Text Captions

[Jimcamel]

I am having trouble setting up and anchoring the alignment of a Text field (or a Text Comment in a Style).

I can place a Text field on the screen, at say the lower left corner, and move it so its left edge is a few millimetres inside the lower left corner; and I populate it with 7 characters, e.g. "Comment".  I set the Alignment to LEFT. I can right-click on this field and mark it as with "Text Comment" (so I can put new text into it later using Apply Style ).

I can then turn this into a Style and give it a name.

When I invoke the Style I can see the text I initially entered into the field when I defined it - and I can add new text.  However, if the new text is longer than the initial 7 characters the centre point of the field starts to shift un-predictably and the left edge of the field slides off the screen.

How can I 'lock or anchor it' so the alignment does not move from the originally assigned position ?

note: this dynamic movement might be okay for comments that start in the vertical/horizontal centre of the screen - but the action doesn't work well if you want to locate comments in the 4 corners.  In the future, I want to use this to pick up IPTC tags from the image's metadata and since the length of these can vary, I need to be able to lock or anchor the field's starting position.  Should the "alignment" field influence this ?

jc

[davegee]

Move the CENTRE X control in the Animation Tab to -100.

DG

[Jimcamel]

Thanks Dave - that seems to provide a static shift to some degree - but depending upon the length of the text it still slides off the left side.*  

I do want to these for image captions like Title and Photographer Name ... so in the case of the lower-left corner, I want it to lock there and grow towards the centre as the length of the text changes - but NOT 'swim' around.  And conversely if I right-aligned one in the lower right corner, the right edge of the text should lock to the right side and grow to the centre is it lengthens.  I guess you could describe it as needing to lock the justification. 

* I went to that text object in 

[jkb]

with alignment left & Centre of Text at -100 the Text should stay where you place it & grow to the right.

It does when I use this method for aligningtext in a Menu slide.

Jill

[Jimcamel]

You guys were burning the proverbial midnight oil to answer that - thanks.

However, unless I am setting the [-100] at the wrong place, the label is still shifting way left after I change it to longer text.

Now I am on the Mac Beta version - and if you're on Win then maybe there is a difference.

Here are my steps... I parked the word "Shorter" in the lower-left corner. This is one of 3 labels on the slide (it's called Text4 - so I have to make sure that is selected and that is the one I am applying the properties/animation to....) so I have the properties tab set it to Alignment: Left. I went to the Animation tab and set the Center to [-100] ... at which point the label on the screen jumped to the right about an inch.  And I can see the green anchor 'control point' is to the left of my label now (as the -100 as shifted it away from the original '0' centre).  I dragged it back to near the left edge so it looked right.  Checking the 2 panels, alignment is still left and animation centre is ticked and -100.

After [close] it looks right on the preview.

Now, while remaining on this slide, I click [Styles and Themes], this label is offered as an editable caption - and I change it to "Shorter - but longer now"    And click [Apply].

It slides off the screen to the left.

So, am I clicking and setting the same options as you?  Is this a Mac/Beta difference ?  Or is the range of allowed adjustment just not very large.  I can use, for example, [-500] for Centre in Animation and it simply moves it farther but doesn't correct the option.

Now this may be the kicker.....after I make the above change on the [Styles and Themes] dialog, and then re-inspect the label - Alignment now shows Center; on the Animation panel the Centre is changed to '0'.

So, I don't think this is the desired behaviour.

 

[davegee]

If you are applying a Style AFTER making those changes then the Style is negating them. Make the changes to Centre after applying the Style OR create your own Style with placement and alignment changes. Styles are NOT additive - they replace all current animation.

DG

[Jimcamel]

Absolutely nailed it - thank you Dave for catching that.  As my experience grows with this (long time PS User), I'll get it figured out.  Thanks to everyone who chimed in on this!  The side benefit is that I also spent some detailed time exploring the Styles and Animation panels which was also beneficial.