Sooner or later you’re going to need to go beyond “normal” text. Perhaps you’re working on a logo, or maybe it’s a package design. Sure, you can do a lot to modify text in drawing programs like FreeHand, Illustrator, or Canvas. You can put text on a curved path. You can even convert the text into editable outlines so that you can fill and stroke them or even stretch individual letterforms. But if you want a 3D shadow or a double outline, things get sticky pretty fast.
You might have tried the Adobe TypeAlign DA, only to find that it was limited in its effects, somewhat quirky, and often created strikingly unattractive effects. Adobe’s SmartArt package offers a wide variety of canned effects, but it breaks with just about every Apple System software release.
Two programs are available that allow you to go beyond—way beyond—the confines of conventional typographic effects. In fact, both TypeStyler and LetraStudio have recently been upgraded to newer and more powerful versions. For a long time, TypeStyler was the clear choice for type manipulation, but now the issue is not so obvious. What are the strengths and weaknesses of these two programs? Read on.
TypeStyler 2.0
TypeStyler has always been an easy program to use. Its features are accessed through a series of dialog boxes that, while not particularly fast to navigate, at least always lets you know where you are and what choices are available. You can create text objects or panels, and then manipulate them, adding effects and distortions from a library of canned choices. Any of these effects can be further controlled in various ways.
You begin by creating a text block with the Text tool. You can either click where you want the text to begin, or you can draw out a rectangle the size and shape you’d like the entire block to be. In either case, your next stop is the Text Attributes dialog box (see illustration at left), where you choose from basic shapes and styles.
To modify the style, you click on the Customize Style button, which takes you to the Style Workshop window (see illustration on next page). Here, you can make choices from several pop-up menus for both the text and the shadow. A number of different gradient effects are available here. Users need to be aware that the use of gradients is both time and memory intensive. Extensive use of gradients will add greatly to print times—and may even overwhelm your printer’s available RAM, resulting in nothing being printed. Gradients will also add significantly to display times. Moderation and restraint with gradients are recommended.
It’s also possible to control individual kern pairs, as well as several other aspects, such as whether letterforms overlap left to right or right to left. One new feature that is available in this area is the ability to treat a block of text as one merged shape, rather than individual characters. With this, a gradient can run across an entire word or phrase instead of repeating within each character.
To modify the shape of the effect, you go back to the main document window and choose the Shaper tool, which gives you Bezier points to control the overall shape of the effect. Menu selections allow you to link the top and bottom handles or the left and right handles in order to preserve symmetry, or you can unlink everything and opt for a more unstructured effect.
Working with Panels is very similar to working with text blocks; the same sorts of choices are available in the Style Workshop box.
New Features
Version 2.0 adds a number of new features and enhancements. If you worked with earlier versions, you’re likely to be most impressed with TypeStyler’s new ability to work directly with whatever Type 1 and TrueType fonts you might have in your system. If you want to work with Type 3 fonts, you’ll have to convert them to TypeStyler’s SmoothFont format. And everything is compatible with Suitcase or MasterJuggler.
Also new in Version 2.0 is full support for 24 bit color. (Earlier versions were limited to 8-bit color—256 colors.) Custom color palettes can be built using RGB, CMY, and CMYK models; and there are several palettes included. While this is a big step forward, some designers will miss not having built-in support for color systems such as the Pantone Matching System.
Color separations can be printed on PostScript devices. Process color separations can be output using any of the color types, but for spot color separations, you must define all of your colors as custom colors.
There are now 45 shapes to choose from. Among the new shapes are several which feature three anchor points instead of the usual two. Also new is 32-bit addressing, balloon help, and Publish and Subscribe.
LetraStudio 2.0
It’s hard to imagine how two programs with the same general purpose could be as different as TypeStyler and LetraStudio. Letraset’s program has features that are more like a full-fledged drawing program.
The differences in approach are immediately apparent. You enter text directly into the document window, rather than into a dialog box. Further, you can mix fonts and styles within a text block; and you can convert the text into editable Bezier curves in order to modify the shapes of individual characters.
LetraStudio provides a set of “envelopes” for bending text blocks, which corresponds to TypeStyler’s Shapes. One big difference is that in LetraStudio, different text blocks and/or graphic shapes can be grouped together, and the entire group can then be put into the envelope. LetraStudio 2.0 provides a set of customized envelopes on the disk which can be imported into a current document. Envelopes that you’ve developed can be saved to disk for use in future projects. Some of the provided envelopes give a three-dimensional effect that we haven’t been able to get with TypeStyler, such as the “can” envelope. (See illustration, opposite page.)
LetraStudio does not provide any form of tonal gradient fill patterns, and there is no provision for automatic shadows or zoom effects. LetraStudio’s “Replicate” command, on the other hand, goes far beyond TypeStyler’s simple Duplicate command, and it can be used to fabricate zoom-like effects by placing a series of incrementally smaller and lighter copies behind the main object. This procedure is powerful, but you’ll need to spend some time experimenting with it before you’re able to get predictable results. Corresponding effects in TypeStyler are a breeze.
