Is it possible to save text effects to easily apply to copy and pasted text?
I have created some aged text effects (with the help of others on here) for a product I am working on. The product is a deck of cards for a fantasy RPG game and there will be well over 100 cards.
To make it slightly easier on me I am simply copy and pasting the text from a PDF into the template for each card I make. The problem I am having is that it is taking way to long to recreate the text effects for each card. Is there a way to save the text effects along with font style and size so I do not have to recreate it for every card?
Thanks ahead!
Bruce
Re: Is it possible to save text effects to easily apply to copy and pasted text?
Depending on the complexity of the applied 'effects' you can copy (Ctrl+C) then paste attributes (Ctrl+Shift+A).
This will paste the attributes from the text with the effects and apply them to the text without the effects. Not all attributes are transferable in this way though.
Re: Is it possible to save text effects to easily apply to copy and pasted text?
Why not turn it on its head?
Apply all your effects to one text block.
Clone and reposition that, then, with the Text Tool applied, select all the text and paste in the new text.
Repeat.
If across 100 pages, do the first and set it as a Repeating Object then stop it updating on all pages.
Acorn
Re: Is it possible to save text effects to easily apply to copy and pasted text?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Acorn
Why not turn it on its head?
Apply all your effects to one text block.
Clone and reposition that, then, with the Text Tool applied, select all the text and paste in the new text.
Repeat.
If across 100 pages, do the first and set it as a Repeating Object then stop it updating on all pages.
Acorn
Do you mean I should have all the separate cards open at once?
FYI each card is a separate file. Can Xara 10 handle all those open at once?
Edit: I would need to know how to do all that. Can you explain better?
Re: Is it possible to save text effects to easily apply to copy and pasted text?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
steve.ledger
Depending on the complexity of the applied 'effects' you can copy (Ctrl+C) then paste attributes (Ctrl+Shift+A).
This will paste the attributes from the text with the effects and apply them to the text without the effects. Not all attributes are transferable in this way though.
Well I would be happy with just the font style and size. Though I have aged effects that would look nice but I am not sure how well they will be seen in such a small format.
Re: Is it possible to save text effects to easily apply to copy and pasted text?
You might want to explore Adobe Illustrator's Graphic Styles "A graphic style is a set of reusable appearance attributes" is how Adobe help describes it.
This may be worth it, if you have lot to do. A free trial of Illustrator will work for 30 days and you may be able to import your Xara work into Illustrator to save some time (and decrease the Illustrator learning curve).
Illustrator won't recognize certain aspects of Xara's features, like some fills and transparencies, so you would have to make some aspects of your designs directly in Illustrator.
The neat thing about Graphic Styles is that they can all be saved and used in new projects. You may be able to get a legal copy of Illustrator CS5 or 6, which has this feature so that you don't get involved in the Creative Cloud debacle. Anyway, the link I provided in my first line will give you an insight into what it can do and whether it's worth investing any time & money away from Xara.
Bob.
Re: Is it possible to save text effects to easily apply to copy and pasted text?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
iamtheblues
You might want to explore Adobe Illustrator's Graphic Styles "A graphic style is a set of reusable appearance attributes" is how Adobe help describes it.
This may be worth it, if you have lot to do. A free trial of Illustrator will work for 30 days and you may be able to import your Xara work into Illustrator to save some time (and decrease the Illustrator learning curve).
Illustrator won't recognize certain aspects of Xara's features, like some fills and transparencies, so you would have to make some aspects of your designs directly in Illustrator.
The neat thing about Graphic Styles is that they can all be saved and used in new projects. You may be able to get a legal copy of Illustrator CS5 or 6, which has this feature so that you don't get involved in the Creative Cloud debacle. Anyway, the link I provided in my first line will give you an insight into what it can do and whether it's worth investing any time & money away from Xara.
Bob.
Interesting you should mention all that. I am on the beta team for Adobe Illustrator and have access to the creative cloud apps. I know how dynamic Illustrator is but I honestly prefer Xara. There are some things Xara does so much better like import png graphics and textures. Acrobat does not do that very well. I've tried importing some textures into Adobe using that tool (whatever the name is) and at best I get a pattern or a texture but it is usually solid white in color and the actual texture is changed some. OTH, Xara takes the texture as is color and all, I just link the folder to Xara and it works, no fuss.
Re: Is it possible to save text effects to easily apply to copy and pasted text?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Madmax
Do you mean I should have all the separate cards open at once?
FYI each card is a separate file. Can Xara 10 handle all those open at once?
Edit: I would need to know how to do all that. Can you explain better?
Is there a reason that each card has to be in a separate file?
There is no impediment for opening lots of separate files; they will all appear in tabs.
I would have thought that as these are a deck of cards, you ought to have created one file with 100 pages as you could have set up the common elements in the first page and simply duplicate that page multiple times. I am not certain if Live Copies are available in your product; you'll need to check in the Help.
The point of your Post was getting the text effect attributes into each card.
Create a text block with all the required attributes.
Use the Select Tool to clone or Copy and move or Paste the copy to another card.
Open this with the Text Tool.
Copy the needed text from your PDF document and paste over the text with all the effects.
PDF copy & paste, I have found, provides text without formatting.
If I am wrong, you need to drop it into Notepad and copy out from there.
Tedious but achieves a consistent result.
Acorn
Re: Is it possible to save text effects to easily apply to copy and pasted text?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Acorn
Is there a reason that each card has to be in a separate file?
There is no impediment for opening lots of separate files; they will all appear in tabs.
I would have thought that as these are a deck of cards, you ought to have created one file with 100 pages as you could have set up the common elements in the first page and simply duplicate that page multiple times. I am not certain if Live Copies are available in your product; you'll need to check in the Help.
The point of your Post was getting the text effect attributes into each card.
Create a text block with all the required attributes.
Use the Select Tool to clone or Copy and move or Paste the copy to another card.
Open this with the Text Tool.
Copy the needed text from your PDF document and paste over the text with all the effects.
PDF copy & paste, I have found, provides text without formatting.
If I am wrong, you need to drop it into Notepad and copy out from there.
Tedious but achieves a consistent result.
Acorn
Each card has to be separate because of the way the input process works at thegamecrafter.com. There is a way to do a single file multi-card input but it does not work very well. Which is why it's usually recommended to produce a separate file for each card.
I can copy and paste text for the most part without any problem, except it usually removes any special fonts I use. Which brings me to another problem I have with identifying the font whenever I open it in Xara.
For some reason every time I open one of these files I get this error message:
Quote:
This document contains fonts that are not currently installed (Including WarnockPro-bold and WarnockPro-regular). They have been substituted. Use the name gallery to identify and if necessary replace the fonts.
I don't change anything and the fonts are still the ones the program identified as being not installed. They are listed in the dropdown list of fonts to select from. I am not even sure why I get that message but it happens every time I open the template to create a new card or one of the ones I have already created.
Re: Is it possible to save text effects to easily apply to copy and pasted text?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Madmax
I don't change anything and the fonts are still the ones the program identified as being not installed. They are listed in the dropdown list of fonts to select from. I am not even sure why I get that message but it happens every time I open the template to create a new card or one of the ones I have already created.
Can you not install the font into a design file once and save that as File > Save Template...?
Acorn
