The Text Edit tool provides an easy and direct way to enter text into your sign. When you click on the icon above, the Text Edit tool become active, and the following property bar is displayed.

Entering text is very simple: just place the cursor anywhere you?d like, and click the left mouse button once. A large blinking cursor appears, indicating that you can enter text at that position and it will appear at the indicated height.

TIP: You can change the height of text by dragging either the top or bottom of the blinking cursor up or down, and the height will change accordingly.

Editing

To edit text, use the arrow keys on the keyboard, plus the Home and End keys to move around among the individual characters. Backspace and Delete function as you?d expect them to.

Property Bar

The text editing toolbar provides an easy way to access the properties of a text object. See below for a brief description of the features:

(Top Left Dropdown List)

This lists the available TrueType fonts in your system.

Height

Enter the height of the text here.

Length

This is the total length of the current line of text.

Alter Aspect

Click to de-link the height and length so they can be entered separately.

Anchor

This box lets you select where the anchor point is for the text object. This is useful when specifying the X,Y position numerically.

Align Left

Align Right

Align Center

These buttons will align a group of text objects, as well as align individual text objects so that, for example, when you type the text will expand to the right or from the center.

Live Spell Checking

This button enables or disables the Live Spell Check feature.

Scale

Use this to enter a relative scale factor to apply.

Letter Spacing

This controls the spacing between letters, also called tracking.

Word Spacing

This controls the spacing between words.

Line Spacing

This controls the spacing between lines when text objects are grouped, or when entering a new line of text.

Extend/Condense

This controls how scaled the letters are horizontally.

Horizontal Position of the Anchor - X

This is the horizontal position in the layout as a number.

Vertical Position of the Anchor - Y

This is the vertical position in the layout as a number.

Slant / Italic

This is the italic or slant of the letters, in degrees.

Skew

This is like Italic but applied vertically.

Rotation

This is angle of rotation in degrees.

Kerning Text

To change the spacing between letters in a text object (kerning), click and drag the small handles at the lower left corner of every letter.

To change the spacing all letters at once (tracking), click and drag the lower left or lower right handle of the text object.

Text Tool

The Text Edit tool provides an easy and direct way to enter text into your sign. When you click on the icon above, the Text Edit tool become active, and the following property bar is displayed.

Entering text is very simple: just place the cursor anywhere you'd like, and click the left mouse button once. A large blinking cursor appears, indicating that you can enter text at that position and it will appear at the indicated height.

TIP: You can change the height of text by dragging either the top or bottom of the blinking cursor up or down, and the height will change accordingly.

Editing

To edit text, use the arrow keys on the keyboard, plus the Home and End keys to move around among the individual characters. Backspace and Delete function as you'd expect them to.

Property Bar

The text editing toolbar provides an easy way to access the properties of a text object. See below for a brief description of the features:

Font List

This lists the available fonts in your system, broken down into four categories:

1. All Fonts
2. LED Wizard Fonts
3. Sign Wizard Fonts
4. TrueType Fonts

Height

Enter the height of the text here.

Length

This is the total length of the current line of text.

Alter Aspect

Click to de-link the height and length so they can be entered separately.

Anchor

This box lets you select where the anchor point is for the text object. This is useful when specifying the X,Y position numerically.

Align

These buttons will align a group of text objects, as well as align individual text objects so that, for example, when you type the text will expand to the right or from the center.

Live Spell Checking

This button enables or disables the Live Spell Check feature.

Scale

Use this to enter a relative scale factor to apply.

Letter Spacing

This controls the spacing between letters, also called kerning.

Word Spacing

This controls the spacing between words.

Line Spacing

This controls the spacing between lines when text objects are grouped, or when entering a new line of text.

Extend/Condense

This controls how scaled the letters are horizontally.

Horizontal Position of the Anchor - X

This is the horizontal position in the layout as a number.

Vertical Position of the Anchor - Y

This is the vertical position in the layout as a number.

Slant / Italic

This is the italic or slant of the letters, in degrees.

Skew

This is like Italic but applied vertically.

Rotation

This is angle of rotation in degrees.

Kerning Text

To change the spacing between letters in a text object (kerning), click and drag the small handles at the lower left corner of every letter.

To change the spacing all letters at once (tracking), click and drag the lower left or lower right handle of the text object.

Break Apart

The Break Apart command will break up a line of text into individual characters. This can be a handy feature if you wish to increase the size of one character without effecting the rest of the line. You can re-group the characters and select Convert to Text, and this will turn the individual characters back into a line of text.

Live Spell Checking

This command will toggle the live spell checking mode. In this mode, a red underline indicates a misspelled word, and you can Ctrl+Right Click on the text to see a list of options to take.

For example:

After Ctrl-Right-clicking on this graphic, you'll get this menu:

Select the correct word, or Add to Dictionary.

Convert to Text

Once you have broken up a line of text, you can select a group of characters and then select the Convert to Text command. This will take the characters you have selected and convert them into a line of text. If you have selected characters that are made up of different attributes, the line of text will be changed to reflect the attributes of the first character in the group.

