Envelope

"Enveloping" Words in Freehand MX

When I was at the MX North Conference last year, I sat through a rather interesting presentation regarding Freehand MX presented by Kim Kavanaugh. As many of you know, Kim has a fascination with the "Envelope" feature of Freehand MX. During the course of the seminar Kim mentioned that text, once it is "enveloped", becomes non-editable. I found this to be odd but it is absolutely true.

The problem we always encounter with text is things change or typos appear. This means using an envelope on text is something we don't want to do.

Then I thought," Well, hold,on that works with "Live text" but what about text that is a symbol in Freehand MX?" If an object in Freehand MX is converted to a symbol it still retains all of its original properties because the object on the stage is an "instance" of the symbol .Guess what? Text converted to a symbol can become editable after the envelope is applied. Here's how:

1. Open Freehand MX, select the text tool, click on the page and enter your name. I set mine as 72 point Bold Times New Roman.

2. Select the Solid Pointer tool, click on your name and select Modify,Envelope,Create. Your name will develop handles.

3. Drag the handles until you get the shape you desire. Here, I have done some interesting stuff with the name "Fred".

The text has been entered and an "envelope" applied.

If you select the Text Tool and try to change "Fred" to ""Tom" you are essentially frozen out because the enveloped object is no longer "text".

What if they guy says, "Hey, my name is Tom. It isn't Fred." This is where the power of symbols in Freehand MX comes to the surface.

4. Click once on the page, enter the name "Fred" and make sure it is selected.

5. With the name selected select Modify, Symbol , Convert to Symbol or press the F8 key. Suddenly the word "loses" its text properties (The four handles indicate that.) and ,if the object panel is open you will be told your text object is now a graphic object. Not quite.

Symbols reside in the Library. What you are looking at on the page is a "graphic" instance of the symbol.

The text at the bottom is a symbol named Graphic-01. You cange the name by doublibcking on the Symbol's name, not its icon.

6. Apply an envelope to the object on the page.

7. Open the Library by selecting Window, Library or pressing the F11 key. You will see a folder of Brush Tips and a symbol named "Graphic-01". If you click on the Graphic Symbol you will see it is our friend "Fred". Double click the name to open the Symbol Editor. Click on the name and you will see it is text. Change the name from "Fred" to "Tom" and close the symbol editor.

The symbol is changed in the Symbol Editor.

Your change is now reflected in the object.

Changing the name in the symbol also changes the "instance"

Downloads:

"Enveloping" Words in Freehand MX