Especially if you’re pasting text from the Clipboard, the frame you drag for paragraph text might not accommodate the amount of text. As a result, the text is hidden; the frame is a dashed red outline instead of black. To reveal the text, drag down the “window-shade handle,” the small square tab (bottom center) on the text frame; when there’s hidden text, the handle has a down arrow in its center. One of the most useful things you can do with paragraph text frames is to link them; instead of spoiling a design by increasing the size of the frame, you can create a second, third, or any number of additional frames, and flow the excess text into the new frames as you create the frames. The advantage to this is that you can move the linked frames around in your design, and the content (the printed message of the paragraph text) remains in perfect order. For example, if you need to break a paragraph into two frames in the middle of “Now is the time for all good people to come,” you do this, and in the future if you need to resize the first paragraph text frame, the excess of words “pours” into the second frame, regardless of its position on the page. This is too neat to simply describe with words, so let’s try creating linked text frames in the following steps. 344 CorelDRAW X5 The Official Guide Creating Linked Paragraph Text Frames 1. In a word processor or plain text editor, copy some existing text to the Clipboard; it doesn’t matter what the text is. Highlight a few paragraphs and then press CTRL+C. 2. In CorelDRAW, choose the Text tool and then click-diagonal drag to define a paragraph text frame. Try to make the frame smaller than the text on the Clipboard (eyeball it). 3. Insert your cursor in the frame, and then press CTRL+V to paste the Clipboard text. If you copied from a word processor, CorelDRAW will flash you the Import/Pasting Text dialog, where you have the option of retaining the formatting (if any) created in the word processor—font choice, point size, justification, and tabs are all attributes of text formatting. Go with it; click the Maintain Fonts And Formatting button and then click OK. 4. Click the bottom-center text handle (the box with the black arrow), and your cursor is now loaded with all the text that was hidden from view because your frame is smaller than the text you pasted into it. Your cursor takes on a new look, shown in the following illustration. CHAPTER 12: Getting Artistic with Text 345 12 Click to load cursor with paragraph text overflow. 5. Click-diagonal drag to create a new, linked text frame. The excess text from the first frame automatically flows into the new frame, shown here. A light blue line with an arrow indicates the relationship between the text in the first and the second frame (don’t worry, this screen element does not print). Try repositioning the two frames now using the Pick tool. Then try resizing the first frame. You’ll see, dynamically, the second frame take the overflow from the first frame. Ill 12-7 Web-Compatible Paragraph Text If you are designing web pages in CorelDRAW, you should make all paragraph text web compatible. Web-compatible paragraph text will be exported as real text in the final HTML web page. Web-compatible paragraph text has a limited subset of normal paragraph text properties: font, size, bold, italic, underline, alignment, and solid color, but no tabs, bullets, or other advanced features you might find in a DTP program. All other properties are 346 CorelDRAW X5 The Official Guide removed from the text. All text that is not web compatible (symbol fonts, certain extended characters, and so on) is exported as bitmaps when the page is published to HTML. Bitmaps do not scale on dynamic HTML pages; they take more time to download than live text and do not render to screen as crisply as actual text. To export text as web-compatible text and not as a bitmap, choose File | Export HTML. Don’t choose Export For Web. See Chapter 28 for the details on exporting text and graphics for website design. To make paragraph text web compatible, right-click the paragraph text object with the Pick tool, and choose Make Text Web Compatible from the pop-up menu. Editing Text: The Comprehensive Tour A few of the basics of text entry and editing have been discussed to get you up and running. However, as your needs arise for more complex character formatting and fancy text layout, you’ll want to become more familiar with the nitty-gritty of everyday typography and publishing. The good news is that CorelDRAW’s text-handling features are very similar to your favorite word processor or desktop publishing program. Just select the Text tool ( F8) and begin the exploration. Navigating with the Insertion Point Cursor You can use the text cursor to select text a character at a time, by whole words, or even by whole paragraphs, just by dragging to highlight. You can also use the UP, DOWN, LEFT, and RIGHT ARROW keys on your keyboard to quickly navigate the cursor insertion point around large amounts of text. Selecting Text To place the text cursor (the I-beam) in the text where you want to start typing, click with the left mouse button. Any text you type will be inserted at that point and will have the same style as the character to the left of the insertion point. To select text with the Text tool cursor, click-drag with the primary mouse button from the point at which you want the selection to start, and release the mouse button