Note that this will not work with text that has been imported from another program. The original text has to be entered with the LED Wizard Text Tool.

Change Copy

Enter the new copy for the selected line of text. You can enter multiple lines here and multiple objects will be created as needed.

The shortcut key for Change Copy is CTRL+T, or just T.

Change Case Tools

This menu presents various text cases you can choose from. Use Toggle to change the case of text. It will cycle through the following forms:

lowercase

Capitalized

Small Caps

UPPERCASE

Font Wizard

The Font Wizard provides a simple way to determine the best font match of a scanned letter set or imported bitmap file. Once this font is determined from the fonts on your system, you can then type over the bitmap with the standard Text Tool.

The steps for using this feature are:

1. Scan or import a bitmap of the logo.

2. Select the bitmap and choose the Font Wizard command.

3. The Font Wizard tool appears:

1. Draw a box around the letter you want to match, as shown above.

2. Type that letter (M, in the example above) on the keyboard. Note: You don't have to type it directly into the Letters box, as it will automatically go there.

3. Press the check mark/Find button to find the best match among the installed fonts. The following dialog box will appear as it searches:

4. Once you click on the font that matches best, it will be selected in the font list.

5. Then click on Close and the character will be placed on top of the bitmap in the font you chose at the same height. You can now continue typing with the text tool using this vector font.

Font Layout

This window lets you create a layout of an entire font quickly and easily.

Select the font and optionally the set of letters to include and press OK.

This font with this set of characters creates this layout.

Vertical

Use the Vertical command to convert the selected text into a vertical layout.

The control points around the text still work in vertical layout mode.

Vertical text is an option that is selected in the Text Menu. If you go back and uncheck it, the text will go back to normal horizontal mode.

Add Variable Text

This command will add a variable text property to the selected text. This allows a text object to have different data that's easily updated, and is used for LED stats in the title block templates.

For example, in your Title Block Template, you might have a field for Date. Instead of having a static text object that you have to update every time you make a new layout, you can make this into Variable Text using the data variable $DATE, in which case the current date is automatically updated.

See Edit Variable Text for more information on this dialog and a list of the available data variables.

Edit Variable Text

This command lets you edit variable text for an object. Variable Text goes into a standard or customized Title Block Template and provides data specific to the layout. As you can see below, there is a rich set of data variables to choose from.

A faster way to open this Template Text dialog box is to double click on an existing data variable text object. Normally, double clicking on an object while in the Layout Tool will launch Powerflow, but when done on a data variable object, it will open this dialog box instead.

If you are editing an item in an existing Title Block Template, you may have to Ungroup to access the individual data variable objects. Title block templates are merged into the layout as one large Group.

Template

This is the template text for the variable text. A variable is a text string starting with $ and will evaluate to different text or number, depending on the variable name. The above dialog box shows the $MODULE_COUNT_AND_NAMES variable for the current layout.

Variables

This is the list of variables you can pick from. Note that you can have multiple data variables together on the same line, which can be separated by spaces, dashes, commas, etc. In this case, you might select one from the list and then type in the additional data variables that you want on the same line.

The names are pretty self-explanatory, but following the name is a short description:

$AVG_MODULES_PER_FEET or $AVG_MODULES_PER_METER
Average modules per foot or meter as a linear measurement.

$AVG_MODULES_PER_SQUARE_FEET or $AVG_MODULES_PER_SQUARE_METER
Average modules per square foot or square meter.

$AVG_MODULE_SPACING_FEET, $AVG_MODULE_SPACING_INCHES, $AVG_MODULE_SPACING_MM
Average module spacing, as measured from the center of one module to the center of the next module. 6" average spacing is the same as 2 modules per foot, and 100mm average spacing is the same as 10 modules per meter.

$CAN_DEPTH or $CAN_DEPTH_SLASH
Depth of the sign. If there are multiple depths, each depth will be labled with a comma, as in "4 in, 8 in" or a slash, as in "60mm / 80mm."

$COMPANY
This data label will be derived from the name of the company on the account.

$DATE
The Date label is automatically updated with the current date, in the generic global format of DD MMM YYYY, as in 1 Jun 2019.

$DESIGNER
The name of the designer using the software, as derived from the name on the account. This can be overridden in the Job tab field called Designer.

$DIMS
The overall X and Y dimensions of the layout. This is measured as a bounding box around the layout. Note that an overall dimension may be larger than the text height of a letter set if there are rounded letters, descenders, etc.

$DOC_FACE_MATERIAL_COLOR, $DOC_FACE_MATERIAL_MAKE, $DOC_FACE_MATERIAL_NAME, $DOC_FACE_MATERIAL_THICKNESS
This set of variables are taken from the Face Materials list that you have entered into the Face Materials dialog box:

The actual Face Material used for the job should be chosen from the list in the Job tab in the upper right of the screen, and then the data variables will follow from the selection.

$FONT
If in your layout you typed in characters with a font chosen from the drop down list, then this font name will show up here. If you imported a letter set, then this field will not be auto updated. You can, of course, include a Font field and simply update it with the name of the font in the case of an import.

