In this lesson we will learn about text objects which are very similar to shape objects. As we progress through the lesson we will learn to use the Text tool to make objects other than text, such as patterns.

I have chosen not to go into detail about the Font palette and all of its features because the features are not only self-explanatory, they work as they do in any other graphics programs. I feel that there is so much material to cover in six short weeks, that you'd be happier learning features that are unique to Expression instead of covering material you undoubtedly already know.

Creating Text Objects

Launch Expression 3 and open a new document if you haven't already. Open the Font palette by pressing the F5 key on your keyboard or by choosing Window > Font from the menu bar. If the Font palette doesn't dock itself with the other palettes on the left side of the interface, drag it there by dragging the palette's title bar. Otherwise, drag the Font palette to a location that is convenient to you.

Press the lowercase letter 't' key on your keyboard or click on the Text tool on the Toolbox. At this point you can click anywhere on the document window and begin typing text. Click anywhere on the document window and notice the changes to your Paint Style palette. Notice that the No Stroke button and the Fill button are both active. This is how Expression 3 creates text objects. Before you type anything, locate the "Point Size" meter on the Font palette and change the value to 66 points. You'll notice see the cursor enlarge on the document window to reflect the larger size type. Now type your first name.

At this point, your name is plain text which can be edited as in a word processing program or other graphics program. To edit the text, place your cursor before the first letter in your name and drag it to the right until all the letters in your name are highlighted. (You can also drag from right to left.) Change the Point Size meter again and notice that when the new value is set, the text on your document changes to reflect the new point size. Once the text is highlighted, you can change mistakes by typing new text to replace the old.

As with shape objects, you can move text with the Object Select tool. Click on this tool (don't use the shortcut key or you'll add the letter 's' to the end of the text) and notice that the text is now surrounded by the bounding box. Click anywhere on the text to move it. When you're ready to move on, delete the text and activate the Ellipse tool and we'll create text on a path.

Text on a Path

First, make sure that the 'With Chord' option is the active option on the ToolBox for the Ellipse tool. If it isn't, your text will not follow a path correctly. With the Ellipse tool, drag out an oval shape, wider than it is tall. You will remember that the Fill button was activated by our Text tool so click on the No Fill button to remove the black fill from the oval. You should have something that looks like this:

Figure 1 - A path with which to attach text.

Select the Text tool (lower case letter t) and move it toward the oval until the line on the text cursor changes to a squiggly line, like this:

Figure 2 - The text cursor as it approaches the oval.

Now type your full name and notice how the text follows the path. If you make a mistake, press the delete key repeatedly until you back up past the mistake and begin typing again. Here's the text I typed, and as you can see, I did a poor job of judging where my text should begin.

Figure 3 - Badly placed text on a path.

To correct mistakes like this, move the text cursor to the beginning of the text until the cursor changes to the text cursor with solid, double pointing arrows on both sides and then drag in the direction in which you want to move the text. You'll notice that an outline of the text appears as you drag, like this:

Figure 4 - Moving badly placed text on a path.

When the outlined text is in a position that you're happy with, release the mouse and your text will replace the outline, like this:

Figure 5 - Repositioned text on a path.

You can use this same method to move the text to the inside of the path by dragging downward instead of left or right, like this:

Figure 6 - Repositioned text on a path.

You can even make text upside down on the inside of the path by first dragging down and then sliding the text in either direction until it is upside down. Not sure why you'd want to do this, but it can be done.

One thing to keep in mind when you're creating text, including text on a path, is that you can't use a shortcut key to switch tools when you're done typing. Doing so will only add a letter to the end of the text. Once you're done typing, you need to do something to tell Expression 3 that you're done typing. One option is to click on a selection tool (the Object Select or Node tools) and move the object. Another option is to hold down the Ctrl key, which temporarily switches the tool you're using to a selection cursor. This allows you to move the object and return you to the tool you were using before you held down the Ctrl key. You can also hold down the Ctrl key, move the object slightly and then use a shortcut key to choose another tool. Moving the object tells Expression you're done typing.

