## Working with lettering

Lettering in Comic Life covers two compositional elements: Titles and Sound Effects. Comic titles frequently involve warped lettering (for example the Superman logo) or interesting fills, outlining and shadows. Comic sound effects (for example "POW", "ZAP", "BOING", etc) are always warped and filled with color. Lettering elements let you accomplish both with ease.

### Adding lettering

To add lettering to a page drag a lettering element from the palette and drop it at the appropriate location.

A sheet appears where you can type in the letters for the sound effect and change the font and point size if necessary.

The initial font is set from the default lettering stylesheet.

Click on "Convert to Graphics" to add the lettering to the page.
Sound effects are special in that they are not handled as regular text. The text is converted to a graphic representation that enables creative display capabilities such as per-character gradient fills, merged drawing and warping - this is described further below.
The lettering is displayed centered on the drop point with whatever default style is in effect for lettering.
Note that the letters are organized such that if the letters are closely packed the preceding letters overlap the following letters in a natural hand-lettered style.

### Editing lettering

If you would like to change the font or the text of lettering simply double click on it and the lettering sheet will reappear so you can adjust the text and font upon which the lettering is based. Once you click the "OK" the new text is warped to fit the current lettering outline. You can also simply select the lettering and press the Bigger or Smaller font text size icons in the toolbar.
If you have used any of the character adjustment tools these changes will need to be reapplied.

### Moving lettering

Simply click and drag the lettering to the appropriate location.

### Resizing lettering

Resizing lettering is where the fun begins. Dragging the corner resive handles warps the lettering to fit the new shape. You can add a lot of drama to a sound effect by dragging out its top two corner handles.

To bend the lettering use the top and bottom center handles. These are special handles that gently bend the letters so they curve to fill the new space. These center handles retain their relative position between their respective corner handles so that adjusting the corners does not interfere with the curve that you've applied.

### Scaling lettering

If you like the general shape of your lettering, but want to change it's dimensions, then you need to use the rescaling handles. Click on the text to select it, and once it is selected, click on the text again. A box with a set of square green handles will appear, which you can use to rescale your text. Holding down the Shift key when resizing constrains the dimensions, preventing accidental warping.

### Rotating lettering

You can rotate a lettering element to any angle by selecting the element and dragging the rotate handle around. Holding down shift locks the angle to the nearest 90° angle.

### Deleting lettering

To delete a lettering element simply select it and hit the Delete key or choose Edit->Delete.

### Lettering Details

The Lettering Details offers a few extended features for Lettering.

#### Horizontal Spread

Increases or decreases the horizontal space between the individual letters in the lettering.
Note that this has little or no impact when the letters are aligned vertically.

#### Vertical Spread

Increases or decreases the vertical space between the individual letters in the lettering. Note that this has little or no impact when the letters are aligned horizontally.

#### Skew

Skew lets you rotate the baseline of the lettering without rotating the letters (for a stair-step effect) - providing a useful dynamism without impacting legibility.

#### Stagger

The stagger buttons cause the individual letters to be alternately shifted up and down or left and right. This gives the lettering a jumbled effect for added impact. You can keep clicking either of the buttons to increase the effect. Use Edit->Undo to revert back.

#### Join character outlines

Sometimes you'll want the characters to be displayed individually and have the outlines of each overlap. Other times you'll want the letters to be joined neatly together. Checking this option draws the lettering as a single graphic object so that a gradient fill is draw across all the letters, outlines are merged (where they overlap) and the shadow (if any) is beneath all the characters.

#### Lock

Prevents the lettering from being moved or resized.

#### Clip

Normally lettering is trimmed where they intersect the edges of a panel. Unchecking this option allows the sound effect to be drawn outside the panel for dramatic effect.

#### Style properties

Use the Style popup menu to pick a different style, or simply experiment until you create a style you like.
If you have made a variation to the selected style, then an asterisk appears next to the style name. Your element is now unique!
If you want to share this new style, then create a New style.
New styles can be created under Style Attributes with the '+ New' button - a sheet appears that lets you name the new style. When you click "OK" the new style is created and the element is set to use the new style. Now you can set other elements to have the same style.
You can also Update the current style - be careful! - this will also change the attributes of every other object (in this style).
The default style cannot be changed, so you will need to create a new style, which you can then use on other elements.

If you don't like your changes, press the Revert button to go back to the original style.

See Lettering Styles for more information on each setting.