Text Tool

The Text tool places a text object on the canvas. A text object is model data, not pixels: it stores its string, its typography, its appearance, its 3D volume, its deform stack, and its transform, and it is re-typeset from that data every time it is drawn. It is never baked to raster, so the string and every setting below remain editable for the life of the shot.

Text objects carry a full drawing surface as their transform, which is why a text block can be placed freely in 3D, driven by a gizmo, and bent per object in the same way a drawing surface is.

Placing and editing text#

Tap the canvas to place text, then type. The Typography panel's preview updates live as settings change.

The panel header states what is being edited. When a text object is selected it reads Editing "…" with the object's label, next to a deselect control. When nothing is selected the header instead states that the controls below set the defaults for the next text placed — so the panel is always live, but it is either editing one object or configuring the next one.

To edit an existing text object, select it on the canvas with the Select tool, or select its timeline row.

The Font section#

The font section sits above the panel's collapsible sections and is always open.

Fonts#

The Fonts sheet lists every available family grouped by category, each row set in its own typeface. A search field with the prompt Search fonts filters the list. The categories are Sans Serif, Serif, Slab Serif, Display, Handwriting, Monospace, and Imported; the Imported group appears only once a font has been imported.

Two sources fill the list, and both are checked for real availability before a family is offered — a family that cannot be resolved is dropped from the picker rather than silently substituted.

Bundled families — 22. These ship inside the app and are always present. They are supplied as 23 font files; Poppins is the one family that ships as two files, Regular and Bold.

System families — 34 entries. The device's own fonts are offered alongside the bundled ones, so the picker has variety before anything is imported: ten under Sans Serif, eight under Serif, five under Display, seven under Handwriting, and four under Monospace. Futura is listed under both Sans Serif and Display. No system family is filed under Slab Serif, so that group contains only the two bundled slab families.

Importing a font#

Alekhya accepts .ttf and .otf font files.

Imported fonts are re-registered at every launch, and appear under the Imported category in the picker. Because a text object references its family by name and is re-typeset at load, the font file itself travels with the project when the project is exported.

Character#

Paragraph#

A text object is point type by default: it does not wrap, and breaks only where the string contains a line break. Turning on Wrap to width converts it to area type, which wraps to a fixed measure.

Transform#

The Transform section is available only while a text object is selected; otherwise it states that a text object must be selected on the canvas first.

These rows read and write the same timeline channels as the Select tool's gizmo and the timeline's own Transform rows. When the channel is animated, changing a value sets a keyframe at the playhead; when it is not, it moves the static base value.

See also#