Keep in mind also that when you select the text object with a selection tool, the path it is attached to seems to disappear. It's still there and you can select it by simply dragging with a selection tool to enclose both the text and the path it's attached to.

Another method for creating text on a path is to type text, create a path to attach it to, select both objects and then choose Objects > Text on Path > Attach Text. To release text on a path, regardless of the method you used to create it, select both objects and choose Objects > Text on Path > Release Text.

Text within a Path

A similar method is used to create text within a path, referred to in Expression as 'Text Area' text. First, create a shape object as you did before. Move your cursor toward the object until the cursor changes to the text cursor with a squiggly line, as before. This time, hold down the Shift key, which turns your cursor into a text cursor enclosed by a circle, and click. This places the text cursor within the shape, rather than on the path itself, so that when you type, the text stays within the shape. You can also create the shape, create the text separately, choose both objects and choose Objects > Text on Path > Attach Text Area from the menu bar. To release text from the object, select the text and the object it is attached to and choose Objects > Text on Path > Release Text. Once text is inside the object, you can edit the text and apply all the attributes available on the Font palette. I'll let you play with this feature on your own and when you're ready, read on and we'll explore still more things you can do with text.

Converting Text Objects to Paths

In Expression 3, there are two types of objects; path objects and simple objects. A path object is something you create with one of the drawing tools, such as the Freehand or B-Spline tools. Nodes appear at various points along the path which allow you to alter the path's shape by moving the nodes. Simple objects are objects without nodes, such as shape and text objects. Simple objects can be stroked and filled just like any other object but they can not be altered in shape like objects with nodes, except to resize and rotate the shapes with the bounding box. Fortunately, simple objects can be converted to path objects so that more alterations can be done to them.

When you create a text object, all of the text characters are grouped together to form one object. Below is an example of a simple text object:

Figure 7 - A simple text object

If you apply attributes to a text object, such as a stroke and/or a fill, the stroke and fill will apply to all of the text characters in the object. You cannot, for example, apply one stroke to the first letter and a different stroke to other letters. If we take the text object and choose Objects > Convert to Path from the menu bar, look what happens:

Figure 8 - A simple text object converted to a path.

All those little red dots around the text are called nodes. Each node can be pulled and stretched to alter the shape of the text characters with the Node tool. (This is what sets the Node tool apart from the Object Select tool.) The text characters are still grouped together, however. To ungroup them, choose Arrange > Ungroup from the menu bar. Click away from the text object to deselect all characters (or right-click on the document window and choose 'Deselect All' from the context menu) and you are now able to choose one or more text characters individually.

Let's do a quick exercise and practice what we just learned.

Figure 9 - A text object converted to a path and altered.

Before we move on to create patterns with our newly gained knowledge of the Text tool, I will cover patterns in general and how patterns differ from image fills.

Image Fills v. Patterns

Image Fills: Image fills are bitmap graphic files located in the Expression 3/Images sub-folder on your hard drive. Files located in this sub-folder do not automatically appear in the Image List when the Image Fill button is active. You must add an image to the list using the + button at the bottom of the Image List palette. When an Image Fill is applied to an object, you can adjust the fill with the Transform Fill tool (Shift-X) which is located under the Object Select tool on the ToolBox.

Click on the first letter in your name from the previous exercise and apply an Image Fill to it by clicking the Image Fill button on the PaintStyle palette and then clicking on an item in the Image Fill List that replaces the color palette. Choose the Transform Fill button on the ToolBox. Click on the upper right Resize Handle on the bounding box surrounding the letter and drag away from the letter as if you're attempting to enlarge it. Notice how the letter appears to enlarge but goes back to normal size when you release the handle. This expands the image fill, not the letter itself. Click on the same resize handle and drag toward the letter this time. This shrinks the image fill. This means that you don't necessarily need Image Fills to be seamless. You can eliminate any seams by adjusting it's size with the Transform Fill tool. To rotate an Image Fill, drag the rotation handles on the bounding box with the Transform Fill tool. To move the Image Fill within the object, rather than enlarge or shrink it, drag within the object with the Transform Fill tool. The Transform Fill tool only works on text objects that have been converted to paths (Creature House says that this is a bug but it has yet to be fixed).

