Proclaim provides many options for displaying text in your presentation. Continue reading to learn how to customize your text’s format on the screen.
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Skip ahead to:
- Create a Manual Slide Break
- Create Space Between Lines
- Fade in Text
- Fill-in-the-Blank
- Emphasize Text
- Embed a Bible Passage
- Add Effects to a Text
- Adjust Text Layers
Create a Manual Slide Break
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.
Create Space between Lines
If you want to create space between lines of text without causing a slide break in a Song item, press the Enter key.
Fade in Text
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 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.
Note: This feature automatically creates additional slides in your presentation to accommodate a gradual display and are not animations within a single slide.
If you want transitions between slides, open the Transition popup 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.
Note: Click here for information about changing transition effects and timing for all presentation slides.
Fill-in-the-blank
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.
Emphasize Text
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).
Note: Proclaim only allows one automatic emphasis color in a text field.
Note: To change the font color of the entire textbox, simply select the box on the slide canvas or place your cursor in the textbox in the edit pane, then choose your color.
Embed a Bible passage
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. (e.g. [[Ephesians 5:8-12]]) or by specifying it in the Insert Passage dropdown. Proclaim adds the passage to your presentation, spreading 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. from your default Bible.
Note: Learn more about embedding Bible verses.
Add Effects to Text
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.
Note: Palette options vary depending on the effect you selected.
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).
Underline Text
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).
Note: Some fonts don't support underlining.
Add Fill-in-the-Blank Underline Style
Generating a fill-in-the-blank underline is described above.
Adjust Text Layers
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.
Note: You can also access the arrangement options by right-clicking or with the provided keyboard shortcuts.
Additional Resources
The following articles provide additional instruction on working with text:
- Box Fill Justification and Shapes
- How Do I Apply a Single Text Style to All My Service Items?
- Working with Text Boxes in Smart Media Creator
The Proclaim Guide to Beautiful Church Presentations is an in-depth guide to creating high-quality presentations. Learn more about this great resource here.