Placing Word, RTF and text files in Vectornation by Zaweba
Bring .txt, .rtf and Word .docx files into Vectornation by Zaweba as area text with File > Place or Open, and export your text with File > Export > Text.
Copy for a design usually arrives as a document. A client sends a Word file with the menu, a colleague emails an RTF with product descriptions, or you have a plain text file of names. Retyping it is slow and risky. Vectornation by Zaweba brings it straight in: File > Place and File > Open both accept .txt, .rtf and Word .docx files, and the text arrives as an area text box ready to style.
Text can also go the other way. File > Export > Text saves the text from your document as a .txt file.
Placing text into a design
Use File > Place when you already have a design and want the copy inside it. The text comes in as area text, so it wraps inside its box and can be resized, threaded into other frames, set in columns or wrapped around pictures.
Use File > Open when the text is the starting point and you want a new document built around it.
Either way, you avoid copying and pasting large amounts of text, which can lose formatting or bring in stray characters.
Cleaning up placed text
Text from documents often needs a tidy before it looks right in a design. A sensible routine is to run Type > Smart punctuation to fix quotes, dashes and double spaces, then run a spelling check, then apply your paragraph and character styles. Applying styles after cleaning means the formatting goes on to text that is already final.
Look for manual line breaks and extra empty paragraphs. Writers often press Enter twice between paragraphs, which in a design is better handled by paragraph spacing.
Long copy and threaded frames
For a leaflet, a menu or packaging with lots of information, place the text into the first frame of a threaded set. It flows through the frames in order. If the client then sends a revised file, you can place the new text and it flows through the same frames.
Exporting text
File > Export > Text writes the text in your document to a .txt file. That is useful in several situations. A client may want the final wording for their website. A translator may need the text to work on. You may want to keep a plain record of the copy that went to print.
Plain text has no formatting, which is exactly what you want when the text is going somewhere else to be styled again.
Good habits with supplied copy
Ask for copy as a file rather than in the body of an email. It is easier to place and less likely to pick up strange formatting.
Keep the original document with the project. If there is a question later about what the client supplied, you have the file.
When text changes late in a job, place the revised file again rather than editing many small bits by hand, provided you have not made a lot of local changes in the meantime.
How it fits with the rest
Placing text fits with the layout tools in Vectornation: columns, threading, text wrap and styles. Together they make it practical to produce text heavy work such as menus, price lists, brochures and packaging in the same app you use for the artwork, rather than moving between programs.