Interface Issues
Apart from the feature set, the interface of the two programs also differ in fundamental ways. In TypeStyler, almost all actions take place within a dialog box—entering text, choosing fonts and styles, selecting basic shape distortions. You only get to see the results after clicking Okay and waiting for the program to generate the results. For operations such as adjusting the kerning relationship between pairs of letters, this can be a slow process. When kerning text in LetraStudio, however, you can interact directly with the screen in the document window. The tradeoff for this is a higher learning curve; you must memorize the necessary command.
In fact, just about everything in LetraStudio is less intuitive but faster. Even the text cursor is non-standard and, consequently, less familiar. Selecting a range of text on a curve can be frustrating.
Many of the standard keyboard shortcuts you’ve learned in other programs are simply missing in LetraStudio. For instance, many drawing programs—including Illustrator, FreeHand, and TypeStyler—give temporary access to the object pointer when the command key is pressed. This very handy shortcut is missing in LetraStudio. Pressing an arrow key nudges objects in every drawing program we can remember, but in LetraStudio, you have to hold the command key down to activate this feature. Also, there’s no keyboard shortcut for the zoom tool, although Command/+ and Command/- zoom in and out. And you cannot move the text insertion point within a body of text by using the arrow keys. One can’t help but wonder at the reasons for these lapses of standard interface design.
Undo is not always available.
Both programs feature nonprinting guidelines, but LetraStudio’s implementation is pretty strange. Its guides always come as a pair set at 90 degree angles to each other. Their good feature is that they can be set at any angle to the page. Their most maddening aspect is that they cannot be adjusted after they have been placed on the page. If you drop a set of guides in the wrong place, your only option is to remove all of the guides and start over. 16 pairs are available; if you add a 17th pair, the first set will disappear. To place crop marks, you must hold down the Option key while dragging out guides—another non-intuitive process which you’ll have to commit to memory.
Importing graphics
You can use graphics from other programs as templates within LetraStudio, so that you can create type effects to match exactly, but LetraStudio’s strengths as a drawing program really come into play when importing graphics from programs that can create Illustrator 88 or Illustrator 1.1 files. The imported shapes come in without their fills, but they can actually be edited from within LetraStudio, and the imported shapes can be put into envelopes and distorted just like native LetraStudio shapes. There are limits to LetraStudio’s ability to edit imported shapes, though; you will not be able to add or delete points, and it is not possible to “close” a shape that was left open in the original program. LetraStudio does not support masked Illustrator shapes.
Beziers
If you’re comfortable working with Bezier curves in FreeHand or Illustrator, you’ll likely be irritated by LetraStudio’s implementation. The direction handles normally do not revolve around the anchor point, but rather around the opposite direction handle—another departure from standardized interface procedures. If you hold down the Option key, it behaves the way you expect it to. As mentioned earlier, there is no way to add or delete points. If your main concern lies in modifying the shapes of individual characters, you might be better off sticking with Illustrator or FreeHand.
Printing and Saving
LetraStudio provides standard export formats—EPSF, PICT, and Illustrator outlines. For EPSF and PICT, you can choose from different levels of anti-aliasing for the screen preview.
In addition to black and white printing, LetraStudio outputs composite color and spot color separations only. If you want process separations, you’ll have to export your document and print it with a separate program, such as DesignStudio or the Adobe Illustrator separation program. Incidentally, LetraStudio’s implementation of color is radically different from that used by TypeStyler; LetraStudio uses only the Pantone system. It is not possible to create custom colors.
Conclusions
Either of these programs will give you the ability to distort type in just about any way you can imagine. LetraStudio has some effects—such as the ability to make four-sided transformations and to distort line art from other applications—that are missing from TypeStyler. Both programs come with a selection of typefaces, but since both programs allow access to the fonts you already use, this is not a big issue. TypeStyler’s come from Agfa while LetraStudio’s provides a selection from Letraset’s excellent new Fontek collection, which consists of a number of high quality display faces.
Both programs are memory-hungry and slow. The minimum for either program is a 2MB allocation of RAM. Complex documents may well call for much more. LetraStudio has a preview mode that features anti-aliasing of on-screen effects. The manual states that you’ll need 6MB to get a high quality preview.
LetraStudio is capable of much more accuracy. Specifications may be entered numerically if desired, whereas TypeStyler usually forces you to choose from a predefined set or to drag things to size by eye.
LetraStudio got off to a bad start in its first incarnation; the first version was saddled with an awkward form of copy protection, and the retail price was $495. Version 2.0 is free of copy protection, and the new retail price has been reduced to $249. TypeStyler has been popular from the start, however, and the new version adds several enhancements.
If you want quick and easy access to striking type effects, TypeStyler is your best choice. If accuracy is more important, then go for LetraStudio, but keep that manual handy, and plan on spending some time with it.
The article above is reprinted from Mac Monitor, the newsletter of The Savannah Macintosh Users Group. It may be reprinted in a single issue of newsletters published by non-profit user groups. Payment shall consist of a single issue of the newsletter in which the article appears, sent to the following address:
