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CONTENTS This section will help you create and manipulate objects on a page. An object is an additional element, which is separate from the text that appears on the page. Examples of an object are - a line, a circle or a picture. Objects are created from the Drawing Tools palette ("Drawing Tools" command, View menu) or from the "Create Object" command (Object menu): CREATING A TABLE CREATING A TEXT FRAME DRAWING A LINE, OVAL, OR BOX DRAWING A TEXTEFFECT INSERTING OR CREATING AN OBJECT PLACING A PICTURE USING EPS SCALABLE PICTURES Objects can be manipulated in many ways: ADD THEM TO ALL PAGES ARRANGING THE DEPTH OF OBJECTS DUPLICATING OBJECTS GROUPING AND UNGROUPING OBJECTS INFORMATION ABOUT OBJECTS LOCKING AND UNLOCKING OBJECTS MOVING AN OBJECT SELECTING AND SIZING OBJECTS * USING OBJECTS Creating A Table A table is a grid comprising rows and columns of cells. Choose CREATE OBJECT (Object menu) and select Table from the list. Then drag an outline of the table frame on the page. When the Selection button is released, the table is created. Alternatively, show the drawing tools palette, and click the Tables icon ("Drawing Tools" command, View menu). The Ctrl key, when creating a Table, will constrain the box to a square. The Information command (Object menu) displays the following information: ° Frame position and size ° Fill colour ° Border colour and style ° Grid thickness and colour ° Text flow around the frame When you create a table, you view a selection of cells from a much larger area of cells. When a table is resized larger, more cells will come into view. If a table is shrunk, some of the cells will disappear. If cells move out of view, they are not deleted. This means that you can view them again by just enlarging the view of the table. Once a table has been created, you can: MOVE IT around the document, SELECT IT , RESIZE IT to a new size, GROUP/UNGROUP it with other objects, LOCK/UNLOCK it to the page, or DUPLICATE IT many times. * USING OBJECTS Creating A Text Frame A text frame is a small independent, floating page, that contains text, which can be sized, altered and moved like any other object. Choose CREATE OBJECT (Object menu) and select "Text Frame" from the list. Then drag an outline of the text frame on the page. When the Selection button is released, the text frame is created. Alternatively, show the drawing tools palette, and click the Text Frame icon ("Drawing Tools" command, View menu). The Ctrl key, when creating a Text Frame, will constrain the box to a square. The Information command (Object menu) displays the following information: ° Frame position and size ° Margins inside the frame ° Fill colour ° Border colour and style ° Number of columns ° Text flow around the frame Once a text frame has been created, you can: MOVE IT around the document, SELECT IT , RESIZE IT to a new size, GROUP/UNGROUP it with other objects, LOCK/UNLOCK it to the page, or DUPLICATE IT many times. ADD IT TO ALL PAGES . * USING OBJECTS Drawing A Line, Oval, or Box On The Page To draw one of these shapes, choose CREATE OBJECT (Objects menu) and select one of the drawing tools from the list (Line, Box, Rounded Box, Circle or Oval) Alternatively, show the drawing tools palette, and click one of the shape object icons ("Drawing Tools" command, View menu). Drag the mouse pointer across the page and an outline of the object will appear. Releasing the Selection button will create the object on the page. The Ctrl key, when creating an object, will constrain its size as follows: Line ........... Constrains line to 90° Box ............ Constrains box to a square Oval ........... Constrains oval to a circle Once an object has been created, you can: MOVE IT around the document, SELECT IT , RESIZE IT to a new size, GROUP/UNGROUP it with other objects, LOCK/UNLOCK it to the page, or DUPLICATE IT many times. ADD IT TO ALL PAGES . * USING OBJECTS Drawing A TextEffect To create a TextEffect, select the TextEffects object from the "Create Object" list and drag the mouse pointer across the page, then choose INFORMATION command (Object menu) to see the TextEffects Information requester. The Ctrl key, when creating a TextEffects frame, will constrain the box to a square. The Preset gadget displays a list of preset effects that will be applied to the text you type into the Contents box. Once a preset has been selected, you can change any of the parameters to create your own new style. Available Effects: ° Line - Text along a line ° Circle - The first and last letters of the text will touch forming a circle ° Spiral In - Text is spiralled inwards to the centre of a circle ° Spiral Out - Text is spiralled outwards from the centre of a circle. NOTE: When using the spiral options, it is usually best to have a last character size of less than 50% for the best results. * USING OBJECTS Inserting Or Creating An Object You can create various types of objects: Drawing Tools - CIRCLES, OVALS, BOXES, LINES and TEXTEFFECTS . Other - PICTURES , TEXT FRAMES and TABLES . Choose the object from the "Drawing Tools" palette or use the "Create Object" command (Object menu), and drag the pointer on the page. The object is drawn between the points where you drag the mouse. Once created, INFORMATION can be obtained on an object. The information available will include, its position and size, its colour and other attributes concerning its style. The Ctrl key, when creating an object, will constrain its size as follows: Line ........... Constrains line to 90° Box ............ Constrains box to a square Oval ........... Constrain oval to a circle TextEffects .... Constrains frame to a square Text Frame ..... Constrains frame to a square Picture Frame .. Constrains frame to a square Table .......... Constrains Table to a square To cancel the creation of an object, press the Menu button whilst holding down the Selection button when it is being created. * USING OBJECTS Placing A Picture Choose "Place Picture" (Object menu) to place a picture into your document. Wordworth accepts any standard Amiga IFF graphics file, any resolution or size, from 2 to 256 colours, 4096 colours (HAM), or 256,000 colours (HAM8). You can also place pictures in other bitmap formats including BMP, PCX, GIF, TIFF and IMG. Alternatively, select the "Picture Frame" object from either the "Drawing Tools" palette or "Create Object" command (Object menu) and drag a frame on the page. With the frame selected, choose "Place Picture" to import the graphic into the frame. This is useful if you wish to place a picture that is much bigger than needed on the page. You dictate the size of the picture by creating the frame to the size you wish the picture to be. INFORMATION on pictures can be obtained to enable you to specify if the picture is "Hot Linked" or "Cool Linked", whether "Colour 0" is transparent, the dimensions and position of the picture and whether you wish to have "Text Flow" around the picture. NOTE: You cannot use "Contour Text Flow" around CGM pictures. Vector Graphics Wordworth 3 also supports the EPS , CGM and GEM Vector graphic formats. A Scalable Vector graphic is like an outline font and can be scaled to any size without loss of quality. This also means that when printing, you get perfect quality printouts. Due to their complexity, Vector graphics are slower to manipulate and print than bitmapped pictures. NOTE: Floppy disk users may find that placing pictures in any other format than IFF and CGM will not work. This is because the other picture formats are disabled by default. To enable them, just drag the appropriate filters out of the Storage drawer (found in the `Filters/Pictures' drawer, Ww3Outlines disk) into the `Filters/Pictures' drawer and re-run the program. * USING OBJECTS Using EPS Scalable Pictures An EPS Scalable picture is like an outline font and can be scaled to any size without loss of quality. This also means that when printing, you get perfect quality printouts. Choose "Place Picture" (Object menu) to place an EPS picture on the page, or within a pre-drawn picture frame. You may notice that the screen display of your EPS pictures is not very good, this is because the picture used on-screen is only a preview of the picture. The picture will, however, print at the highest possible quality. Due to their complexity, Vector graphics are slower to manipulate and print than bitmapped pictures. NOTE: EPS picture support is only available for hard disk users who have at least 3MB of memory. Advanced Users Within the Wordworth3/WwFiles drawer there is a text file called `eps_init.ps', this file is a prologue for EPS graphics and can be edited if wanted. The last line of the file can be altered to change the halftone dithering of a graphic to improve the quality of the printed picture. * USING OBJECTS Arranging The Depth Of Objects You can specify the depth of an object in relation to the other objects on the page. To move an object in front of another, select it and choose "Move Forward" (Object menu), "Move Backward" will move the object behind another. You can move an object right to the back of all other objects by choosing "Send to Back" (Object menu), or to the front using "Bring to Front" (Object menu). * USING OBJECTS Duplicating Objects Choose Duplicate (Object menu) to quickly clone any selected objects. NOTE: The text within `Text Frames' and Tables is not duplicated with the object when using this command. * USING OBJECTS Add Object To All Pages Choose "Add To All Pages" (Object menu) to add any selected objects to all pages in your document. Any new pages that are created will have these objects automatically placed on them. To delete an individual object from one page, select it, press the Del key (or choose Erase, Edit menu), and click Selected when asked which objects you wish to delete. To delete an object from all pages, select one of the objects, press the Del key (or choose Erase, Edit menu), and click "All Pages" when asked which objects you wish to delete. NOTE: Tables and `grouped' objects cannot be added to all pages. * USING OBJECTS Grouping And Ungrouping Objects Use the Group command (Object menu) to make multiple objects act as one object, (for example, a group of objects all move together and are sized together) Use Ungroup (Object menu) to split the group into its original separate elements. * USING OBJECTS Information About Objects Use the CREATE OBJECT command (Object menu) to create an object on the page. When an object is selected, you can inspect its attributes by either double-clicking it, or choosing the Information command (Object Menu). Information about an object may consist of its position on the page, dimensions, colour, border style and colour, if it repels text and so on. NOTE: When you type information into a text gadget, you must complete the entry by pressing the Return key, otherwise the entry may be ignored. * USING OBJECTS Locking And Unlocking Objects An object, can be locked onto the page so that it cannot be deleted, moved or changed. Choose Lock (Object menu) to lock all selected objects to the page, Unlock (Object menu) reverses the lock command. When the mouse pointer moves over a locked object, it changes into a padlock. A locked object also has hollow handles when selected. * OBJECTS Moving An Object Move an object by selecting the object and while holding down the Selection button, move the outline of the object to its new position. The Ctrl key, when moving an object, will keep the object along the same horizontal or vertical axis. To cancel the moving of an object, press the Menu button whilst holding down the Selection button. Precise positioning can be obtained by selecting the object, and choosing INFORMATION (Object menu). Whilst text flow is switched on, objects cannot be moved between pages. This also applies to objects that have been `Added to all pages'.