Converting between Point Type and Paragraph Type

Point text is created with the type tool by clicking once in the document and typing. This kind of text has no right hand or bottom margins and so will create an infinitely long line unless you hit return as you type. This text is generally not what you want to use with SiteGrinder when you are outputting text as text instead of as a graphic or using text as a button or menu.

Paragraph text is created in one of two ways. You can option-click once with the type tool (alt-click on Windows machines) and fill in the dialog that appears with the size of box you desire, or you can click with the text tool without letting up on the button and drag out the rectangle to contain the text. Paragraph text is much better for use with SiteGrinder because it allows for much more careful placement on the final web page, and is required for scroll bar text.

Don't worry if you start out with the wrong rectangle. You can change it later by dragging its control points while you are editing the text. If you drag the control points while the layer is selected but the text is not being edited then you will scale the text as you resize the box, and this scaling cannot be reflected on the web pages SiteGrinder creates unless you output the text as a graphic.

If you need to convert text from point mode to paragraph mode or the other way around you can do this from Photoshop's Layer->Type menu.

Converting between Point Type and Paragraph Type:

You can convert point type to paragraph type to adjust the flow of characters within a bounding box. Or you can convert paragraph type to point type to make each text line flow independently from the others.

When you convert from paragraph type to point type, a carriage return is added at the end of each line of type (with the exception of the last line).

Important: When you convert paragraph type to point type, all characters that overflow the bounding box are deleted. To avoid losing text, adjust the bounding box so that all type is visible prior to conversion.

To convert between point type and paragraph type:

1.      Select the type layer in the Layers palette.

Choose Layer > Type > Convert to Point Text, or Layer > Type > Convert to Paragraph Text.