Fonts and Text Palettes

How to apply and edit text.

The Text Palette is where you can change the look of your selected text.

When you select the Text Tool (Keyboard Shortcut "T"), you will see your cursor change to the type cursor.  You can create an area to type by clicking inside your image, or clicking and dragging a bounding box onto your image.  When you click to start typing the bounding box will be small, but it will adjust to your type. Here a bounding box has been dragged out: 

Now type some text.  You may also paste copied text into this box.

You can play with the look of your text.  Change the font and the font size.  Here the font has been changed to Impact and the size to 48.

It is possible to change the color of your text.  You can bring up the color palette by going to Window ▸ Colors, or typing ⇧⌘C.

You can also use this icon to access the color palette.  Either circle will change the color of your text.  Use the eyedropper in the right bottom corner to pick up color from an image, or use the black and white box in the left bottom corner to switch the colors to black and white.  The arrow at the top right corner will switch the colors around.  For more on the color palette see Colors Palette.

The color of the text below has been changed to purple.  Click anywhere in the color wheel to change the color.  The sliding bar on the right will change the value (lightness or darkness) of your color.  The bar on the bottom will change the opacity of your color.  The closer to the center of the color wheel you pick your color, the less saturated it will be. 

You will notice on the Type Palette there are sliding bars labeled Base Line, Kerning, Line Space, and Paragraph Space.

Baseline

The baseline is the line on which the letters sit, and which the descenders extend below. Here the baseline is set to 0. See how the lines sit closer together.

Kerning

Kerning is the space between the letters.  Here the Kerning has been changed to 4.

Kerning can also adjust the space between two letters, especially between letters with slanted sides like V, W, and A.  For example, in the word "varied" there is a larger space between V and A than between the rest of the letters.  To kern, highlight the letter before the space you wish to adjust.

Then adjust the character spacing until the spacing between the V and A looks even with the spacing between the letters in the rest of the word.

Line Spacing

Line Spacing is the space between the baseline and the top of the next line of text, also called leading.  The line spacing here has been changed to -18.  Notice how the lines of text begin to touch. The lower the number the more the lines will come together.  The higher the number the more they will separate. 

Paragraph Spacing

The Paragraph Space (❡ Space) is the space between your paragraphs.  Here the paragraph spacing is set to 65.

Paragraph Alignment

There are also selections for Paragraph Alignment.  They are ordered as follows: Right Align, Centered, Left Align, and Justified. 

Right Align will align your text to the right side of your bounding box.  Left Align will align your text to the left side of the bounding box.  Centered will place your text in the center of the bounding box.  Justified will stretch your text so it reaches each side of the bounding box.

Here are examples of what these look like when applied to text:

Stroke, Fill, Shadow

Stroke is the outline of the text.  Increasing the stroke makes the outline of the text thicker.  Fill is the color within the stroke or outline.  With the text box selected, you can enter the shape tools palette in order to have access to fill and shadow settings.   Stroke, fill, and shadow modifications cannot be seen when the text is being edited.  Once you click outside the text box your changes will appear.

The example below shows lucida grande text with no fill, a stroke of 5, and a slightly offset purple shadow.  

Rotating Text  

The text box can be rotated by hovering the mouse over one of the text box corner boundaries.  A circular arrow will appear.  Click and drag in the direction you wish the text to rotate.  Another method for rotating text is to have the text box selected, then choose the shapes tool.  You can change the angle of rotation in the "angle" field.  In the example below the angle is set to 64.3 degrees.

Fonts Palette

You can access the Fonts palette by using Window ▸ Fonts menu or using the keyboard shortcut ⌘T.

The Fonts Palette packs a lot of punch for being so small.  This little window controls everything that you could want to do with fonts.  If you get confused about which button does what, hold your mouse over it for a second and it will display a tooltip about its function.

Selecting Fonts

There are Collections of fonts (like folders in the finder), inside which are font Families, inside which are Typefaces.  An example of this in the real world would be All Fonts > American Typewriter > Bold.  Collections can be handy if you find yourself often using the same few fonts.  You can create your own collections, or use the ones Apple has provided.  The Fun collection includes some excellent fonts for parties and cards.  If you would like to add a font to the collection, simply drag it in.  Adding and deleting collections is controlled by the plus and minus buttons below the collections. 

If you find yourself unable to find a font you know is on your computer, make sure the All Fonts collection is selected.  Size is controlled by the slider, list, and box to the right of the window.  You can enter in a value into the upper box, find a commonly used size in the list, or move the slider until you are happy.

There is also a search field at the bottom of the window.  If you find that scrolling through all of your fonts takes longer than you want, simply type the name of the font into the search field and it will instantly pop up in the Family column.

Things like shadow, underline, color, and strikethrough are controlled by the buttons on the top of the window, as well as from the Format ▸ Font menu.

Adding Fonts

To add new fonts to Acorn, place the font file in your ~/Library/Fonts folder.  You will need to re-start Acorn for it to appear in your font list.  

Ligatures

Ligatures are two characters that form a single character. For example, if you type "ffi" with ligatures on, it will automatically connect the crossbar of the f to the top of the i.  Sometimes the dot on the i is removed depending on the font.  You can turn ligatures on and off by clicking on the drop down with the little gear icon and selecting Typography.  Select the text you wish to apply ligatures on.  Ligatures are only available with certain fonts. 

Symbols, Punctuation, and Other Scripts

The gear symbol on the lower left hand corner of the font palette is the gateway to adding special characters, varying typography, non-standard punctuation, and other language scripts.  

Converting Text to Bezier Shapes

Please read Bezier Curves for more information.  

Rasterizing Text

Vector layers (i.e. shapes and text) are different from bitmap (or raster) layers.  Vectors revolve around lines and shapes, where as bitmaps are pixel oriented.  For more information on this topic, read here.  You cannot apply Filters to a vector layer unless you have rasterized the layer by selecting Layer ▸ Rasterize Shape Layer.  Once you have rasterized a vector layer you cannot go back and modify the shapes or text without undoing subsequent work.  

Text Tutorials

Check out the bottom of the tutorials page for tutorials specific to text!