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About This Site

Maintained by Peter C.S. Adams and Gordon Woolf.

Design philosophy: all information in this web site should be accessible to the intended audience regardless of platform, browser, or size of screen. Graphics are kept to a minimum to reduce download times. If you see a frame or an animated GIF, feel free to flame me mercilessly.

This site uses fully compliant cascading style sheets (CSS). Older browsers should display text in their default fonts, while more recent browsers will all display fully formatted text. (However, the styles sheets will look best viewed in Internet Explorer 4.0 or above.) The site also complies with major accessibility standards.

Colophon

The base font for this page is Trebuchet MS, a free font from Microsoft designed for on-screen readability at small point sizes. The headlines are 32 pt Times bold italic, combining elegance, classical proportions, and compactness.

The logo is variation on the original logo from Aldus PageMaker and depicts Aldus Manutius, a student of Johannes Gutenberg and inventor of italics. This is to echo the roots of desktop publishing, both in the 1450s and the 1980s. The logo uses Courier from ITC to evoke the feel of metal type and Poetica from Adobe Systems to evoke the era of hand lettering.

Made on a Macintosh using Adobe Photoshop and Macromedia DreamWeaver.

Creating an Embossed Text Effect in PageMaker

Question: I was trying to dress up our masthead this week and wanted to put the paper's name in outline font against a 10-20% color screen, then dupe the name in a 50% gray for an underlying shadow effect. However, when I converted the name (which was, I think, in AGaramond Bold, 55 pt) to outline using the tool pallette, it ended up making the main name a few points larger (in terms of the vertical and horizontal space it took up).

Outlining works by changing the fill of the letters to white and adding a black stroke to the outside. That works fine, but in my experience, it's almost impossible to then align the outlined characters with others. EPS is your best bet if that's what you want. In addition to better alignment, you can feather the shadow a bit.

The example above is simple: three superimposed text blocks over a background, all done within PageMaker. Change colors, tints, and offset distances as desired.

Here's a trick you can use in PageMaker, though. Set your text against the tinted background and set the color of the text to white (in the Format Character dialog, not via the color palette). You now have a reverse.

Duplicate the text block via Copy & Paste Multiple (try 0.02" to start). Change the color of this text to Black. Select this text block with the pointer tool and choose Element > Arrange > Send Backward. You now have a creditable shadow.

Next, duplicate again with Paste Multiple, this time using half what you used last time (e.g. 0.01"). Color the text in this block the same as the background. Deselect and admire! You now have a text block that appears to be embossed.

 MORE TIPS

All rights reserved. Unless otherwise specified, all contents copyright © 1993– 2008 Peter C.S. Adams
Last modified March 12, 2004

STEPPS -- Stop Tax Exempt Private Property Sprawl -- Framingham