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Faith Hope Charity
Faith Hope
Charity
As entered Rotate -45 degrees
Figure 23-19. Rotating text strings Text String Control Points and Gravity
When you move a text string, its control point is at the bottom of the vertical line in the text anchor. Figure 23-20 shows the control point on each kind of text.
center righ~:
Figure 23-20. Text string control points
The text anchor control point is like a control point on any other object. If GridAlign is on, the control point is attracted to grid points. If Gravity is on, the control point is attracted to other objects.
A text string also exerts gravity on other objects. Objects are attracted to the baseline of the text string. Objects moving horizontally are attracted to a text string at the endpoints of the baseline. Objects moving vertically are attracted along the length of the baseline.
Gravity on one text string in relation to another text string is not useful because the screen and printer widths of fonts are different. Even if the control point of one text string lines up with the gravity point at the end of the baseline of another text string on the screen, the text in one may overlap the other when they are printed.
The only point in a text string that you can count on printing exactly where it is displayed is the point marked by the text anchor. You can use this fact to make two text strings line up correctly and print as if they were one object.
To connect two text strings so they print correctly:
Y" Turn GridAlign off.
Y" Make the first text string right aligned.
Y" Make the second text string left aligned.
Y" Select the second text string again.
Y" Execute the Move command and allow gravity to bring the anchor points of the two objects together.
You can be sure that the two text strings will print as one.
There is no way to be sure that more than two text strings on a line will be spaced correctly. If you must use three separate text strings on a single line in a diagram, you will have to adjust the spacing by eye. A microdocument is usually the best text object to use when you want to change fonts within a line.
Realigning Text Strings
Starting at the position marked by the text anchor, text characters can grow in one of three directions:
• If the text anchor is flush left, the text will grow to the right.
• If the text anchor is centered, the text will grow in both di-rections from the center.
• If the text anchor is flush right, the text will grow to the left.
Figure 23-21a shows where the text anchor is placed. Figure 23-21b shows how text grows when aligned. In this figure the vertical dashed line marks where the diagramming cursor was placed when the writer started typing each of the words.
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L.eft aligned
..
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Center aligned
... ¥
H~IIORight aligned
...
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(a) (b)
Figure 23-21. Text that has been entered with left, centered, and right text anchors
There are four ways to adjust the alignment of a text string:
• with keyboard commands
• with commands on the Align submenu
• with the Size Reflect Horizontal or Size Reflect Diagonal command
• by sizing the text string horizontally or diagonally with a se-lection of other objects
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Keyboard Align Commands
To change the alignment of an existing text string or anchor, select the object and enter the appropriate keyboard command:
• CTRL-I changes the alignment to flush left
• CTRL-C changes the alignment to centered
• CTRL-r changes the alignment to flush right
When you change the alignment of an existing text string, the text anchor remains stationary, while the text repositions itself.
The keyboard commands can be used on only one text string at a time. If you select several text strings and enter a keyboard command, only the last string you selected will be changed.
Use the keyboard commands when you do not want the text anchor to move (if you have lined it up with something else in your diagram, for example).
Popup Menu Align Commands
Each of the first four Align commands on the Align submenu to change the align-ment of a text string:
• Left sides changes the text string you have selected to flush left.
• L/R centers and Centers both change the text string to cen-tered.
• Right sides changes the text string to flush right.
When you change the alignment of a text string using an Align command, the text will not reposition itself as it does when you use a keyboard command.
Instead, the text anchor will move so that, when you begin to type additional characters, they will grow from the repositioned text anchor in the appropriate direction.
The Align commands will work on more than one text string at a time. If you align several text strings at once, the text will move as well as the text anchor, but the movement will be minimized.
The Align Centers command will align the toplbottom as well as the left/right centers of text strings. In other words, it will put all of the text strings on top of one another. For this reason, it is really only useful when you are working with a single text string. The Align L/R centers command changes only the horizontal alignment, so it is useful when you want to align a column of text strings.
The first four commands on the Align to Frame submenu also change the posi-tion of text; but since they have other effects as well, they are discussed with alignment in the chapter Modifying Diagrams.
Editing Text Strings in Groups
Even when several text strings are grouped together you can change the text that each one contains.
To change the text of one text string in a group:
~\ Point the mouse cursor at the line you want to edit.
~DD Click the left button to select the group.
IQl Begin editing.
However, you cannot change the font of a single text string in a group that con-tains more than one object: you must either change the font of all text strings in the group or execute the Edit command on the group (see the chapter Advanced Diagramming Concepts), select the single text object, and change its font.