Printable View
I would like to color letters. The bottom half one color and the top half another. I tried changing them to an editable shape which doesn't seem to work. Tried with the fill tool to no avail. I can duplicate the letter change the color of one of them then erase the top half of one and delete the bottom half of the other and join them but that doesn't seem like a good use of time.
Bob
Select your line of text, click on the fill tool, in Fill Type apply linear, now it's a gradation from white to black. Rotate the linear fade to point in the direction you want (I'm assuming up and down). Choose a color which applies to the black side of the fade, click on the other end of the fade line, select your other color - that's it. You don't need to convert to shape, as you can go back and change the text, but maintain the chosen color fade still applied. Fairly easy to do.
Intersect/slice shapes
Gameprinter's method is what I have used whenever I want to reuse/edit the text. If you download the sample XAR file, there are two nodes for each stop. You'll need to zoom way in on the letter "L".
Attachment 100432
I tried Gameprinters method and like it, but when I'm pulling it down it doesn't want to go straight ( Kind of a wobble effect). If I understood the intersect/slice function better I would probably go with the method Jim Toal said. Heck I'd be happy to figure that one out. The XARA help file is sometimes a little sketchy. And other times a lot sketchy.
Bob
Why not just use ClipView to colour the letters?
Sometimes it helps to zoom in close so you can see the fade line clearly, and nudge your mouse to get it straight - sometimes its fiddly, I agree, but I seem to get it to work fine. I use both color and transparency fades all the time, though more often I am using the fractal cloud filter, rather than linear, but operations are identical for color changing and adjusting.
If you hold down the Ctrl key when applying the linear fill it will constrain the fill arrow to specific angles. The angles can be set in options but it should work for what you are after, right out of the box.