The software supports TrueType fonts. You will recognise these from the TTF ending.
You create a new text field by clicking on the "New text box" icon in the "Text" toolbox on the toolbar or via the dropdown menu (right mouse click in the workspace).
You can now drag the new text box into the desired position on the current page using the mouse. You can position it more precisely later on or change the size. You will see the standard text "- Your text -" in the text box to begin with.
This will not be visible in the final photo product, even if you do not add your own text or the text box is empty, although you will still see the standard text "- Your text -" in the editor.
You can delete the active text box either by highlighting the text frame and clicking on the "Delete" symbol in the "Editing" toolbox on the toolbar, or by pressing the "Del" key on your keyboard.
You need to do this twice in a row. The first time, all of the highlighted text will be deleted, the second time the text box will be deleted.
You can enter and edit texts in more or less exactly the same way as you do in your word processing program. |
A red warning triangle in a text box is a visual indicator that the text entered is too big for the text box and exceeds the text box.
Use a smaller font for your text or enlarge the highlighted text box until the warning triangle disappears. You can use the corner handles to scale the text box evenly, or the side handles to set the width and/or height. Scaling will not enlarge or reduce the text itself. To do this, you need to use text properties and format the font size.
In the tool selection of the text tools, you can choose from various tools for formatting your text (e.g. including the font).
The program uses the fonts installed on your computer, although it only uses TrueType fonts (*.ttf). The font types are listed with their names and in the relevant fonts.
You can copy texts from a different source (Word file, internet page, etc.) and paste them into the text box using the operating system clipboard. Sometimes the text formatting can be transferred too, as can the source code (HTML commands) from internet pages. This then has to be adjusted or deleted.
You can also install new TrueType format (*.ttf) font types into the operating system at a later stage.
However, you will have to restart the program before the newly installed font will appear in the font type list.
Please note: |
The toolbar contains icons for the following text commands:
Creates a text box in a page layout that you can fill and customise with your own text.
The new text box can now be resized on the page using the mouse. You will see the standard text "- Your text -" in the text box to begin with.
A list in the toolbar showing the fonts installed on your computer. The font types are listed with their names and in the relevant fonts.
For the font style (bold, italic) and to underline the highlighted text.
To set the text colour of the highlighted text.
Colours the entire background of the text box in the colour of your choice.
A list in the toolbar with the available fonts. You can also enter a numeric font size of your choice in the box.
Formatting changes affect only text written after the formatting takes place. If you want to format all text in a text box, select it and format it once you have finished writing.
In the expanded area:
These are the paragraph formats for aligning the text within the text box. They apply to the entire highlighted text box.
The dialogue window "Text settings" will open.
Here you can enter general settings for all the available properties of a text box, e.g. font type and colour, but also the distance between text and text frame (indentation) and coloured outlines, which you would not otherwise have access to.
Click the checkbox in front of the text property that you would like to change.
These settings affect all areas of a text box. |
You can apply the amended text settings to the highlighted text box or boxes only, or to all texts in the photobook.
An easily legible font depends on the size, font type, colour and contrast with the background. To make the text in your photobook easy to read, we recommend a minimum font size of 10.
For headers, we recommend making the text around 20 to 25% larger than the body text. Captions can be a bit smaller than regular copy, but we recommend not going smaller than 6 (8 for photographic paper) in order for text to still be legible.
Of course, this depends whether you want to use text to describe or to personalise.
Tip: It is often difficult to read text against a "busy" background (your own photo with lots of detail). It can sometimes help to select a "bolder" font type and to add a thin coloured outline in a contrasting colour to the text via the menu item "Edit text boxes". |
There is a text box on the spine where you can enter a book title, preferably the same title as on the front cover.
Because of the limited space, the selection of available font sizes is automatically restricted.
No, but you can colour the text box itself. The fill colour button is among the text editing tools. This function colours the entire background of the text box in the colour of your choice.
In the text editing tools there is a small black triangle that you can expand and that contains additional commands. Here you will find the "Edit text boxes" button.
The dialogue window "Text settings" will open. Here you can enter general settings for all the available properties of a text box, e.g. font type and colour, but also the distance between text and text frame (indentation) and coloured outlines, which you would not otherwise have access to. Click the checkbox in front of the text property that you would like to change.
Caution: These settings affect all areas of a text box. |
You can apply the amended text settings to the highlighted text box (or the highlighted text boxes) only, or to all text in the photobook.
You can add text from Word to a text box in the photobook via the copy and paste function of the operating system clipboard. Highlight the text in Word (or a different word processing program) and copy the text into a text box on the photobook page. You may have to format the added text, by specifying the font type, size, colour, etc. via the icons.
Sometimes you can use additional photos or text information about places, regions or countries to illustrate a page. You can use the "Upload text from the internet" icon for this. This command will open up a dialogue window to search for images in "locr" and for information in "Wikipedia GeoNames".
To do this, you need to select the "Wikipedia GeoNames" option (click on the "radio button" in front of "Wikipedia GeoNames").
Enter a suitable search term (as you would in Google) and click on "Search". The texts/articles found for your search term are displayed with a short text extract. If you click on "Go to the article", the corresponding Wikipedia page will open in your web browser. From here you can highlight desired text passages, and copy and paste them into a text box in the Bob Designer Pro editor.
You can copy text from any page of your choice in your web browser. Highlight the desired text passages and copy them to the operating system clipboard. This text can then be pasted into any text box in the Bob Designer Pro editor.
If you want to make your photobook accessible to a wider audience, or even to earn money from it, then make sure you are authorised to use the text and are not infringing copyright law.
Text is always in the foreground and cannot be placed behind photos.
Unfortunately it is not possible to make direct use of "WordArt". However, you can add a "WordArt" (MS Office) or "Fontwork" (OpenOffice/LibreOffice) text box to the workspace of the Bob Designer Pro software via the clipboard.
You can turn the automatic spellchecker on and off in the Settings. If the spellchecker is switched on, then suspected misspellings will be underlined in red in the text. The red underlining will not be printed. If you right-click on the underlined word, a dropdown menu will open up containing a list of spelling suggestions. Click on one of these suggestions and it will be entered in the text in place of the underlined word.
If the word has been spelt correctly and is still marked as a spelling error, it might not exist in the spelling dictionary. You can either add it to the dictionary via the dropdown menu or ignore it, i.e. it will no longer be marked as a spelling mistake in the future.
Highlight the text to be moved and place the mouse cursor over the editing frame. The mouse cursor will then change into a cross with arrows. Then, holding the left mouse button down, drag the text box to the place where you want your text to appear or drag it gradually using the arrow keys on the keyboard.
It is not possible to preset a specific font. However, the last used font settings will stay active until different settings are selected. The current font settings are always stored when you exit the software and are available when the software is reopened.
The software enables you to format either selected text or all text in the photobook at once ("Edit text boxes" icon)
If you want the letters to appear vertically, you need to press the return button (line break) after each letter when you are entering text. If on the other hand you want the text to flow from top to bottom or from bottom to top, you need to turn the text box by 90 degrees.
You are now able to make the text partially transparent, by toggling the transparency of the text colour (symbol "text color set") with the command "Select Colour".
Find a suitable colour and increase/decrease the value for the alpha channel (255 = fully opaque, 128 = semi-transparent, 0 = fully transparent).
Caution: "Change Multiple Text Fields" always affects the entire text field. If you want to include continuous text without a headline, then you must create separate text boxes. |
Yes. We have recently added functionality to enable texts to cast a shadow.
Follow the same procedure as for photos and clipart.