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Though Sketchbook is not a writing or typography app, text is an integral part of visual communication. Sketchbook includes simple text features to support the addition and of titles, comments, and captions to any image.

Text in Sketchbook Pro for desktop

Font support

Sketchbook Pro supports native and system fonts on Windows and MacOS. Sketchbook Pro also supports most downloadable font sets, including TrueType, OpenType or PostScript fonts. After installing new fonts to your hardware, restart Sketchbook Pro to view them in the font menu in the Text Editor.

Creating Editable Text Layers

Text can be added by tapping the Text icon in the toolbar.

Adding text creates Text Layers in your layer stack. Text Layers exclusively store text entries with font, style and color settings. 

Text Layers can be identified by a ‘T’ icon on the left side of the layer preview, which indicates that the text can be edited. Standard features such as Quick Transform, layer visibility, layer opacity and blend modes can be applied to Text Layers. 

To edit an existing Text Layer, tap on the Text Layer marking menu and select the South-East gesture to Edit Text Layer.

Note: Text Layers are only saved in Sketchbook Pro’s native TIFF format.  When Text Layers are saved in PSD format, the text will re-open as a rasterized layer.

Visibility and layer opacity of the Text Layer can be adjusted the same as other layer.

Brush strokes and other image features cannot be applied to a Text Layer until it is rasterized to a regular, paintable layer. 

The Rasterize Text Layer can be found in the Text Layer marking menu . Once a layer is rasterized, the text is baked and is no longer editable. 

Using the Text Editor 

• Type or paste text into the body of the text editor. How text appears on canvas differs from how it appears in the editor. In the editor, text will automatically wrap to fit in the window, but only explicit Returns will will apply when the text is rendered to layer.
• To change font, select the text and pick the desired font from the Font pulldown menu.
• To change size, select the text and pick the size from the Size pulldown menu
• To apply styles
  • On Windows, select the text and activate Bold, Italics, Underline or Underscore buttons
  • On Mac, use the Typeface pulldown menu (not all fonts will have all Typeface options)
• To change colors, select the text, and tap on Color Chip to select colors with the Color Editor‍ 
• When done, tap OK
• Position the text on the canvas using the Transform puck and tap the ‘x’ icon when done
• The Text layer will appear above the last active layer in the stack

Transforming text

Once you've created text with the Text tool, you are in Transform mode. Text can be moved, scaled, rotated, flipped, even distorted with the Transform Puck. Font size determines how much you can scale a font. A font size of 12 cannot be scaled up as much as one set to 24. A font of 12 cannot be scaled down as much as one set to 5. To scale a font any further, return to the Text window and increase/decrease the font size.

Rasterizing a text layer

Since your text is pixels and not rasterized, you can make changes to it without affecting the quality of the image. However, you can change text into pixels (rasterize), using , so you can manipulate it like a paint layer. Try using Distort.

1. In the Layer Editor, tap-hold the marking menu
2. Select (Rasterize Text Layer).

When text is rasterized, Edit Text can no longer be applied.

Editing an existing text layer

If you want to change the text, be it a spelling mistake, to change the font, font size, make something bold, italicized, or underlined, or to change the color, use the Edit Text Layer window.

1. In the Layer Editor, in the text layer you want to change, click .
2. Flick toward Edit Text. This re-opens the Text Editor window for further editing.

Using text in Sketchbook for Android and iOS

Sketchbook by default uses the system fonts on Android and iOS. 

The Text Tool allows applying text to any active layer.  

To add text, select the Text Tool from the toolbar. 

On mobile phones, it will be nested under the tools icon.

Before creating text, it is a good idea to make sure the area where text is to be placed is visible. 

The Text Tool presents a text toolbar for text entry, text settings and positioning. Tap on these tools to make all your edits, using two-finger gestures to move, scale and rotate.

• Text editor - tap to enter and edit text
• Font - tap to present and select available system fonts
• Color - tap to open the Color Editor
• Transform - tap to non-proportionally adjust or distort text
• Nudge -  tap to present a puck to constrain vertical or horizontal moves freely or one pixel at a time.
• Flip - flip text vertically or horizontally
• Rotate - rotate text clockwise or counterclockwise.

When complete, tapping the checkmark will apply the final text to the active layer.

Adding custom installed fonts to Sketchbook on iOS 

If additional non-system fonts have been installed to an iOS device, these can be added to the Sketchbook font list.

You'll first have to have added the fonts to your device. See information from Apple on how to do that here.

To add fonts, tap on the + icon in the top right of the window. This will open a new dialog to search and select the fonts you wish to add.

Adding custom installed fonts to Sketchbook on Android

Fonts are managed in a different way on Android. Our investigation of adding user-defined fonts to the app for Android is still underway and we hope to be able to offer this in a future release.