Learn effective techniques for adding and customizing text to graphic panels. This article walks you through the step-by-step process of creating a new text layer, aligning the text, and making modifications to achieve eye-catching designs.
Key Insights
- The process of adding text to a graphic panel begins with creating a new text layer and using keyboard shortcuts for efficiency.
- Text alignment is crucial for professional-looking designs. The article demonstrates how to center align text, change character styles, and align text within a text box for optimal visual impact.
- Customization techniques, such as duplicating text, adjusting the size and shape of text boxes, using placeholder text, and changing text color are discussed to help create a polished and visually appealing design.
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In this video, we will be adding text to our panels. First, let’s begin by creating a new layer for our text.
We will double-click the layer, name it 'Text, ' and hit ENTER. Next, we’ll use the Type Tool (shortcut T) on the keyboard to create our text. We’ll start by clicking above the title bar and typing '25%, ' then hitting ENTER to drop down to the next line, 'Growth over 10 years.'
From here, we’ll realign our text to center. As we can see, '25%' wasn’t centered because it wasn’t highlighted, so we’ll double-click on '25%' and center it. Next, let’s change up our character. The first thing we’re going to change is our '25%.' We’ll go to Character, type in 'Chivo, ' and select 'Chivo Bold.'
For the bottom text, we’ll triple-click to highlight it and go into Character. We’ll type 'Chivo, ' and for this, I’m simply going to use 'Chivo Regular.' I’ll hit CTRL + SHIFT + A to deselect, and we’ll see the change. Next, we need to align this text within our text box.
To do this, we’ll hit V on the keyboard and select the text. Holding shift, we’ll select the title panel. We will then go to Align in the control bar, select 'Align to Key Object, ' and choose the title panel as our key object. We’ll then align horizontally and vertically, and our text fits nicely within it.
If we need to make changes to our text, we can simply click on it, adjust the size, or in the case of my text, I’ll triple-click the text below. Within Character, I’ll shorten the spacing between the two. I’ll close this panel, hit CTRL + SHIFT + A to see the result, and this looks good.
Next, let’s create additional text in the panel below. For this text, we’re going to duplicate the title from above by hitting V on the keyboard and selecting the title text. We’ll then hit ALT to copy it and move it below.
Finally, we’ll want to change the dialog box so that it covers the entire distance of the panel. We’ll double-click the circle to the right (if it’s white), allowing us to expand the bounding box without changing the size of our text. We’ll expand the bounding box so that it covers the entire area.
Next, we want to shrink our bounding box slightly. I’ll hit ESC on the keyboard to have only the bounding box and drag in from the corner, holding shift to maintain the appropriate shape and ALT to resize from the center.
We’ll leave it right about here so that there’s padding on the sides. Now, we want to fill this with Lorem Ipsum text. To do this, we’ll right-click and select 'Fill with Placeholder Text.'
We now have Lorem Ipsum filled in here, along with the text we started with. Let’s double-click and delete the text above by highlighting it and hitting backspace. Additionally, let’s select all using CTRL + A. I’m going to reduce the size to 10 points since this will be small text.
We’ll then right-click again and select 'Fill with Placeholder Text.' Now, we have additional text.
Finally, to give it the look of two paragraphs, I’m going to delete these lines by hitting backspace. I’ll add a period and drop this final line onto the last line.
Additionally, we have some hyphens. We can remove these by hitting CTRL + A on the keyboard to select all, then going into our Paragraph settings. We’ll select 'Hyphenate Off' and click Paragraph again. In this case, we’ve removed the hyphens; however, we’ve added one extra line on top. Since this is Lorem Ipsum, I’ll simply delete the last line, add a period, and hit ENTER. Now, we have some placeholder text.
As one final change, I want to make the text for both of these white instead of black, since I have a dark blue color. Depending on the color you’ve chosen, white or black may look more appropriate. To change the color, I’ll hit ESC on the keyboard. Then, hitting V, I’ll select both the bottom text and, holding shift, select the top text. We’ll go into Color, where we can choose either white or black. In this case, I like the look of white.
I’ll then click outside, and this looks good. Let’s save our work using CTRL + S on the keyboard to save. In the next video, we will continue stylizing our pie graph. See you in the next video!