Text Tool

To see the printer friendly version of this tutorial, click HERE

For this tutorial you will need Paint Shop Pro 7

This tutorial is going to show the different features of the text tool

Open PSP and go to File > New

Alternatively you can click on the New Canvas icon

When the new window opens use the following settings

Click OK

This is a big canvas but I prefer to make my canvas big then crop later

Click on the Text Tool 

You will get this box

OK, first we're going to create the text as a vector layer

Make sure Antialias and Vector are checked

Type your text in the box

Now, to make changes to the text you need to left click at the end of the text and keeping the mouse button pressed, drag your mouse over the text

The text will be highlighted blue

Now you can change the size of your text

Click on the drop down arrow at the side of the Size box and click on the size you would like

Click on the drop down arrow at the side of the name (font) box and choose your font

OK, now for the best part, choosing the colours, gradients or patterns :o)

The colour in the stroke box will determine the outline colour of your text

On the stroke box there is a little arrow, if you click the arrow, a small window will open. From this window you can choose whether you want to use a solid colour, gradient, pattern or null (null means no colour selected)

We're going to choose solid colour for our first text

SOLID COLOUR (Paintbrush)

Click in the middle of the stroke box

The colour palette will open

Choose your colour and click OK

Do the same for the Fill box

Click OK on your text entry box

Your text will now be on your new canvas

Your text will have a box around it and on the box are little squares, these are called nodes.

If you hold your mouse over the top middle node it will turn into a double headed arrow. Left click when it's the double headed arrow and keeping the mouse button pressed, drag the node up

Do the same on the side nodes

This stretches your text to the size you want

When you have the text the right size go to the layer palette

You will have 2 layers, the top one will be the text layer

Right click on the top layer and go to Convert to raster layer

We don't want 2 layers so go to Layers > Merge Visible OR you can right click on the top layer again and go to Merge > Merge Visible

Time now to get rid of all that extra canvas

The easiest way I find is to click on the copy icon 

Now, if you want to keep the background of your text transparent open Animation Shop and click on the Paste As New Animation icon 

Your text will now be open in Animation Shop and it will automatically be cropped :o)

Save your text and your solid stroke and fill text is done :o)

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Tutorial written by Shell © 2003