$ILLUMINATION
This is another of the data labels that you select in the Job tab. The field "Lighting" has some options to choose from, including Face Lit, Halo Lit, Push Through, etc.

$LETTER_HEIGHT
Similar to the data variable FONT, the LETTER HEIGHT only applies to characters typed in using a font from the list. It will not present a value for imported text or for a cabinet/cloud sign. When this variable is used, it will give a value based on the "Square Cap Height" of the font, meaning a character such as X, H, or Z for most fonts. This is the same number that you would enter in the Text Height field. The actual height may be different if there are rounded capital letters such as O, S, or G, or if there are descenders, such as y, j or q. If this seems too confusing or misleading, then you can use the more generic DIMS variable, which is a bounding box around the layout.

$MODULE_COUNT_AND_NAMES
This is one of the most popular and useful data variables - the number of modules in the layout and the module name. The format is the module count in parentheses and then the module same:
"(54) Qwik Mod 2 Blue"

$MODULE_BRAND $MODULE_COUNT_AND_NAMES
Another option here is to add the LED brand name before the module count and part number:
"Principal LED (54) Qwik Mod 2 Blue"

$MODULE_COUNT_AND_PART_NUMBERS
If instead of the module name, you want the part number to go with the module count, then you can use this variable:
"(54) PL-QM2-BL17-P"

$BRAND_NAME $MODULE_COUNT_AND_PART_NUMBERS

Adding the brand name to the beginning gives us this:
"Principal LED (54) PL-QM2-BL17-P"

$MODULE_BRAND $MODULE_COUNT_AND_NAMES - $MODULE_PART_NUMBER
And finally, for maximum verbosity, we can have brand name, module count, module name, and part number all together:
"Principal LED (54) Qwik Mod 2 Blue - PL-QM2-BL17-P"

$PS_COUNT_AND_NAMES
This data variable provides the power supply count and the power supply name:
"(1) Universal 120W"

$PS_BRAND $PS_COUNT_AND_NAMES
You can add the power supply brand name to the beginning as follows:
"Principal LED (1) Universal 120W"

$PS_COUNT_AND_PART_NUMBERS
Instead of the power supply name, you can use the part number instead:
"(1) PL-120-12-U"

$PS_BRAND $PS_COUNT_AND_PART_NUMBERS
And you can add the power supply brand name in front of the count and part number:
"Principal LED (1) PL-120-12-U"

$PS_COUNT_AND_NAMES ($PS_PART_NUMBER)
This data variable includes the power supply count, name, and part number. Note that the part number is in parantheses:
"(1) Universal 120W (PL-120-12-U)"

$PS_BRAND $PS_COUNT_AND_NAMES ($PS_PART_NUMBER)
This provides four data variables on the same line - the power supply brand, power supply count, power supply name, and power supply part number:
"Principal LED (1) Universal 120W (PL-120-12-U)"

$MODULE_NAME
The LED module name only.

$TOTAL_MODULE_COUNT
This will return a number of modules.

$TOTAL_WATTS
The total watts of the whole layout to two decimal points. If you want to add a label, such as "W" or "w" then add that after the data variable: "$TOTAL_WATTS W" or "$TOTAL_WATTS w"

$PS_NAME
The power supply name only.

$TOTAL_PS
The power supply count only. You can add parentheses around the number: ($TOTAL_PS)

$TOTAL_AREA_SQ_FEET or $TOTAL_AREA_SQ_METERS

The total area of the sign can be displayed as square feet or square meters. This is useful for face and back materials, but note that the layout is not nested.

$TOTAL_PERIMETER_FEET or $TOTAL_PERIMETER_METERS

The perimeter measurement, in feet or meters, can be used to estimate trim cap and channel letter return coil.

$TOTAL_FOOTAGE

The Total Footage data variable should only be used with fixed spacing modules! In general, the concept of "footage" is problematic with LEDs that have variable spacing, so be careful.

$DATE_US

This is the standard US date formatting, which returns the current date in the MMM DD, YYYY format, such as Jan 01, 2019.

$DATE_INTL
This returns the current date in the DD MMM YYYY format, such as 01 Jan 2019.

$DATE

This returns the current date in this format as the default: Jan 01, 2019. You can change the Date formatting in the Options dialog box, General tab.

In some cases on these data variables, you may want to add a label after the data is updated. To do this, enter the label after the data variable with a space in between. In other cases, a label is already added, such as a unit of measure.

For example, after $MODULE_COUNT you may want to add text such as "modules" or "mods" So you would enter "$MODULE_COUNT modules", or "$MODULE_COUNT mods" and get:

180 modules

180 mods

Just entering $MODULE_COUNT would give:

180

Please note that to edit a Variable Text Object, double click on it while in the layout Tool to bring up the Template Text dialog box.

Remove Variable Text

This command will remove any variable text from the selected object.

See Edit Variable Text for more information about variable text.

Please note that Variable Text is an attribute of a text object, it is not the text object itself. If you Remove Variable Text from a text object, that text object remains. Therefore if you want a static text object to be in your title block template, just type it in using the Text Tool.