Applying solid fills

PagePlus offers a number of ways to apply solid color fills to objects of different kinds:

  • You can apply solid colors to an object’s line or fill. As you might expect, QuickShapes and closed shapes (see Drawing and editing shapes) have both line and fill properties, whereas straight and freehand lines have only a line property. (For a discussion of line attributes besides color, see Setting line properties.)

  • Characters in text objects can have fill color or highlight color. Text frames and table cells can have a background fill independent of the characters they contain.

  • You can colorize a paint-type (bitmap) picture—that is, recolor it to use a different color. If you recolor a full-color picture, the colors will convert to tints or shades of the specified color. You can also apply tinting to a full-color picture to produce a low-intensity picture (useful for backgrounds behind text).

You can use the Color tab, Swatches tab or a dialog box to apply solid colors to an object.

To apply a solid color via the Color tab:

  1. Select the object(s) or highlight a range of text.

  2. Click the Color tab and select one of several color modes (RGB, CMYK, or HSL) from the drop-down list.

  1. Click the PagePlus tab colour fill Applying solid fills Fill, PagePlus tab colour line Applying solid fills Line, or PagePlus tab colour text Applying solid fills Text button at the top of the tab to determine where color will be applied. The color of the underline reflects the color of your selected object. For selected frame text, the Fill will be the background text color (but not the frame’s background color).

  2. Select a color from the color spectrum or sliders depending on color mode selected.

To apply a solid color via the Swatches tab:

  1. Select the object(s) or highlight a range of text.

  2. Click the Swatches tab.

  3. Click the PagePlus tab colour fill Applying solid fills Fill, PagePlus tab colour line Applying solid fills Line, or PagePlus tab colour text Applying solid fills Text button at the top of the tab to determine where color will be applied.

  4. PagePlus tab swatches publicationpalette Applying solid fills PagePlus tab swatches paletteflyout Applying solid fills Select a color swatch from the Publication palette (commonly used colors and those previously applied to your publication) or standard Palette (supplied preset swatches).

To change a solid color’s shade/tint (lightness):

  1. Select the object and set the correct Fill, Line or Text button in the Color tab.

  2. From the Color mode drop-down menu, select Tinting.

  3. Drag the Shade/Tint slider to the left or right to darken or lighten your starting color, respectively. You can also enter a percentage value in the box (entering 0 in the input box reverts to the original color).

  4. Adjust the PagePlus tab swatches tint Applying solid fills percentage tinting via slider or direct input to apply object tinting from the Swatches tab.

To apply a solid color using a dialog box:

  1. Right-click the object and choose Format>Fill… (or Line and Border…), or select it and choose Fill… (or Line and Border…) from the Format menu.
    – or -
    Click the PagePlus tbr attributes editfill Applying solid fills Edit Fill or PagePlus tbr attributes lineborder Applying solid fills Line/Border button on the Tools toolbar’s Fill flyout.

  2. Adjust the dialog settings for Color and Shade/Tint. When defining a fill, use the “Solid” type if applying a solid color, but note that you can also use the Fill dialog to apply a gradient or bitmap fill.

PagePlus automatically adds used colors to the PagePlus tab swatches publicationpalette Applying solid fills Publication Palette in the Swatches tab.

To change the current palette:

  • Click the PagePlus tab swatches paletteflyout Applying solid fills Palette button to view and adopt colors from a Standard RGB, Standard CMYK, or selection of themed palettes. Colors can be added, edited, or deleted from the Publication Palette but not from other palettes.

More on using solid colors…

  • You can create a “highlighter” effect on selected areas of your text by chan
    ging your text’s background fill. Select a strong color (e.g., bright yellow) from the Color or Swatches tab for best results—remember to select the Fill button in advance!

  • Draw-type images: Using the Color Mapper, you can make extensive color changes to draw-type (vector) images and vector-based OLE objects. See Format menu.

Applying solid fills