An excellent source for Image Fills can be found at the Auto FX web site, but you'll need to register to download the files. To delete an Image Fill from the list, remove the image file from the sub-directory. While a minus button appears on the Paint Style palette, suggesting that you can delete files this way, my button doesn't work. If your button works, deleting an Image Fill this way only deletes the item from the list, not the actual file in the sub-directory.

Patterns: Patterns differ from Image Fills in that they are made up of vector objects rather than bitmap images. When you click on the Pattern Fill button a list of patterns appears below the Fill buttons on the Paint Style palette. As you can see, the list is sparse. Most of the patterns are hatch patterns which were originally used to create hatch effects in Expression 1. While the hatch feature was eliminated in Expression 2 and 3, the patterns remain.

The Transform Fill tool works the same on patterns as it does with an Image Fill. Patterns have the added feature of transforming the pattern when an object is transformed, or not. We'll examine this added feature shortly.

Defining Patterns

Let's create a pattern to see just how easy it is. In the process we'll learn about another tool and palette; the Rotation tool and the Transformation palette.

Figure 10 - The beginning of a 'sun' pattern.

Figure 11 - The beginning of a 'sun' pattern.

This places the 'point of rotation' for the active object (the explamation point in our case) in a new location. (Each time you click with the Rotation tool you establish a new point of rotation.) Now open your Transformation palette by choosing Window > Transformation from the menu bar, or by using the F9 shortcut key. A screen shot of the Transformation palette appears on the left. Hover over the meters on the Transformation palette to find the Rotation Angle meter and set it to 30 degrees, as it is in the screen shot above. Click the second button from the right on the bottom row of the Transformation palette eleven (11) times. (The button will say 'Apply to Duplicate' when you hover over it.) What you just did was create 11 more exclamation points which rotated 30% around the point of rotation. You should now have a 'sun' shape which looks something like this:

Figure 12 - Completed sun for a pattern fill.

Figure 13 - Completed sun for a pattern fill, reduced in size.

Figure 14 - Sun pattern.

Using Dingbat Fonts: A dingbat font (a picture font as opposed to an alphabet type font) can also be used as an object or objects from which to create patterns. An excellent source of dingbat fonts is The Dingbat Pages. I'll use a shareware font called Oregon (Oregon Dingbats.ttf) to demonstrate a method for defining patterns which I call 'pattern wrapping.' Below is a screen shot of "storks" created from the capital letter G with a solid blue color fill and a darker blue, 2 point wide plain stroke.

Figure 15 - 'Storks' from the Oregon font.

Pattern Wrapping

When we created the sun shape, we dragged the Pattern Definition tool around the entire shape to create a pattern. The resulting pattern was orderly rows of sun shapes (See Figure 14 above). Sometimes we want to create a more random appearance and to have the pattern tile seamlessly. We can achieve this effect by dragging the Pattern Definition tool around only part of the objects used to make up the pattern. Any part of an object outside of the area enclosed by the Pattern Definition tool will wrap around to the opposite side of the pattern. I'll demonstrate, but first let's take another look at the pattern definition box:

Figure 16 - Orderly stork pattern.

The white square in the center of the Pattern Definition box displays the area enclosed by the Pattern Definition tool and the gray area around it (the preview area) displays what the pattern will look like. In the example above we can identify each object in the pattern because each object is lined up in neat little rows. This time I will enclose only part of the object and the result is shown below:

Figure 17 - Orderly stork pattern.

From the objects in the center of the definition box, you can see that I've cut off almost all of the head from the top stork and enclosed only parts of the bodies of the two bottom storks with the Pattern Definition tool. Yet the preview area suggests that all the parts are included in the pattern. When the resulting pattern is applied to an object, you'll see that all the parts are still there:

Figure 18 - A more random appearing stork pattern.

As you can see, it's much harder to tell where one object in the pattern ends and another begins. Experiment with pattern wrapping but be forewarned: pattern making can become addicting. Try creating more than one object and enclosing all of the objects with the Pattern Definition tool. Then use the same objects but enclose only parts of the objects. You might even try creating one object and enclosing only part of it. Here's a chestnut design, and resulting pattern, when I enclosed only the bottom part of the chestnut and let the scroll design at the top wrap around:

Figure 19 - Chestnut design and resulting pattern.

The pattern still appears rather linear. The way to fix this is by rotating the Pattern Definition box. To do this, drag around all or part of one or more objects and release the mouse to display the Pattern Definition box. Choose the Object Select tool and the definition box is surrounded by a bounding box. With the Object Select tool, rotate the definition box using one of the bounding box Rotation Handles. The small object display box in the center will show you your rotation angle. Release the mouse and the pattern in the gray area of the definition box will update to display the new pattern's appearance, like this:

Figure 20 - Rotating the Pattern Definition box.

Notice that the object itself was not transformed. Only the definition box was transformed. Below is the resulting pattern:

Figure 21 - Rotating the Pattern Definition box results.

Even our orderly sun pattern becomes more interesting when the definition box is rotated. Compare the following pattern with the one in Figure 14 above:

Figure 22 - Sun pattern skewed.

As you can see, making patterns is easy and fun. Let's do another exercise and see how easy it is to edit a pattern.

Now let's apply the sun pattern to an object. Choose any shape tool and create a shape. Click the Pattern Fill button and choose your new pattern from the patterns list. Using a Resize Handle, enlarge the shape and look at what happens to the pattern. This is an area where you have a choice as to how patterns behave when an object is transformed. You make these changes in File > Preferences. If, when you enlarged the object the pattern enlarged as well, you have a check mark in the 'Transform Patterns' item in the General section of the Preferences dialog box. Unchecking this item will cause the pattern to maintain it's shape when the object it fills is transformed. And remember, you also have the option to use the Transform Fill tool which, as I mentioned earlier, works as it does for Image Fills.

If you've examined the patterns in the patterns list, you might have noticed that they don't have background colors. In the image below, I've create a solid filled object and placed a pattern filled object on top of it. Notice how the bottom rectangle is visible due to the lack of a background color in the pattern:

Figure 23 - Transparent pattern fill.

You'd think that all you'd have to do is make a solid fill background and define it right along with the other pattern objects. Unfortunately, a bug in the program prevents this. The only work-around is to create two objects, give the bottom one a solid fill color, the top one a pattern, and line them up so they look like one object. This isn't really such a bad workaround, however, as it makes it possible to change the background color without having to redefine the entire pattern.

One final observation about patterns: Unlike Image Fills, patterns are stored in a text file (Expression 3/patterns.txt) so you can't add or delete patterns by dropping files in a sub-directory. A delete button appears at the bottom of the Patterns List but deleting a pattern will delete it for all times. You can't get it back. If you intend to create a lot of patterns, consider creating a separate file (an .xpr file) and create shapes filled with the patterns. Save the file and you can then delete the patterns from the list. When you want a pattern, open the patterns.xpr file (or whatever you choose to name the file). Once you open the patterns.xpr file, the patterns will appear in the patterns list but only the patterns you actually use will remain in the list. If you own a copy of Expression 1, you will find 4 files of patterns which you can use this way.

Let's do one more exercise. This exercise will give you another opportunity to work with the Rotation tool and the Transformation palette. Ok, ready?

