Text wrap around graphics

[greenmorpher]

I'm having difficulty making much use of the text wrap feature.

It all falls over on the requirement that the text be in a "non-dynamic" text box.

-- Good one! This is the ONLY use of the term "non-dynamic" in the whole manual. I finally worked out that what was meant was ... Bugger -- I just tried to find again the part of the manual I finally found by accident which fitted this description, but now I can't find it again. Anyway, it means click and drag to create a text box which then has a little symbol in the bottom right-hand corner. Cleaning up the manual, using the same terms for the same things and expanding the manual so it actually explains things rather than just mentions them, should be an absolute priority.

-- Having found out what to do, I made it work ... once. Then I wanted to add a second graphic to the text block. Apparently, that's not on. The little symbol at the bottom right which you have to drag on to the graphic to set up the wrap is no longer available. Huh? What's needed is a dialog about this.

-- The text block is non-dynamic, which means that you can't reshape it, only resize it in proportion. So if you set up a text block that fitted a page width, then added a graphic which displaced text, you can't drag a corner of the text block to make it longer to accommodate the displaced text. If you click and drag, the box becomes larger IN PROPORTION so that the width increases as well as the depth. And the width goes right off the page, doesn't it? A dynamic text block to accommodate the change in area required for the text PLUS the graphic is an absolute must. Setting up a non-dynamic box just guessing the size ultimately needed is not on for a serious use.

Cheers, Geoff

Geoffrey Heard, Business Writer & Publisher

"Type & Layout: Are you communicating or just making pretty shapes" -- Revealed! The secrets of how you can use type and layout to turbocharge your messages in print. See the book at http://www.worsleypress.com

[Martin Huber]

I'm having difficulty making much use of the text wrap feature.

It all falls over on the requirement that the text be in a "non-dynamic" text box.

-- Good one! This is the ONLY use of the term "non-dynamic" in the whole manual.

Earlier in this chapter ("6.2.7 The Text Tool") there is a description of "dynamic" text layers.

I finally worked out that what was meant was ... Bugger -- I just tried to find again the part of the manual I finally found by accident which fitted this description, but now I can't find it again.

Press the Help-key and click on the text tool. The corresponding help will open.

- Having found out what to do, I made it work ... once. Then I wanted to add a second graphic to the text block. Apparently, that's not on. The little symbol at the bottom right which you have to drag on to the graphic to set up the wrap is no longer available. Huh? What's needed is a dialog about this.

The symbol is only visible and usable, if the active tool is the text tool.

-- The text block is non-dynamic, which means that you can't reshape it, only resize it in proportion. So if you set up a text block that fitted a page width, then added a graphic which displaced text, you can't drag a corner of the text block to make it longer to accommodate the displaced text. If you click and drag, the box becomes larger IN PROPORTION so that the width increases as well as the depth. And the width goes right off the page, doesn't it? A dynamic text block to accommodate the change in area required for the text PLUS the graphic is an absolute must. Setting up a non-dynamic box just guessing the size ultimately needed is not on for a serious use.

I don't understand what you are doing, but this is how it works:
- The layer tool has an option to resize proportionally. If that option is turned on, using one of the corner handles will resize the layer proportionally (Alt can be used to toggle this behaviour temporarly).
- The center handles do not scale proportionally.
- Because of the reasons you gave above, resizing using the text tool doesn't resize proportionally, too.

Martin

[greenmorpher]

I'm having difficulty making much use of the text wrap feature.

It all falls over on the requirement that the text be in a "non-dynamic" text box.

-- Good one! This is the ONLY use of the term "non-dynamic" in the whole manual.

Earlier in this chapter ("6.2.7 The Text Tool") there is a description of "dynamic" text layers.

I finally worked out that what was meant was ... Bugger -- I just tried to find again the part of the manual I finally found by accident which fitted this description, but now I can't find it again.

Press the Help-key and click on the text tool. The corresponding help will open.

Good one. Macs don't have that as far as I know, but I just happen to have a Microsoft keyboard which has a "Help key". I have never used it but yes, it works. It gets me back to the section I was looking at. (OOPS -- I have just discovered that it launches the help in the right section, but it does then freezes PL32. Bummer. PL32 14.50; OS X.4.11; MacMini DuoCore 1.83. So that needs fixing.)

Now -- here is my point, Martin. In one sentence you are talking about a "dynamic text layer". When you refer to the opposite of that in the next sentence, you do not use the term "non-dynamic", instead, you use the term "text layer with a fixed size". But you NEVER used the term "non-dynamic" until several dozen sentences further on. You MUST be consistent in your terms which define or label actions or effects or whatever otherwise it makes it damned difficult for users to find a path through it all.

