The Power of TypeStyler

Welcome to TypeStyler, a creative environment that brings Macintosh ease-of-use to display typography. The Macintosh is known for impressive graphics; TypeStyler converts type into the kind of editable, flexible graphical objects that built the Macintosh reputation. With TypeStyler you can easily but dramatically customize type styles, freely bending, slanting, and stretching, resizing, changing colors, adding fills and shadows‚ and recycle your work to save time and effort without limiting your creativity.

Projects that used to take hours can be done in minutes with TypeStyler. You can use TypeStyler to create web-ready graphics, headlines, ads, logos, labels, signs, book covers, illustrations, stationery, presentations, posters, and cards.

Because it offers unique styling capabilities, some techniques used in TypeStyler may be new to you. This Help Book will help you learn how to take full advantage of all of TypeStyler's features. You should already be familiar with your Macintosh and printer and should understand basic Macintosh techniques, such as pointing, clicking and dragging the mouse, selecting options from menus, opening and saving files and using scroll bars. More advanced issues are explained in the chapters of this Help book and its appendices.

How TypeStyler Works with Type and Panels

TypeStyler is an object-oriented graphics program which records, displays, and manipulates graphical information as coordinates, not as a bitmap. TypeStyler allows you to create two kinds of objects: type and panels. The program's type objects contain text, font, shape and styling information, including color and pattern selections. Panels are basically just backdrops, but you can choose panels shaped as stars, circles, polygons and glyphs that have greater visual impact than rectangular backdrops, especially if you apply TypeStyler effects to them. Panels contain style and shape information too, including color and image fills.

The advantage of handling text and panels as objects is that you can easily resize, group, duplicate, layer, and manipulate them to produce interesting effects. You can think of TypeStyler as being similar to other object-oriented drawing programs, except that TypeStyler specializes and excels in manipulating type.

Font Support

TypeStyler can style and shape all fonts the Macintosh system makes available. Support for all fonts is automatic. When the TypeStyler application is launched, it searches the System to see which fonts are installed. It then adds these fonts automatically to the font list within TypeStyler, so that they are ready for use.

Family built fonts are fonts wherein the roman, italic, bold, and bold italic styles are referenced in one FOND resource. TypeStyler can access all styles present in the font family, for PostScript Type 1 fonts, TrueType fonts and OpenType fonts.

Styles in a family built font other than the basic style are listed differently than non-family built fonts. Following the basic name of the font is the style of the font, separated by a colon. For example, consider a family built font Bozonian. The following fonts will appear in the Font Menu: Bozonian, Bozonian:ltal, Bozonian:Bold, and Bozonian:Boldltal.

Customizing Type and Panels

TypeStyler includes libraries of default type and panel shapes, and a library of default styles for both. With TypeStyler's tools, you're free to customize any default attribute, creating partially or entirely customized designs.

The Distortion Library

The Distortion Library contains 45 of the most popular typographical shapes. If you don't want your type to go straight across the page, you can quickly experiment with Perspective, Double Twist, or Circular type. That's just a starting point - can look the possibilities as you examine the Distortion Library. Any shape can then be stretched and pulled between lines or Bezier curves to create new shapes.


The Style Library and Style Workshop

Just as the Shape Library stores shapes, the Style Library contains many ready to use styles, applicable to both type and panels. You can choose a default style for your text or panel, or begin with a plain style and modify it in the Style Workshop, choosing from patterns, gray scale, color, graduated fills and effects, outlines and inlines, and numerous shadow effects. You can cut, paste, and save the new styles that you create in the Style Library.

Working with Other Applications

TypeStyler imports Photoshop® (PSD), Illustrator® (AI), PNG, GIF, JPEG, PDF, encapsulated PostScript file (EPS) formats from programs such as Illustrator, FreeHand, Photoshop, and others. It also imports other TypeStyler documents, allowing you to add previously saved TypeStyler objects to a current document.

You can export your work in Illustrator® , Photoshop® , GIF, JPEG, PNG, PDF, EPS and TIFF with clipping path, or PICT format, and use it as an element in other applications such as Photoshop® , Illustrator® , FreeHand® , Pages® , InDesign® , Quark® Xpress® , and Microsoft® Word® .

You can use Drag and Drop for importing objects into a TypeStyler document and also for exporting TypeStyler objects into applications that support Drag and Drop.


Setting Preferences


Getting Help

Online Help is available by activating TypeStyler Help from the Help menu on the menu bar.

Additional help can be found on the Internet by visiting Strider Software's website or by accessing TypeStyler Online from the File menu.

Compatibility with Prior Versions

TypeStyler is fully compatible with documents created with prior version of the product. Some documents created with versions prior to TypeStyler 3.7.2, however, may cause objects to have slightly different alignment and font substitutions from when when they were originally created. This is because some internal points of reference have changed. In order to preserve the typographic integrity of early documents, TypeStyler checks to see with what version the document was created. If it is an early version, TypeStyler preserves the original reference points. Any new objects created in the document will use the new reference points.

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