Exercise 4: First, scroll through the list of fonts in your Font palette and find one you like. A script font, a fun font, whatever you like. I'm using a font from the Font Garden called 'Mad Font' which you can download for the PC (top font in the list). Type a letter. I'm using the lowercase letter n. Either leave the font as it is, or rotate it. I'm rotating mine slightly so that it looks like this: Figure 24 - The letter N rotated for a pattern. You can give your font a color at this point, if you'd like to. Choose the Rotation tool and click on the point from which you want to rotate the letter. My rotation point is here: Figure 25 - The letter n rotation point. Set the Rotation Angle meter to 90% on the Transformation palette and click on the Apply to Duplicate button 3 times. This is my result: Figure 26 - A design from the letter n. Remember, when you create objects, only the last object you create is selected. At this point you might want to select all of the objects and group them together so your design won't come apart if you accidentally move one of the objects. Want to know how to select one object in a group of objects without selecting them all? The letter s shortcut key cycles between selecting the Object Select tool and the Group Select tool. With the Object Select tool you can only select all objects in a group. Clicking on one object selects them all. With the Group Select tool you can select individual objects within the group. Be careful though because the individual objects can also be moved with the Group Select tool. If you like this method of creating designs, experiment using the same letter but changing the point of rotation to create a different design. Use different letters and/or change the Rotation Angle. Here's a lowercase letter 'g' with the rotation point near the bottom of the letter, with 7 duplicates set to rotate at a 45 degree angle: Figure 27 - A design using the letter g.

Pattern Definition Box Options

New in Expression 3 is the ability to change the way the Pattern Definition box behaves. The default behavior is to keep the definition box visible after defining a pattern. In this case, once the pattern is defined, you must select the definition box and delete it manually. The other available option is to have the definition box automatically disappear after defining a pattern. To change the definition box behavior, choose File > Preferences and choose the Tools option from the drop down box. The last item in the General Options section is labeled 'Define pattern: keep def. box.' Placing a check mark in this box causes the definition box to remain after defining a pattern; unchecking the box causes the definition box to disappear. As you work with making patterns in this lesson, you will want to decide which option works best for you.

You may have noticed that when you edit a pattern, by either double clicking on the pattern in the Pattern Preview or by using the Edit button on the Paint Style palette, the Pattern Definition box opens in a new document window. You can delete the definition box using the delete key but the new document window will remain. For this reason, when editing a pattern it is best to get rid of the definition box by closing the new document rather than deleting the definition box. Otherwise, you'll have lots of opened documents and you may forget what they are for.

Gradients

Choosing the gradient button reveals a list of available gradients below the Fill Preview. You choose gradients by clicking on a gradient in the list. The Fill Preview will display your chosen gradient. Gradients are applied from left to right as they appear in the gradient list. The two buttons below the gradient list (on the right) let you choose between a linear or radial gradient. The Gradient Vector tool on the ToolBox palette allows you to change the direction of a gradient. We will try this in an exercise shortly, but first lets finish examining other gradient features available on the Paint Style palette.

If you find a gradient in the gradient list that is close to, but not exactly the gradient you want, choose a gradient that comes close to what you want and then either double click on the Fill Preview, double click on the gradient in the gradient list, or choose the Edit Gradient button under the gradient list to display the gradient editing section of the Paint Style palette. To create a new gradient, choose the New Gradient button. To delete a gradient, choose the gradient you want to delete and click the Delete Gradient button. Again, use caution here because the only way to get the gradient back is to reinstall Expression. Gradients are stored in a text file and deleting a gradient deletes that gradient information from the text file. If you are unsure about your decision, copy the grad.txt file in your Expression 3 directory and save it to another location for later retrieval. Lets do another exercise and test the gradient features.

