Text does not align correctly

[modern_min]

I am a new user.  One of my key requirements is to display the file name of a slide as text.  This is a variable length string.  I have watched the videos and trawled through the forum for hours to learn how to do this, but two things happen (whether I set the rotation center to -100 or not):

1.)  As soon as I set the rotation center to -100, the text box jumps to the right of where I placed it.

2.) When I apply the style to all my slides, the file name text moves unpredictably to the right or left on different slides.  I have selected left justification.

Like previous posters, going back to 2020, I just want to tell PTE where I want the text to start and to extend the text to whatever length it requires.

Please help me, someone.  I am getting more and more depressed about my inability to get the result I want.

By the way, what has the rotation center got to do with the matter, and why the magic -100?

[Barry Beckham]

I can’t quite get my head around why you want to adjust the rotation centre, but does this video help,in any way?

 

 

[modern_min]

Thank you, Barry, for taking the time to offer help.  The video is indeed very useful.  Putting the automatically generated title in the upper middle of the screen with the justification set to 'centre' means that it is always correctly positioned, whatever its length - I will try that.  Although it was not part of my enquiry, I have realised I do have slides with different aspect ratios in the same show, so showing them at 85% zoom, below the title,  as you suggest, would be a good idea.

It may (or may not) be of interest to you that the particular projects I am working on are slideshows of butterflies, moths, plants, etc. These are 'record' shots, where precise detail is more important that artistic merit.  I want to use text captions for the English Name (taken from the File Name), Latin Name (inserted manually), Place (inserted manually) and Date (taken from EXIF).  Using the above approach, I ought to be able to display the English and Latin names at the top of the screen, centred, and the Place and Date at the bottom of the screen, also centred.  This avoids having to have the text on top of the image, fading it to allow the viewer to move their attention from the text to the image, which was my original intention.  The only disadvantage I can see is that the images will be smaller, so the distinguishing features of the subjects may be more difficult to discern.

In short, you have set me on a path that I had not considered, for which I am indebted to you.

Just to spoil this euphoria, however, I would like to return to my original issue, which I feel I did not adequately explain.  It is one that has come up previously on the forum, and usually ends with the originator saying 'thanks, that has fixed it'.  Here it is:  When you create a text object which is automatically derived from a variable length string, such as File Name, with justification set to 'left', and apply this as a style to multiple slides, you would expect the beginning of the text to be aligned where you put it.  But this is not what happens.  Instead, it behaves more like centre-justified text, expanding in both directions when encountering a longer value.  This results in a very scrappy presentation, with the text sometimes going partially off the screen.  The usual answer is to set justification to 'left' and Center to '-100'.  (I apologise for calling this 'Rotation Centre' - I was confused, because this point is also used as the fulcrum if you wish to rotate the text).  I have not seen any rationale explaining the significance of '-100'.  I have seen a video explaining how you can get text justified the way you want by placing the centre point in different positions within the text box, but I can't work out how you move this point to where you want it.

I really appreciate your expertise, Barry, I hope you can expose some misunderstanding on my part that will explain my predicament.

[Tonton Bruno]

Hi, I made a video on this subject.

It is in french, but it is self explanatory.

 

[davegee]

11 hours ago, modern_min said:

I have not seen any rationale explaining the significance of '-100'.  I have seen a video explaining how you can get text justified the way you want by placing the centre point in different positions within the text box, but I can't work out how you move this point to where you want it.

I really appreciate your expertise, Barry, I hope you can expose some misunderstanding on my part that will explain my predicament.

By setting -100 (%) for the Centre of the Text Box you are moving its Centre to the Left Edge of the Box. The Text will then "expand" from the left.

Similarly, by setting Centre x at 100 (%) you are moving its Centre to the Right Edge of the Box. The Text will then "expand" from the right.

Bruno explains it, albeit in French.

DG

[Tonton Bruno]

42 minutes ago, davegee said:

Bruno explains it, albeit in French.

And even on the french site, several PTE users have difficulties to understand what I mean.

I will prepare something more pedagogical in the coming days.

[modern_min]

Thank you all for being so helpful.  What a nice community this is!

Bruno - I blew the dust off my school French and found your video very clear.