where you want the selection to end. Alternatively, click once to place the cursor in the text where you want the selection to start, and then, while holding down the SHIFT key, click where you want the selection to end—all the text between the two clicks is selected. Double-clicking a word selects that word. Triple-clicking selects the entire paragraph in which you triple- clicked. CHAPTER 12: Getting Artistic with Text 347 12 You can move the cursor with the cursor keys (the keyboard arrow keys) as well as with the mouse. ● To move left or right a word at a time, hold CTRL while moving the cursor with the LEFT or RIGHT ARROW key. ● To move up or down a paragraph at a time, hold CTRL and press the UP or DOWN ARROW key, respectively. ● To expand or contract the selection, hold SHIFT while moving the endpoint with the arrow keys. ● To move to the beginning or end of the current frame, hold CTRL and press the HOME or END key, respectively. Alternatively, use the PAGE UP or PAGE DOWN key to move up or down a frame. Moving Text You can move a selection of text with the mouse by dragging-and-dropping; select the word or phrase you want to move, and then with the primary mouse button click-and-drag the text to its new location in the current text object—or in any other text object. A vertical bar indicates the insertion point at the new location; the cursor becomes the international “no” sign (a circle with a slash through it) if it is not possible to drop the text at the current location. Dragging with the right mouse button causes a pop-up menu to appear when you drop the text, with options for what to do with the text. The options are Copy Here and Move Here, and Add To Rollover doesn’t do anything unless you have a web-page rollover defined. You can use this special editing gesture to copy and move words within paragraph and artistic text, but you can also put the copied or moved text outside of the body of artistic and paragraph text. In this event, the text is no longer in line with the text from which you copy or move, so only use this command (particularly Move) for a very good reason. Converting Between Artistic Text and Paragraph Text To convert a block of artistic text to paragraph text, right-click the artistic text object with the Pick tool; then choose Convert To Paragraph Text from the pop-up menu. The menu command is Text | Convert To Paragraph Text, and the keyboard shortcut is CTRL+F8. All the text formatting is maintained as closely as possible each time you convert between the two text types, although some formatting, such as paragraph text columns and effects, cannot be applied to artistic text and is lost. 348 CorelDRAW X5 The Official Guide Going the other way, from paragraph text to artistic text, is similarly simple. However, all the text in a paragraph text frame must be visible: it cannot be hidden and you cannot convert a linked paragraph text frame. With the Pick tool, right-click over the paragraph text, and then choose Convert To Artistic Text ( CTRL+F8 works, too). Paragraph text objects that are web compatible cannot be converted to artistic text. You need to first (with the Pick tool) right-click over web-compatible text, and then uncheck the Make Text Web Compatible check box. The Text Bar and Special Paragraph Formatting Let’s dig deeper into paragraph text options and discover new ways to embellish your printed message; create or open a document now that contains a paragraph text frame. Because of the large screen resolutions we enjoy today, we can view pages at almost a 1:1 resolution as they would print, but this also means we might need to scroll and mouse around a document more than is healthy for the wrists. The solution in CorelDRAW is a simple one: if you’re working extensively with text, you float the Text toolbar close to the area of the document in which you’re fine-tuning. Right-click over any area of the property bar, and then choose Text from the pop-up menu. You can drag the Text toolbar to hover over any area you like. The Text toolbar can be used to edit single characters in artistic text and paragraph text, but its real strength is in the offering of options for making paragraph text look polished and sophisticated. When the Pick tool or the Text tool is active, all the features shown in Figure 12-7 CHAPTER 12: Getting Artistic with Text 349 12 FIGURE 12-7 The Text toolbar is a convenient gateway to the text formatting you need on a daily basis. Font List Font Size Bold Italic Underline Text Alignment Bulleted List Drop Cap Character Formatting Edit Text are active and at your disposal. Additional modifications to the available options are described a little later in this chapter. The Text toolbar and the Text options on the property bar when the Pick or the Text tool have selected text are essentially identical. The Text toolbar is simply a more portable device for working closely with text. Drop Caps and Bulleted Lists Formatting A drop cap is a dropped capital character at the beginning of a paragraph, much larger than the rest of the text, extending three, four, or more lines down in the paragraph…and it adds a touch of class to a document, particularly if you’re illustrating a fairy tale. Bulleted lists are a common necessity for page layouts: restaurant menus, assembly instructions, just about anything that’s a list that doesn’t need to be a numbered list! In the following sections, you’ll see not only how to create