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Creating Text Labels


The easiest way to add text labels in your Origin windows is to use Origin's WYSIWYG text creation and editing tools:

Contents

Other relevant topics:

Creating a new text label

  1. Click the Text Tool Image:Button_Text_Tool.png button.
  2. Click at the desired text entry point on your Origin window (graph, worksheet, etc.).

or

  1. Right-click at the desired location in your Origin window.
  2. Select Add Text from the shortcut menu.
    then
  3. Select your text format options from the Format and/or Style toolbars and begin typing. Note that these buttons and lists work as they would in any WYSIWYG environment. You can turn them on and off as you go, or you can highlight a portion of the text and click a button or select an option from a list.

To exit the text editing mode, click outside the text label or press ESC.

Note: When creating text labels, if you click inside the layer frame and create your text label, the label is automatically attached to the layer frame (see this discussion of Object Attachment and Scaling). When text labels are attached to the layer frame, moving or resizing the layer will force the text object to move/resize with respect to the layer frame's size and position. If you click outside of the layer and create your text label, the label is automatically attached to the page, in which case the label does not move or resize with the layer.

Editing an existing text label

To edit an existing text label:

  1. Double-click on the text label to enter label editing mode.
Image:Creating Text Labels 01.png

Shortcut keyboard combinations for general editing of text labels

If you prefer using shortcut keys over setting style and format options using toolbar buttons and drop-down lists, you can use the following keyboard combinations:

Control Key Combination
Bold CNTRL + B, CNTRL + SHIFT + B
Italic CNTRL + I, CNTRL + SHIFT + I
Underline CNTRL + U, CNTRL + SHIFT + U
Greek CNTRL + G, CNTRL + SHIFT + G
Supercript CNTRL + SHIFT + =
Subscript CNTRL + =
Supersubscript CNTRL + -
Increase Font Size CNTRL + SHIFT + >
Decrease Font Size CNTRL + SHIFT + <
Select All CNTRL + A, CNTRL + 5 (numpad)

Resizing a text label

To resize a label object:

  1. Click once on the label.
  2. Select the desired font size from the Font Size box on the Format toolbar.

or

2.Click the Increase Font or Decrease Font buttons Image:Button_Increase_Font.pngImage:Button_Decrease_Font.png on the Format toolbar.

Note: For quick adjustments to the size of the text object, select the object and drag a control handle.

Rotating a text label

To rotate a label:

  1. Click twice (pause long enough between clicks to avoid a double-click). A locus of rotation symbol Image:Creating Text Labels 02.png displays in the middle of the label and round rotation handles display at the corners of the label.
  2. Grab a rotation handle and rotate the label to the desired angle.

Note: You can specify a precise rotation angle in the Object Properties dialog box (Format: Object Properties).

Disabling point-and-click label rotation

To disable second-click access to label rotation mode:

  1. Select Tools: Options to open the Options dialog box.
  2. Select the Text Fonts tab and then select the Simple Selection Mode check box.

Using the Symbol Map to add special characters to your labels

To add special characters to your text labels:

  1. While in in-place text editing mode, right-click and select Symbol Map from the shortcut menu. This opens the Symbol Map dialog box.
    Image:Creating Text Labels 03.png.
  2. Choose the Font that contains the necessary special character from the drop-down list.
  3. Highlight the special character in the gallery and either double-click or click Insert to insert the special character into your text label.

Note:

The Symbol Map dialog used for inserting characters in text labels supports Unicode characters. You can enter a rich repertoire of mathematical/special symbols and variety of language characters (e.g., Cyrillic, Hebrew, Arabic, Korean, Chinese, Japanese, etc.) using Unicode-enabled fonts such as Arial Unicode MS.

To insert a Unicode character, check the Unicode check box next to Font and then select the special character in the symbol gallery. If you know the corresponding Unicode code point, you can type the digits that follow "U+" in the Go To Unicode text box and go to that character directly. For more information, see adding special characters in a text label.

Creating a shortcut key combination to insert special characters

If you frequently use certain characters in your text labels, you can create shortcut keys to insert those characters and bypass the Symbol Map.

The easiest way to do this is to have already inserted the desired character into a text label. Then:

  1. Double-click on the text object to enter in-place editing mode and select the text that you want to insert when you use your shortcut key combination.
  2. Right-click on the selected text and select Assign Shortcut. This opens the Assign Shortcut dialog box. The text that you selected is entered into the String box.
  3. Select a shortcut from the Key list.
  4. Click the Add button.

Note that you could enter text into the String box manually. However, if you do, any formatting syntax (i.e. \b(text) etc.) must also be entered manually. For instance, to create a shortcut for the Greek character Π:

  1. Click the Text tool and then click in your graph window. This starts the in-place editing mode.
  2. Right-click and select Symbol Map.
  3. Select Π and click Insert.
  4. Click Close.
  5. Now highlight and right-click on the character.
  6. Select Assign Shortcut.
  7. Select a shortcut from the Key drop-down list.
  8. Click Add.
    Image:Creating Text Labels 04.png
  9. Click OK to close the dialog box.

You can now use CTRL+0 (in this example) as a shortcut for Π when in-place editing.

For more information, see Escape Sequences.

To remove a shortcut:

  1. Re-open the Assign Shortcut dialog box.
  2. Select the shortcut you want to remove from the Current list box.
  3. Press DELETE.

Turning off in-place (WYSIWYG) editing of text labels

This information is provided primarily for long-time Origin users who prefer the older (prior to version 7) text editing methods.

To turn off in-place text editing:

  1. Select Tools: Options to open the Options dialog box.
  2. Select the Text Fonts tab and then select the Disable In-place Editing check box.
  3. Click OK. When asked to save as a startup Option, say Yes to make this the default behavior (say No to apply it to the current session only).

When the in-place editing mode is disabled, double-clicking the label opens the Object Properties dialog box. This dialog box predates Origin's WYSIWYG methods. Most would consider its functionality to be less intuitive than newer WYSIWYG methods.