Further -- the Help/Manual needs to be set up so that when the user enters a term to search on, it takes them to that term -- NOT to a section.

- Having found out what to do, I made it work ... once. Then I wanted to add a second graphic to the text block. Apparently, that's not on. The little symbol at the bottom right which you have to drag on to the graphic to set up the wrap is no longer available. Huh? What's needed is a dialog about this.

The symbol is only visible and usable, if the active tool is the text tool.[/quote]

Okay -- I realize now I was reading a section called "Text Tool" not "Text". In my head, I thought I was reading about "text", not the text tool specifically. It would be more helpful if the section was about "Text" or "Text Layers" -- and within that, you specified when the text tool was used and when another tool was used.

-- The text block is non-dynamic, which means that you can't reshape it, only resize it in proportion. So if you set up a text block that fitted a page width, then added a graphic which displaced text, you can't drag a corner of the text block to make it longer to accommodate the displaced text. If you click and drag, the box becomes larger IN PROPORTION so that the width increases as well as the depth. And the width goes right off the page, doesn't it? A dynamic text block to accommodate the change in area required for the text PLUS the graphic is an absolute must. Setting up a non-dynamic box just guessing the size ultimately needed is not on for a serious use.

I don't understand what you are doing, but this is how it works:
- The layer tool has an option to resize proportionally. If that option is turned on, using one of the corner handles will resize the layer proportionally (Alt can be used to toggle this behaviour temporarly).
- The center handles do not scale proportionally.
- Because of the reasons you gave above, resizing using the text tool doesn't resize proportionally, too.[/quote]

It is not a case of "***If*** that option is turned on...". The layer tool resizes proportionally BY DEFAULT, so far as I can see. It is ALWAYS turned on.

Okay, having got past that, I now know how to resize "fixed" or "non-dynamic" text boxes NON-proportionally.

BUT -- in the course of messing with this, I appear to have come across a really GRAND anomaly in how the tools work.

With either the text tool or the pointer (layer?) tool selected, I can click and drag the centre handles on the sizes of the box to make that box/layer larger and the text reflows as necessary or just empty space is created, e.g. at the bottom of the text if I drag on the bottom bar.

Doing the same on a picture layer will resize the picture, not the layer in which it sits.

NOW -- if I right click on one of the handles, I get a contextual menu which offers me "Scale Special".

With this setting, I click on a handle of a text layer with either the text tool or the pointer and it resizes the contents of the layer.

If I do the same with a picture, it makes the layer bigger by introducing space around the picture, but it does NOT change the size of the picture itself.

You see what I mean? They seem to be operating in the opposite way from each other.

AARGH!!!

And at some point in all that, the non-dynamic text box decided that it was tired of playing games with having its non-dynamism turned off and on by the alt/option key, so it became dynamic but still with the ability to flow around graphics newly placed in it!!!

FURTHER -- I cannot find how to increase the offset of the text from the graphic. The help/manual points me to "Layer Settings". I cannot find "Layer Settings". Oh yes I can! It is in the "Text Options" window. Now where did I come across that? I have it open, but now I can't find how to re-open it again shouild I happen to close it.

Oh no! Here's another one!

In the manual/help, it says "Menus/Layout Menus" for the chapter heading. Then the section heading is" Text/Text Options".

THERE IS NO SUCH MENU ITEM AS "TEXT OPTIONS".

But is you go Text > SHOW TEXT SETTINGS you will get a dialog box named TEXT OPTIONS.

Okay -- but why didn’t it say that in the menu and the manual?

Then look at that dialog. "B" means "Character"!!! Of course, in ANY and EVERY program, 'B' means BOLD. It does in PL32 as well -- look at the text tool bar (incidentally, I wanted to check what the real name for this is; I can't find it in the menus today. Oh well.). So it should NOT be "B", it should be "A" or "T" which every other program does. I can't make any sense of the underlining thing -- I tried various combinations of actions without any effect.

But best of all, look at the Layer sub-menu; the right hand button. I was there to set the text flow offset from objects it was flowing around. It is in a section called "Center Text Vertically" !!! It doesn't work if you Center Text Vertically !!! It is a control independent of Center Text Vertically, it should not be in the same sub-section of the sub-menu, and apparently a sub-paragraph of the sub-section. It should be separate from the "Center Text Vertically".

This is the road to insanity.

I'll stick with processing pictures when I need to.

Cheers, Geoff

Geoffrey Heard, Business Writer & Publisher

"Type & Layout: Are you communicating or just making pretty shapes" -- Revealed! The secrets of how you can use type and layout to turbocharge your messages in print. See the book at http://www.worsleypress.com