Text

A text puts words on a picture or a video. Press Text in the Add menu and it lands selected, with its Text tab open along the bottom. To change the words, select the text and tap it again (or press Enter), and type; Escape or a tap elsewhere puts it down. Two list buttons, Bullet list and Numbered list, put markers down the left of what you have typed — one per line, in their own column, so the words stay on a straight edge however far the count runs. Press the one that is on to turn it off.

A Shape, at the start of the border row, puts a shape behind the words: a plain Box, a chat bubble, a speech balloon, a thought cloud, a shout burst, or a bubble whose tail ends in an arrow. Each one wraps whatever you have typed and grows with the words. Once a shape is on it starts in the same colour as your words, its Border and Fill colours join the text colour on the colour row, and the border row splits into Bubble, Width and Padding — press one to open it and the others close. Padding sets how much room the shape leaves around the words — at zero it sits right against them. The fill starts blank, so a bubble sits over a picture without hiding it, and every colour has a ✕ to clear it again — including the text's own, which leaves hollow lettering. Pick an Outline colour and Outline width appears at the end of the colour row; its number is the thickness of the line you see round the letters, as a shape's Width is.

A selected bubble with a tail shows two small blue rings on the picture whenever it is big enough on screen (pinch to zoom in on a small one) — drag the outer one to aim the tail at whoever is speaking, and the one on the bubble's edge to move where the tail leaves it. Swing that edge ring round and the whole tail comes with it, so the bubble never folds through itself. On the thought cloud the same two rings aim the trail of dots and set how far it reaches — pull it further out and the dots grow to fill the distance. Arrow keys nudge a ring a pixel at a time, and holding Shift moves it ten.

A text's Text tab shows its settings with a card at the right end: the sample word Abc in the look the text wears, named for that look. Press the card to open a strip of looks in the settings' place, its search at the strip's start — Bold, Karaoke, Headline, Sunset, Highlight, Neon and Minimal, the same looks a video caption offers, and none of them moves the words (Headline and Sunset differ only in their colours) — then the looks you have starred, every card showing Abc in its look rather than your words; type to narrow it, and the card's close, or Escape, goes back to the settings. A look sets the type's size, weight, capitals, colour and outline and leaves your font, alignment and shape alone; change any of those and the card reads Custom, and the star on the Starred row of that strip's search stars it as a look for text, captions and tables alike.

The settings the tab does not show itself — a bubble's own shape and its line's style among them — stand behind the settings button at the right end of the colour row, which opens them in the tab's place; press it again, or Escape, to put them away. Hover over one of those settings, or hold a finger still on it, and it shows a sentence saying what it does, without changing its value.

Where you can use a text

• Image — Groups
• Video — Groups

What you can do with a text you made

The star on the text's card stars the text whole, and a starred text can be put into another picture or video:

Star · Copy

Text

• Size — How big the text’s letters are, in pixels.
• Letters — How much space stands between the letters, in pixels; below zero they draw closer together.
• Weight — How heavy the letters are, on a font that can change its weight.
• Width — How wide the letters are, on a font that can change its width.
• Lines — How far apart a text’s lines stand, as a share of the font’s own line height.
• Font — Which font the words are set in.
• Bold — Whether the text’s letters are bold.
  • Off · On
• Italic — Whether the text’s letters are italic.
  • Off · On
• Underline — Whether a line runs under the text’s words.
• Strikethrough — Whether a line runs through the text’s words.
• Capitals — Whether the text’s words are shown in capital letters, whatever was typed.
• Align — Which side the text’s lines start from: the left, the middle or the right.
  • Left · Center · Right
• Bubble — Which bubble stands behind the words — a box, a speech balloon, a cloud — or none.
  • No bubble · Box · Chat bubble · Speech balloon · Thought bubble · Shout burst · Arrow bubble
• Squareness — How square the bubble’s round body is, from an ellipse toward a box.
• Points — How many teeth the shout bubble’s burst has.
• Waist — How far the shout bubble’s teeth stand off its body.
• Padding — How much room stands between the text and its bubble’s edge, in pixels.
• Tail tip — Where the bubble’s tail points, as a share of the text box across and down from its top-left corner.
• Tail base — Where round the bubble its tail sets off, as an angle in radians from the right, turning clockwise.

A text's colour and its outline, a colour ramp across its words, and its bubble's colour and line are its ink — the same settings a shape's fill and line hold, each described on the Shape page.