Operation Manual

Working with Text 51
About artistic text
Artistic text is standalone text you type directly onto a page. Just as
with frame text, you can alter artistic text’s character and paragraph
formatting, apply text styles, attach hyperlinks, and use WritePlus to
edit the object. You can also apply a gradient fill and/or an outline to
artistic text—for example, to create attractive Web buttons—but note
that artistic text with these properties is published as a separate graphic
rather than as a block of HTML text.
Artistic text has some limitations. For example, you can paste from the
Clipboard to an artistic text object but cannot import text from a file.
And because artistic text doesn’t flow or link the way frame text does;
the Frame toolbar’s text-fitting functions aren’t applicable.
To create artistic text, choose the
Artistic Text
Tool from the Tools toolbar. Click anywhere on the
page for an insertion point using a default point
size, or drag to specify a particular size.
Set initial text properties (font, style, etc.) as needed before typing,
using the Text toolbar, Format menu, right-click menu (choose Text
Format), and/or Attributes tab. Then just type normally to enter text.
Once you’ve created an artistic text object, you can select, move,
resize, delete, and copy it just as you would with a text frame. Note,
however, that artistic text you’ve dragged to resize is published as a
graphic. (To maintain it as text, change its point size via the Text
toolbar.)
 See if you can spot some artistic text objects already in use on the
template site’s Home page. Try creating your own sample of
artistic text, either on an empty part of the page or on the
pasteboard.
 That concludes the “scripted” portion of the hands-on sequence
(for this chapter at least), but feel free to create a brand new site at
this point (File/New) and experiment with both frame and artistic
text.
By the way, “ordinary” straight-line artistic text is far from ordinary—
but you can extend its creative possibilities even further by flowing it
along a curved path. The resulting object has all the properties of
artistic text, plus its path is a Bézier curve that you can edit with the
Pointer tool as easily as any other line! (See the end-of-chapter help
topic reference for “text on a path.”)