Exercise 5: Choose the Rectangle tool from the ToolBox, choose the No Stroke button and the Gradient Fill button. Select a gradient from the gradient list, choose the Linear Gradient button, and drag a rectangle. Your rectangle is filled with the gradient you chose. Here's my rectangle: Figure 3 - A gradient filled rectangle. Choose the Gradient Vector tool in the ToolBox (fourth tool on the bottom row; fouth button in the second row if you're using the Expression 3 preview version) and click on the upper right-hand corner, drag to the lower left-hand corner and release the mouse. Notice that your gradient is now applied at the angle you dragged with the Gradient tool. Here's mine.   Figure 4 - A gradient redirected with the Gradient Vector tool. Drag from top to bottom with the Gradient Vector and notice how it affects the direction of the gradient. Drag in other directions and notice the change. Try dragging from above the rectangle to below it and notice that more of one color in the gradient is applied than would be the case if you had dragged in the same direction within the rectangle. Now lets create a new gradient. Choose the New Gradient button, type a name in the resulting dialog box, and click the Yes button to close the dialog box. Your new gradient is listed in the gradient list and is currently the active gradient. Our new gradient looks just like the one chosen when we chose the New Gradient button and we don't want this so lets edit the new gradient. Either double click on the new gradient in the list, double click on the gradient in the Fill Preview, or click on the Edit Gradient button and notice that the Paint Style palette changes to allow editing, as seen in Figure 5. Figure 5 - Gradient Editing Box. The gradient editor displays our color picker and you use this to change the colors of your gradient. The nodes under the gradient bar in the upper portion of the gradient editor determine where colors are applied to the gradient. As your cursor approaches the nodes, it changes to a solid black cursor. Clicking on a node displays the color for that node. You can move the nodes by dragging them to the left or right. Click on the first node and choose a new color. Notice that dragging the color wheel has an immediate effect on the gradient bar. When you have selected the color for the first node, select the second node. Again the color in the color picker changes to reflect the color on the gradient bar. Choose another color and notice that the gradient bar changes to reflect the new color. You can add nodes to add more colors to the gradient by clicking under the gradient bar in the location where you want the color to apply. Notice than when you move your cursor away from an existing node, the cursor changes to white with a little box to the right, indicating that it is ready to place a node when you click. Click in the center of the gradient to place a new node. Choose a color and the new color is applied to the new node. To remove a node, click on it and drag it down until it disappears and release your mouse button.

You can apply transparency to any node. Simply select the node by clicking on it. The node will change to display the color associated with the node. Move the slider below the gradient bar to the right to increase transparency, or to the left to decrease transparency.

The small triangle above the gradient bar is the midpoint marker that indicates where a color and transparency value lie. Move the marker to the left or right to change the midpoint, or the point at which the gradient begins to blend. When you are satisfied with your new gradient, click on the Commit button (the red check mark) to save the changes to the new gradient. Click on the Cancel button (to the left of the Commit button) to cancel the changes.

Homework Assignment

Enough talk already! Let's get down to some serious fun. You've been given a lot of information and the only good way to digest it is to practice what you've learned. So go ahead and create patterns using each of the methods presented here. Work with the Text tool until you are comfortable with it. The following suggestion might be a good way of practicing Text tool techniques:

You've been given many new shortcut keys to remember in this lesson. Something I found useful when I was learning the shortcuts was to create a reference document and open it while I was working in another document. All I needed to do was switch to the reference document to remember a shortcut. If you find this useful also, create a reference document and use the Text tool to enter the shortcuts you want to remember and save it as shortcuts.xpr. Open this document whenever you open Expression and then open another document that you intend to create your artwork on. When you need to remember a shortcut, simply switch to the reference document using the tabs at the bottom, right hand corner of the document window. Naming the document shortcuts.xpr with cause the name 'shortcuts' to appear on the document tab at the bottom of the document window so you know which one is the shortcut document.

This concludes lesson 2. Next week we will start exploring the drawing tools and learn what skeletal strokes are all about. See you then!