Hi,

There are still a lot of things you can do with text in Painter 5:

Drop Shadows (Effects menu, Objects, Create Drop Shadow)

Convert to Selection and fill with a Pattern, apply Effects menu options, paint in the Selection (Shapes menu, Convert to Selection)

Apply Bevel Effects (Objects palette, P.Float section, Bevel World)

Distort (Group, or Group and Collapse all of the text Shapes and in the Effects menu, choose Orientation, Distort. Click and drag the center top bounding box handle to push or pull the text and make it taller, shorter. Click and drag the right center or left center bounding box handle to make it wider or narrower. Click and drag the right top and bottom, or left top and bottom, corner bounding box handles to make the text appear to be in perspective.)

Arrange the text on a curve (Oval Shape tool, draw a circle or ellipse, click each letter and in the Shapes menu, Convert to Floater, then in the Effects menu, choose Orientation, Rotate and click and drag one of the bounding box handles until the letter is rotated to the angle you want. If the letter is blurred, in the Effects menu, choose Focus, then Sharpen and move the Radius slider while viewing the change in the Preview window. Once you've finished, the Oval Shape can be deleted (Objects menu, Floater section, click the Shape, then click the Delete button... or... click the Shape with the Floater Adjuster tool, then hit the Backspace key.)

This is by far not as easy as working with Dynamic Text in Painter 6 but at least you can accomplish a lot in Painter 5.

There may be more that I've forgotten to mention and others in the Painter Forum will hopefully fill in the gaps.

In the meantime, I hope this helps a little.

Happy New Year!

Jinny Brown
http://www.pixelalley.com
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