Any way to vertically shrink down the text box?

laer wrote on 2/21/2009, 8:41 AM
When creating a Text Only button, there's an annoying amount of blank space used above and below the text... preventing me from doing a vertical column of links without having huge gaps in between.

I've been told to use the sizing tool to modify the box size, but it seems to insist on keeping a large buffer/gutter of space above and below... and if you scale it down (even when setting a specific font size), it begins scaling down the font in order to maintain that gutter.

Any way to force it to lock the font size when you are scaling it down... or to define how much of a gutter a Text Only button has?

Comments

Steve Grisetti wrote on 2/21/2009, 11:34 AM
I believe you can resize the text box and then manually set the font size high enough that the text fills the box.
laer wrote on 2/21/2009, 12:08 PM
Yup, I wish... The box just stretches to maintain that dreaded buffer space. Seems the two (text and box) are linked... adjusting one causes changes in the other (if the beloved buffer space is put in jeopardy). I was hoping there was some toggle where you could unlink the two... but there doesn't appear to be.

Like with so many other things I'm struggling with here, it too seems a bit random. Seems like smaller text works better, but larger text has ridiculous gutterspace. Almost like there's a blank text line above and below your text (like it's 3 lines of text, but the first and third one are just spaces). No kerning or leading controls for the text, as far as I can see either...

Text boxes are fine, as you can just overlap them.... But button boxes whine if you overlap.

I suppose I could just create text 'graphics' in Photoshop, and us that (Image Only buttons, rather than Text Only ones).... but then again, that may also have a weird gutter thing too... Something to try, although I cringe at having to create text graphics externally, rather than just typing it in DVDA...
TOG62 wrote on 2/21/2009, 1:48 PM
Just playing about with your problem, the following seemed to give what you're after.

1/ Add items for menu to the project by dragging to project window title entry (above menu item).
2/ Create text item as label for each item.
3/ Place an empty button on top of each text item.
4/ Set button type to image only.
5/ Size button to fit text.
6/ Add action to each button pointing to desired destination.

A bit long winded but it allows button to exactly fit text.

Mike
laer wrote on 2/21/2009, 2:02 PM
Brilliant! An invisible button on top of a standard text object.

That's bloody clever! I did that in Flash all the time. Why didn't I think of that?!

Cool. Thanks!