Vertical type, type masks and world scripts in Paint by Zaweba
Set vertical CJK columns, make selections shaped like letters and type Arabic, Hebrew or Indic scripts correctly in Paint by Zaweba.
Plenty of image editors handle English well and stumble the moment the text runs the other way or stacks downwards. Paint by Zaweba was built to cope with the scripts used across the world, and to offer a couple of type tools that are less about words and more about shapes: the type masks.
This article covers vertical type, the Horizontal and Vertical Type Mask tools, and the support for right-to-left and Indic scripts.
Vertical type
The Vertical Type tool sets text in columns that run top to bottom, with the columns moving from right to left. That is the traditional layout for Japanese, Chinese and Korean text, and it is common on posters, book covers and shop signs in those languages.
Chinese, Japanese and Korean characters stand upright in the column. Short runs of Latin letters or numbers, such as a two-digit date, can be set with tate-chu-yoko, which places them side by side across the column so they read naturally instead of being stacked one character at a time. CJK spacing rules are in place too, so punctuation and mixed scripts sit properly.
Vertical type is not only for East Asian languages. A single vertical word down the edge of a poster or a spine-style label is a striking layout in English as well.
Type mask tools
The Horizontal Type Mask and Vertical Type Mask tools look like the Text tool, but instead of creating a text layer they create a selection in the shape of the letters. Once you have that selection you can do anything a selection allows: fill it, copy the photo inside it to a new layer, use it as a layer mask or delete through it.
The classic use is photo-filled lettering. Type a bold word with the mask tool over a landscape, copy the selection to a new layer, hide the photo, and you have letters cut out of the scene. Add a background colour and a soft shadow, and it makes a strong title card.
Bear in mind that a mask is a selection, not text. Once you commit it, the words cannot be edited. Try your font and size with the normal Text tool first, then switch to the mask tool to make the final cut.
Right-to-left text
Arabic and Hebrew run from right to left, and Arabic letters change shape depending on where they fall in a word. Paint handles Arabic joining, so letters connect correctly instead of appearing as isolated forms.
Real text often mixes directions, such as an Arabic sentence with a brand name or a phone number in it. Paint uses the Unicode bidirectional algorithm, with support for embeddings and isolates, to put each run in the right order. That is the same set of rules browsers follow, so text that reads correctly in a document should read correctly in your design.
Indic scripts
Scripts such as Devanagari need shaping: vowel signs attach to consonants, and some consonants combine into conjuncts. Paint shapes Indic text so these forms appear as a reader expects, rather than as a broken string of separate characters.
Good results with world scripts
Use a font that actually covers the script you are typing. If you see empty boxes, the font lacks those characters; switch to one that includes them. For vertical CJK, a font designed with vertical forms gives the best punctuation and brackets.
When you are setting text in a language you do not read, paste it from a trusted source rather than typing it, and ask a native reader to check the result before printing. Shaping makes the text correct, but only a reader can confirm it says what you meant.
How the scripts fit together
These tools share the Character and Paragraph panel, Type Styles and the rest of the type system in Paint by Zaweba, so a bilingual poster can keep consistent sizes, colours and spacing across both languages.
