Developer’s Guide

Preparing files for a custom solution 3-11
To simulate a shadow effect for text:
1. Add text to your layout.
2. Set its text color to a shade of gray. (Choose Format menu > Text
Color and choose gray from the color palette.)
3. Duplicate the text object. (Select the text object and choose Edit
menu > Duplicate.)
4. Set the text color of the duplicate to black.
5. Move the duplicate back over the original.
6. Press the up-arrow key once, then the right-arrow key once.
You can vary the offset to achieve whatever shadow effect you
prefer.
7. Check on both platforms to be sure the shadow effect appears as
you intended.
To simulate a combined outline and shadow effect, reverse the gray
and black text colors in steps 2 and 4.
Using common character sets
When sharing files between the Windows and Mac OS platforms,
use characters that exist in both character sets when available. While
international characters are usually available, many of the upper
ASCII characters don’t match across platforms. Keep in mind that
special characters are handled differently across fonts.
The following are examples of characters that won’t display properly
across platforms.
Windows-only characters:
1 symbol
1 symbol
1 symbol
Mac OS-only characters:
1 ≠ (not equal)
1 ≥ (greater than or equal to)
1 ≤ (less than or equal to)
1 √ (square root/check mark)
Designing text layouts for cross-platform solutions
Keep the following tips in mind when designing a text layout that
will display in both Windows and the Mac OS.
1 Leave plenty of room around a text block.
Even when FileMaker Pro is able to match fonts, there can be subtle
differences in character width and line spacing when fonts are
substituted on another platform. FileMaker Pro supports fixed text
object sizes, so that you can resize a text object to be longer than the
text within it. This allows you to anticipate changes in font size.
Resize your text objects so they are a little wider than the default size
to prevent text from wrapping to a second line when a different font
is substituted.
Simulated text styles as
displayed on the Mac OS
Actual text styles as displayed
on the Mac OS
Simulated text styles as
displayed on the Windows OS
Actual text styles as displayed
on the Windows OS
1
4
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1
2
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3
4
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Make sure fields and text objects are large enough to accommodate substituted fonts
Text bounding box
too narrow
Text bounding box too
narrow and shallow