a bulleted list, but also how to choose any character you like for the bullet and even create a hanging indent for the bulleted list for an ultra-professional presentation. Creating a Drop Cap You have a lot of options, hence a lot of design opportunities, for drop caps in a CorelDRAW document: you can decide on the drop cap’s height relative to the lines of paragraph text of its neighbors, whether it’s nestled into the body of the text or stands to the left (called a hanging indent), and even choose the font used for the drop cap. First, the Drop Cap button on the Text toolbar and property bar is available when the Pick tool is used to select paragraph text, and when the Text tool is used to highlight a paragraph within a paragraph text frame. This is a show/hide toggle button: it turns the default attributes for a drop cap on and off within the selected text. Therefore, you can create a drop cap for paragraph text in one click, but if you want to add your own input, you need to additionally work with the Drop Cap options box, as demonstrated in the following steps. Adding a Drop Cap to Your Paragraph Text 1. Create some paragraph text, as described earlier in this chapter. 2. Use the Text tool to highlight a paragraph that you want to lead off with a drop cap. You can create drop caps by simply selecting a paragraph text frame with the Pick tool, but doing so will put a drop cap at the beginning of every paragraph (after every hard return), which might be overdoing the effect. 350 CorelDRAW X5 The Official Guide 3. On the Text toolbar or the property bar, click the Drop Cap button; you’ll get the default drop cap effect, as seen in the illustration below. 4. The easiest way to make the drop cap into an ornamental drop cap is to toggle the Drop Cap on the property bar to hide it; then highlight the first letter, and change the font for this one character. Then, with the I-beam cursor in front of the letter, click the Drop Cap button once more. Barock Caps (a regional spelling of “Baroque,” not the U.S. president) is a wonderfully intricate storybook-style typeface. It’s available for free at http:// moorstation.org/typoasis/designers/steffmann/index.htm. 5. Choose Text | Drop Cap to display the options for the drop cap. The most common customizing would be to change how many lines the cap is dropped; by default, it’s three, but four or even five can look interesting, depending on the font you use. If you feel there isn’t enough air between the paragraph text and the drop cap, use the Space After Drop Cap spin box to increase the space to the right of the drop cap. You also have the option to Use Hanging Indent Style For Drop Cap, which casts the drop cap to the left of the paragraph text while the paragraph text then takes on a flush-left indent. The following illustration shows the completed effect; a hanging indent was not used because the design uses paragraph text inside a path CHAPTER 12: Getting Artistic with Text 351 12 (discussed later in this chapter) to wrap the text around the cartoon, and an indent would spoil the overall composition. Making Bulleted Paragraph Text Like the toggling Drop Cap button, the show/hide Bulleted List button can be your one-click stop for creating bulleted lists; however, you’ll surely want a custom bulleted list that looks as artistic as your document layout. On the Text menu you’ll find the Bullets command; it’s straightforward and you’ll quickly achieve great results. Find or create a list of something, and follow along to see how to work the options for bullets. Creating a Bullet Motif 1. There’s no real harm in simply using the Pick tool to select the paragraph text you want to make a fancy bulleted list: every line break in the list begins a new bulleted item, so select the text and then click the show/hide Bulleted List button on the property bar or on the Text toolbar. See the following illustration. 352 CorelDRAW X5 The Official Guide 2. Choose Text | Bullets. 3. Choose a typeface that contains a character that works well with the theme of the bulleted list composition. The illustration is an “All-Star Recipe,” so a bullet shaped like a star is appropriate. Microsoft’s Wingdings font is installed with every copy of Windows, and it features some nice symbols: choose Wingdings from the Font drop- down list in this example, and then click the Symbol drop-down arrow, and locate a good star shape. 4. Click the Use Hanging Indent Style For Bulleted Lists check box to get a polished look for the list. 5. Increase the point size by dragging upward in the center of the spin box control for Size. 6. Most likely, the baseline of the enlarged symbol won’t look right compared with the text in the list (it’ll be too high). Drag downward on the Baseline Shift spin box control until the bullets look aligned. CHAPTER 12: Getting Artistic with Text 353 12 . the Pick tool, but doing so will put a drop cap at the beginning of every paragraph (after every hard return), which might be overdoing the effect. 350 CorelDRAW X5 The Official Guide 3. On the. toggle the Drop Cap on the property bar to hide it; then highlight the first letter, and change the font for this one character. Then, with the I-beam cursor in front of the letter, click the Drop. between the two text types, although some formatting, such as paragraph text columns and effects, cannot be applied to artistic text and is lost. 348 CorelDRAW X5 The Official Guide Going the other