I'm very happy to say that I finally understand what was going wrong.  I had set up the style correctly for the first keyframe, with alignment 'left' and centre X=-100.  I assumed that the centre setting would be retained on the subsequent keyframes, as they are for zoom, opacity, etc.  In fact, the centre setting was reverting to 0 in all subsequent keyframes.  This caused each slide to start with the text aligned left, but change to aligned centre as the slide played.  When I set centre to x=-100 on every keyframe, the text remained left aligned throughout.  You've made an old man very happy! 

[Barry Beckham]

Modern_Min

Tonton has the answer and it is something that may make a 5 minute video for English speakers. 

[Barry Beckham]

 

[Tonton Bruno]

Bravo Barry !

Now it is clear and easy for everybody !

[Barry Beckham]

I’ve never had the need to do this sort of text. Having the text in the centre always met my needs, so I’ve never really given it much thought, but when you said you had a video of how it’s done. That alerted me to the fact that there was a solution. I don’t know a word of French, I’m embarrassed to say, but your video helped me join the dots.

Although it’s not a technique that a newer user would easily stumble upon

[modern_min]

Your video makes things very clear.

Did you try using keyframes?  I did, because I wanted the text to fade in and out.  I discovered that the centre value is reset to zero on all the keyframes after the first, which causes the effect you accurately demonstrated at the beginning of your excellent short video.  This can be prevented by manually changing the value to 'x=-100' on every keyframe - but I don't think it should have been happening in the first place.

Bruno also recommends that you set the alignment to 'left'.  I couldn't help noticing that in your example it was 'centre'.  However, the text still behaved the same way.  Does the 'centre' setting (x=-100 in this case) override the alignment setting?

I would be interested in your thoughts.  But thank you for making the video, which I hope will help others.

[Barry Beckham]

Make the first keyframe with the centre moved to -100. Size the text and place it where you want it. Then clone further keyframes and they will retain the -100 centre, position and size.  Then you only need to change 2 keyframes to zero opacity.  Placing the text with the justified setting left, didn’t seem to make a difference, but it’s not going to do any harm either.

I included the text fading in and out on my other 5 minute video, so kept this one focused. https://youtu.be/b4Kl8f2kvXQ

 

[Tonton Bruno]

9 hours ago, modern_min said:

I discovered that the centre value is reset to zero on all the keyframes after the first

There is no special behaviour for keyframes on text objects.

I think I know what wou did the wrong way and how to avoid it. I will try to demonstrate it in a video.

[Tonton Bruno]

Here is a video.

If I say there is a wrong way and a wright way, it is mainly because I have difficulties to mobilise my vocabulary in english.

Let's say there is a more appropriate way to proceed.

[modern_min]

Merci, Bruno for your excellent demonstration of the difference between adding and cloning (duplicating) keyframes.  This has helped my learning.

A few days ago, I posted that I had realised why my text was not staying aligned on the left.  I said: 

'I had set up the style correctly for the first keyframe, with alignment 'left' and centre X=-100.  I assumed that the centre setting would be retained on the subsequent keyframes, as they are for zoom, opacity, etc.  In fact, the centre setting was reverting to 0 in all subsequent keyframes.  This caused each slide to start with the text aligned left, but change to aligned centre as the slide played.  When I set centre to x=-100 on every keyframe, the text remained left aligned throughout.'

In my example, I was adding keyframes with the '+' button.  I had not discovered the clone function at that stage in my learning.

As you say, Bruno, each time I added a keyframe, all the animation boxes were unchecked.  But when I checked the 'center' box, the vale of '0' (not -100) appeared.  That explained why the text was changing alignment as the slide moved through the timeframes.  As I said in my quote above, I could correct this by manually entering '-100' on each keyframe.

I have now tried the same exercise again.  As you say, when you add a new keyframe (with the '+' button) the boxes are all unchecked.  If you uncheck them, you see the value that was set before.  What I observed was that the value of 'center' had reverted to '0'.  Today, this is not the case. It is '-100', which is what I had set in the previous keyframe.

I can only humbly apologise for wasting your time.  I was honestly reporting what I observed.  The only explanation is that I am going slightly mad.

At least it has prompted you gentlemen to produced two really good videos on the subject, which I am sure will help a lot of people.