Text Editing Tips and Tools

You can add a default text box to any type of service item.

If you are working with a Content item, you can add a Main Content box, which gives you full flexibility. Songs, Bible items, and Announcements come pre-set with their own Main Content boxes, so you do not have an option to add an additional one. 

Different types of Smart Captions populate depending on your service item type–for instance, in an announcement, you could add a contact card, location, or event time, while in a song, you could add credits or a hymn number. 

When you enter text into a text field, Proclaim automatically formats the text in your slides. You can create manual slide breaks in two different ways:

Place the cursor at the place in your text where you want to insert the slide break and click the Slide Break icon. Proclaim inserts a slide break at your chosen point.

OR

Place the cursor at the place you want to insert the slide break. Press Enter followed by two hyphens -- and then press Enter again. Proclaim inserts a slide break at the place you inserted the hyphens but does not project the hyphens on the screen. 

When working with Song items, pressing Enter creates a new slide. If you want to create space between lines of text without causing a slide break in a Song item, press Shift + Enter.

When you are displaying a list, it is often helpful to display one item at a time. If you want your text to fade in gradually, use the Fade In Text icon or insert two plus signs ++ at the beginning of the line. When you navigate to this slide in the presentation, the text following the plus signs does not display until you enter the command to advance. 

If you want transitions between slides, open the Transition dropdown menu and select the option you want.

When a transition is selected, you can edit the transition timing. Click the current transition time to select a new one.

Quickly add a passage to a slide by embedding the reference. You can either do this manually by entering the Bible reference surrounded by double brackets ( [[Ephesians 5:8-12]] ) or by specifying it in the Insert Passage dropdown. Proclaim adds the passage to your presentation, spreading it out over several slides if necessary. By default, embedded Bible verses use the same styling and translation as the most recently added Bible service item.

You can hide words or phrases by creating blanks in your text that are filled in with the missing words. When you enter the command to advance, Proclaim fills in the blank with the hidden word or phrase.

Highlight the text you want converted to a blank and click the Fill in the blank icon . Proclaim substitutes the word or phrase with a blank on your slide.

OR

Enter an underscore mark _ on either side of the word or phrase you want converted to a blank (e.g. _love_ or _glory of God_). Proclaim substitutes the word or phrase with a blank on your slide.

Proclaim automatically shrinks text to fit the box. If you are working with a large block of text, consider breaking it into multiple slides (more information on that in this section) to ensure that your audience can easily read it.

If you would prefer to prioritize a selected font size rather than allowing Proclaim to automatically scale your text to fit, toggle the Scale to Fit option off. In this mode, if your text outgrows the text box, Proclaim will begin a new slide rather than shrinking the text to fit the box. This option is available for Song, Content, and Bible items.

You can also use the toolbar to adjust things like alignment and letter and line spacing.

You can select a word or phrase in a text box or field and make it Bold, Italics, or all capital letters (indicated by TT).

To change the text color of an individual word or phrase, select the word or phrase, click the Font Color dropdown, and choose a color. Automatic colors will change color automatically to keep the emphasized word obvious, even if you change the surrounding text color. To toggle automatic colors, click on one of the automatic color swatches or press Ctrl+H (Windows) or Cmd+Shift+H (Mac).

There is an art to creating the right contrast between text and background. Proclaim provides nearly infinite options for customizing your text display in the Effects menu.

Click Effects to expand the drop-down menu. Click the enabled EDIT command to bring up a palette for you to customize your selected effect.

If your selected option includes color choices (such as the Outer Glow effect) you can simply select a preset color or swatch from the palette. Or create your own color or swatch and save it to use again by clicking Save color or Save swatch.

Changes are applied instantly. If you want to discard your change, right-click in the text box and select Undo or press Ctrl+Z (Windows) or Cmd+Z (macOS).

In Proclaim, you can add a basic underline style or a fill-in-the-blank underline style to any text.  

The text editor in Proclaim does not include a button for underlining text. You can, however, apply an underline to selected text with your system's default keyboard shortcut (Ctrl+U on Windows and Cmd+U on macOS).

You can adjust the layering of foreground elements to reorder your elements by selecting the element, opening the Arrange menu, and selecting the option you want.