There are two ways of selecting fonts in GIMP. The first is from the image Dialogs/Fonts menu. The second is with the Font selector in this tool. Both methods select from the installed X fonts. When you select a font it is interactively applied to your text.

	Note
	You can get special characters in the same way as you get them in other text editors: AltGr + key in Linux, Alt + number key pad in Windows.

This control sets the size of the font in any of several selectable units.

Uses the indices of adjustment to modify the characters in order to produce clear letters in small font sizes.

Auto Hinter tries to automatically compute information for better representation of the character font.

Antialiasing will render the text with much smoother edges and curves. This is achieved by slight blurring and merging of the edges. This option can radically improve the visual appearance of the rendered typeface. Caution should be exercised when using antialiasing on images that are not in RGB color space.

Color of the text that will be drawn next. Defaults to black. Selectable from the color picker dialog box that opens when the current color sample is clicked.

	Tip
	You can also click-and-drag the color from the Toolbox color area onto the text.

Causes the text to be justified according to any of four rules selectable from the associated icons.

Controls the indent spacing from the left margin, for the fist line.

Controls the spacing between successive lines of text. This setting is interactive: it appears at the same time in image text. The number is not the space between lines itself, but how many pixels must be added to or subtracted from this space (the value can be negative).

Controls the spacing between letters. Also in this case the number is not the space itself between letters, but how many pixels must be added to or substracted from this space (the value can be negative).

This option is enabled only if a path exists. When your text is created, then create or import a path and make it active. If you create your path before the text, the path becomes invisible and you have to make it visible in the Path Dialog.

This command is also available from the “Layer” menu:

Figure 13.169.  The Text to Path command among text commands in the Layer menu

This group of options appears only if a layer text exists.

If you want to use a text which already exists, make it active in the Layer dialog, select the Text tool and click on the text in the image window.

Click on the Text along Path button. The text is bent along the path. Letters are represented with their outline. Each of them is a component of the new path which appears in the Path dialog. All path options should apply to this new path.

Figure 13.170. “Text along Path” example

This tool creates a selection path from the selected text. Every letter is surrounded with a path component. So you can modify the shape of letters by moving path control points.

This dialog window is opened when you click on the image with the Text Tool. There, you can enter the text which shows up in real time in the frame on top of the canvas.

You can correct the text you are writing and you can change the text font with the Font Editor.

As soon as you start writing, a Text layer is created in the Layer Dialog. On an image with such a layer (the image you are working on, or a .xcf image), you can resume text editing by activating this text layer then clicking on it (double click). Of course, you can apply to this text layer the same functions you use with other layers.

To add another text to your image click on a non-text layer: a new Text Editor will appear and a new text layer will be created. To pass from a text to another one activate the corresponding text layer and click on it to activate the editor.

Text can be loaded from a text file by clicking the folder icon in the text editor. All the text in the file is loaded.

Clicking this icon clears the editor and the associated text on the image.

This option causes text to be entered from left to right, as is the case with most Western languages and may Eastern languages.

This option allows text to be entered from right to left, as is the case with some Eastern languages, such as Arabic (illustrated in the icon).

Default doesn't use the font you have selected in the Options dialog. If you want to use it, check this option.

	Note
	See also Section 5, “ Text ”.