration card at the front of
the manual.
The only problem I had with the installation is the fact that
you cannot do a custom installation. Type Twister comes with twenty
fonts - you are never given a choice on whether or not you want to
install these fonts. I can only assume that the fifty pre-set
designs use these fonts.
Type Twister comes with fifty built-in designs (design buttons).
You can use these as is, or as a starting point for your own
designs. You may add another fifty custom designs. You can delete
any custom designs you have added, but you cannot delete the
built-in designs.
You can change the style, alignment, color, font, shape, and
effect of any design. Designs may also be rotated, stretched,
condensed, and sheared (skewed). The combinations are literally
endless.
There are two ways to get Type Twister designs into your
documents: the first is cutting and pasting. Where Type Twister
shines, though, is OLE. Type Twister designs can be embedded into
documents through the Insert Object command on the Edit menu of
those programs that support OLE. Once embedded, double click on the
Type Twister design to open the program and edit your design. In
fact, the only way to see your Type Twister designs is by placing
them into a document - you cannot print them from Type Twister.
What Type Twister does, it does very well. It could use some
modifications for the serious artist. You can change the colors of
the type - but only to some pre-selected colors available in Type
Twister. You cannot modify colors at all - a very large drawback
for the professional designer.
Text in Type Twister appears with a bounding box - in fact, if
you're familiar with CorelDRAW!, it looks very similar to the
bounding box found when you use the edit envelope option. It does
not function quite the same, though. There are eight handles on the
box. All eight allow you to resize the bounding box. Two handles -
the upper right and middle right - have another handle coming out of
them. The outside handle on the upper right allows you to shear or
skew the type by clicking it and dragging. The middle outside
handle allows you to rotate the type by clicking and dragging.
If the effect you choose contains more than one line, you can
manipulate the color, font, and effect of each line. You can add
lines to a one line preset design, but the entire design is still
one group. You can change the color, effect, etc., but those
changes will apply to all the lines in the group. There is no way
to change a one line design to a design that contains two lines as
distinct groups.
There are several other software packages similar to Type
Twister, including: Effects Specialist, Font-O-Matic, and
TrueEffect. Although, none of these packages offer preset designs
or OLE support.
Type Twister is easy to use and learn. It lacks some features
that a serious graphic designer needs, such as true customizable
colors and kerning. However, even though I already own several
professional drawing programs, I may very well use Type Twister when
I need a colorful type effect fast. The support for OLE 1.0 is a
big plus in my book.
Aldus Corporation
5120 Shoreham Place
San Diego, CA 92122
(714) 454-8056
┌───────────────────────────┐ ┌─┐ . (c) 1989-1993
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