Real-DRAW Basics

Text Object

This tool allows you to add text.

To add text, click the Artistic Text tool and click anywhere on the canvas. A dialog box, to enter the text in, will appear. You can edit the text anytime by double-clicking on the text object or using the shortcut Ctrl-T.

The text input dialog

Here you can input the text, select the font, its initial size, choose if it is italic, bold, and also select alignment. Type some text and press OK.
You can resize the text freely after you enter it, so you don't have to set the size if you are not sure what size text you require.

Real Size

Because you can resize the text afterwards, the Real Size indicates what the real size of the text is. If you start new text, or never resize the text, the Font Size and Real size will remain the same..

If you resize the text (for example from 20), the real size will change (in our case 68.0), but the Font Size will stay the same size as that which you initially entered. Note that the Real size may not be an integer number. You can return back to the initial size (here 20), by simply pressing the

Reset to Original Size button. 

The text will return to its original size (20) and the Real Size will change to the same number.

Note: By resizing the text, the x/y ratio may change. To make sure your text is in correct size, you may simply reset the size and then type the number, which was originally set as the Real size.

Character map
You can find the Character map button on the Text dialog next to the font selection.

The character map is great if you select a 'dingbar' or 'specialty' font (for example Windings), it allows you to see all the characters. When you select one and press OK, the character will be written in the text location within the text edit box. In the case of 'dingbars', you will see a corresponding letter. You can use the Character map to look for a special character, and if you really hate typing, you can even write whole sentences with it. But, if you have a sticky keyboard - you should really replace it :)

With the selection tool, you can resize and move the text.
With the shape tool, you can change the Envelope of the Text
You also can use Skew or Rotate tools.

With the envelope you can easily shape the text. There are upper and lower lines, each with two Path points. By moving the points and/or handles, you can give the text different shapes. If you want to reset the transformations, from menu: Text select Reset Transformations.

To Edit the Path points of the text; go to menu: Text and select Convert to Polynome.
This will convert the text to Polynome objects (Path points and handles)
Note: You can't change the text context anymore because the object is now a Polynome.

You can combine the text with other objects with the Combine Tool