Text Tips Toggling Back and Forth from CAPS to Lowercase Sometimes you receive some copy from a client that is typed in all caps. I could say something about morons, but we are not here to sit in judgment of others. It just happens. Maybe the Caps Lock button got stuck. Highlight a word, a sentence, or the entire block of text and press Ctrl w. This reverses the case of all the text. You will still have to change the initial caps but it is a lot more efficient than keying in all the text from scratch. You can also use the technique to make ALL CAPS. Editing Text Shortcuts Here are a variety of keyboard shortcuts I use to expedite the editing of text, including: HOME Goes to the start of a line END Goes to the last character in a line CTRL + HOME Goes to the first character in the paragraph CTRL + END Goes to last character in a paragraph CTRL + A Selects all text in a text area CTRL + Right arrow key Just to the next word SHIFT + CTRL + END Goes to the very bottom of a text area SHIFT + right arrow key Highlights the character to the right SHIFT + CTRL + right arrow Highlights next word to the right SHIFT + END Highlights to the end of the line Double click inside a word Highlights the word Double click at end of a word Selects the word to the left Triple click Selects entire line Quadruple click Selects entire paragraph (sometimes) CTRL + B Boldfaces selected text CTRL + I Italicizes selected text CTRL + U Underscores selected text There are many more but these are the shortcuts I use most often. Adding Extended Characters to Text The chart above shows some of the keyboard commands for inserting special characters into your text. Full stop is what we commonly refer to as a period. There are many more extended characters that can be added with Num Lock enabled on your numeric keypad and by holding down the Alt key and keying in the appropriate numbers. The numbers must be entered on the numeric keypad and not the numbers over the letters. Moving Text Along and Off a Path To enter text on a path, select the path, then click on the path with the Text Tool (t) and enter your text. Xara starts the text at the point you click with the insertion cursor. You can move the text along the path by dragging the small red square that  precedes the text. To raise the text up or down on the path, highlight the text and adjust the amount of Baseline Shift on the Infobar. Text Inside a Shape Here’s a method for filling a shape with text. It can require a bit of editing to get it right but it works. Create a series of evenly spaced lines to the width of the circle or shape you wish to fill. Select all of the lines (but not the shape) and join them (Arrange > Join Shapes). Select your text and then the lines. From the Arrange menu, select Fit Text to Curve. If the text is too long, it will double back on itself, so either make the text smaller, and/or edit the text to fit. Highlight the text and change the justification to Full Justify. Entering Text on a Circle or Ellipse Select the circle or ellipse and from the Arrange menu, select Convert to Editable Shapes. With the circle or ellipse still selected, switch to the Text Tool (t), click on the circle or ellipse and start entering your text. If you need the text to be on the inside instead of on the outside, switch back to the Selector Tool (the arrow pointer), right click on the text and select Reverse Text on Curve. This also works with text on a path. If you resize the circle or ellipse (Ctrl click to select just the ellipse or circle), the text will reformat to fit the new size. Text on a Curve can be edited as any other text including tracking, kerning, resizing, change font or style.