PagePlus

Setting line properties

All lines, including those that enclose shapes, have numerous properties, including color, weight (width or thickness), scaling, cap (end), join (corner), and stroke alignment. You can vary these properties for any freehand, straight, or curved line, as well as for the outline of a shape (see Drawing and Editing shapes). Note that text frames, pictures, tables, and artistic text objects have line properties, too.

In PagePlus, you can control the position of the stroke (i.e., line width) in relation to the object’s path, i.e. the line that defines the boundary of the object.

To change line properties of a selected object:

• Use the Line swatch on the Swatches tab to change the line’s color and/or shade. Alternatively, use the equivalent swatch on the Color tab to apply a line color from a color mixer.

• Use the Line tab, context toolbar (shown when a line is selected), or Line and Border dialog to change the line’s weight (thickness), type, or other properties. Select a line width, and use the drop-down boxes to pick the type of line. The context toolbar can also adjust line-end scaling as a percentage.

On the Line tab, context toolbar, or Line and Border dialog, the styles drop-down menu provides the following styles: None, Single, Calligraphic, and several Dashed and Double line styles as illustrated below.

Several techniques offer additional ways to customize lines:

	For dotted/dashed lines, select from one of five dashed line styles (see above). – or - (tab and dialog only) Drag the Dash Pattern slider to set the overall pattern length (the number of boxes to the left of the slider) and the dash length (the number of those boxes that are black). The illustrations below show lines with pattern and dash lengths of (1) 4 and 2, and (2) 5 and 4:
	For double lines, select from one of four Double line styles (see above).
	(Tab only) For calligraphic lines of variable width (drawn as if with a square-tipped pen held at a certain angle), select the calligraphic line style (opposite) from the drop-down menu, then use the Calligraphic Angle box to set the angle of the pen tip, as depicted in the examples below.

You can also vary a line’s Cap (end) and the Join (corner) where two lines intersect.

Additional Line settings apply particularly to closed shapes and artistic text.

• Check Behind to hide the inner half of the line behind the shape or text; if unchecked, the whole line appears in front (the wider the line, the more it encroaches on the filled region). For example, if you had some red text with a black line border, you might set the line behind the shape in order to adjust the line’s weight while keeping the letter shape constant.

• Check Scale, both line and object will change size in proportion if you resize the object; otherwise, line weight will remain constant if the object is resized. For example, you could scale a text object up or down while maintaining the relative thickness of the line border around the characters.

• Choose a Stroke Alignment setting to fit the line’s stroke to the middle, inside, or outside of the object’s path (using Align Center, Align Inner, or Align Outer buttons, respectively), allowing more precise object positioning via guides or the Transform tab.

     PagePlus will normally center align the stroke to an object’s path. Aligning to either center or outer will display object dimensions incorporating stroke width on rulers and the Transform tab.

• Take care with stroke alignment on text where outer or center alignment will affect the text size.

The Line and Border dialog offers all line properties including Edge Selection options, shading/tinting, line end scaling, plus decorative photo-based borders.

To access all line and border properties:

• Click  Line/Border on the Attributes toolbar’s Fill flyout.
  – or -
  Right-click on the object and choose Format>Line and Border….
  – or -
  Choose the same option from the Format menu.

  In the dialog, the Line tab lets you adjust all line properties (detailed above) while the Border tab provides photo-based borders.

• To apply a line or border to specific edges of the object, use either tab’s Edge Selection drop-down list. Otherwise, all edges are given a border.

• For lines, adjust shading and tinting once you’ve selected your color; pick a Shade (-) Tint (+) percentage form the drop-down list.

• Select from a variety of decorative border styles from the Select drop-down menu. (See Adding borders.)

Controlling line end scaling

For thicker lines that possess line arrow ends, it’s sometimes useful to be able to reduce the scaling of the arrow in relation to the line itself. For thin lines, the ability to increase line end scaling—especially if the arrow is not very visible—is essential. Line ends can also be set to be ‘internal,’ in that they do not extend the line’s length but instead occupy a portion of the existing line.

Line end scaling can be applied to freehand, straight and curved lines equally.

To adjust scaling:

1. Select an “arrowed” line and click the  Line/Border button on the Tools toolbar’s Fill flyout.

2. Increase or decrease the End scale percentage value to scale up or down the line end.

3. (Optional) For a line end that does not extend beyond the line length, check the Internal line ends option.

Setting line properties