WordArt styles and text effects in Publish by Zaweba

Headlines on posters and party invitations often need more than a bigger font. They need a bit of character, something that reads from across a room. Publish by Zaweba covers that with WordArt and two text effects you can put on any text box.

Insert > WordArt offers 8 styles: bold outline, shadowed, hollow, classic serif, neon, retro, spaced capitals and elegant italic. Each is sized to fill the width it is given. Separately, any text box can have a letter outline and a text shadow, set under Properties > Text effects.

Choosing a WordArt style

Think about the event or the mood before picking. Bold outline and shadowed are strong, general purpose choices for sale flyers and notices. Hollow letters work well over a coloured background or a picture, because the background shows through. Classic serif and elegant italic suit certificates, wedding invitations and anything formal. Neon and retro are made for parties, gigs and themed nights. Spaced capitals give a calm, modern heading for a menu or a brochure cover.

Because WordArt is sized to fill the width, a short word becomes large and a long phrase becomes smaller to fit. Keep WordArt to a few words, the name of an event or a single bold message, and let ordinary text boxes carry the details.

It is still real text

WordArt in Publish remains real, editable text. You can click into it and change the words, fix a spelling or update a date, without starting again. It is searchable, so find and replace will reach it, and it stays text in the exported PDF, which means it is selectable and searchable there too.

That matters more than it might seem. When headline effects are turned into pictures, a typo means rebuilding the effect, and the PDF holds an image instead of words. Keeping it as text avoids both.

Outlines and shadows on any box

You do not need WordArt to give text a bit of weight. Properties > Text effects adds a letter outline and a text shadow to any text box. An outline helps light text stand out against a busy photo, or dark text against a dark band of colour. A shadow lifts a headline off the page and can make thin letters easier to read over a picture.

Go gently with both. A thin outline in a darker version of the text colour looks smart; a thick outline in a clashing colour can make letters hard to read. A small, close shadow gives depth, while a big offset shadow quickly looks dated unless that is the effect you want, as with a retro theme.

Shapes, pictures and text boxes can also have drop shadows of their own. Those shadows are hard edged so that PDFs stay vector, and there are no blurred shadows or glows, so plan the look of a headline around crisp edges rather than soft ones.

Pairing effects with colour

Text effects look best when they use colours already in the publication. If your document palette has a strong accent colour and a dark colour, an accent headline with a dark outline ties straight into the rest of the page. Because document colours update everywhere they are used, changing the accent later carries through to the effect as well.

Colour schemes work on the same principle, so a headline built from document colours will follow along if you try a different scheme.

Knowing when to stop

One effect per page is usually enough. A WordArt headline, a shadowed subheading and outlined body text all on one flyer compete with each other and with the message. Pick the line you most want people to see, give that the treatment, and keep the rest plain.

Used that way, WordArt in Publish by Zaweba is a quick route to a headline with personality, and because it stays text you can keep changing it right up to the moment you export.