Add, edit, and style text.
Click the scene with the Text tool to place text, and type right away. Change the font, size, and color in the Text panel on the right, and the alignment and bold in the sub-toolbar.
Add and edit text
In Design mode, open the scene where you want to add text.
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Create text
Choose Text in the toolbar, or press T. Click where you want the text in the scene. The word “Text” appears with all of it selected, waiting for you to type.
Type your text, and it replaces “Text”. When you’re done, press esc.
Pressing T, clicking the scene, and typing replaces the new text with “Hello there”. Video: Pressing T and clicking the scene makes a text box with “Text” selected. “Hello there” is typed over it, and Esc finishes. -
Edit text
Double-click the text you want to edit. All of the text is selected, so typing replaces all of it. To change just part of it, click that spot to move the cursor there. ↩ starts a new line. Press esc or click an empty spot to finish editing.
Double-clicking the text, clicking at its end, pressing ↩, and typing adds “All of July” on a new line. Video: Double-clicking the Summer sale text selects all of it. Clicking at the end moves the cursor there, pressing Enter starts a new line, typing adds All of July, and pressing Esc finishes.
Typing on text you’ve finished runs shortcuts
When you press esc to finish typing, the text stays selected and the tool is Select. Anything you type then doesn’t go into the text: it’s read as shortcuts. Tool keys such as C (Ellipse) switch tools, numbers press buttons in the sub-toolbar, and other letters are lost. With a non-English input method such as Korean, each key is read as the English key in the same spot, so the key in the C position still switches to the Ellipse tool. To type into it again, press ↩ or double-click the text.
Change the font, size, and color
Click the text you want to change to select it. The Text panel appears in the lower part of the right panel, and text buttons appear in the sub-toolbar.
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Change the font
Click the Font Family field in the Text panel. The Fonts window opens beside it. Type a font name in the search field at the top. Click a font in the list to apply it to the text right away. The weight then goes back to that font’s regular weight (the one closest to 400). To use a different weight, click one of the numbers that appear on the chosen font’s row.
Clicking the Font Family field, searching, and choosing NanumMyeongjo changes the title’s font. Video: With the text selected, clicking the Font Family field in the Text panel opens the Fonts window. A search narrows the list to the Nanum Myeongjo fonts, and clicking NanumMyeongjo changes the title to that serif font. -
Change the size and weight
Delete the number in the Size field, type a new one, and press ↩. Line Height changes in proportion. In the Weight field, type a value from 100 to 900 in steps of 100. The higher the number, the bolder the text. Dragging a corner handle of the text also changes the text size.
Typing 120 in the Size field and pressing ↩ makes the title bigger. Video: Selecting the 26 in the Size field of the Text panel, typing 120, and pressing Enter makes the title bigger, and the number in the Line Height field changes too. -
Change the text color
Scroll down in the Text panel to find the Text Style › Fills row. Click the color square at the left of the row to open the Colors window. When you choose a color, the text takes it right away. You can also type a color value such as #FF6A00 in the field next to it.
Clicking the black color square in Fills and choosing orange in the Colors window turns the title orange. Video: Scrolling down the Text panel and clicking the black color square in the Fills row opens the Colors window. Choosing orange turns the title orange. -
Align and bold text
Click Align Text Center in the sub-toolbar to center multiple lines. Centered text keeps its center in place even as you type more. Bold, Italic, Underline, and Strikethrough turn on and off each time you click them.
On two lines of text, clicking Align Text Center centers them, and clicking Bold next makes them bold. Video: With two lines of text selected, clicking Align Text Center in the sub-toolbar centers both lines, and clicking Bold makes the text bold. -
Set the paragraph width
New text grows sideways to fit its characters. To wrap lines at a set width, turn off Auto Size in the sub-toolbar. Then drag the right handle: the box width changes instead of the text size, and the text wraps inside it. The height doesn’t grow on its own, so adjust it with the bottom handle.
Turning off Auto Size and dragging the right handle to the left splits the one-line text into two lines. Video: With a long one-line text selected, turning off Auto Size in the sub-toolbar and dragging the right handle to the left wraps the text onto two lines. Dragging the bottom handle down then fits the height.
Formatting applies to the whole text at once
Even if you select a single word while editing and click Bold, the whole text turns bold. The same goes for the font, size, and color.
To style just one word differently, finish editing, click the scissors-shaped Split Text button in the sub-toolbar, and choose Word. The text becomes a group of word pieces, so hold ⌘ and click the word you want to change to select it. The pieces stay where they are, so if a word’s width changes, move the pieces next to it to even out the spacing. Fonts and text effects describes the same method.
Text on shapes and copying formatting
To put text inside a shape. You can’t type into a rectangle or an ellipse. Create text and place it on the shape, then select both, center them, and press ⌘G to group them. The first double-click on grouped text only enters the group, so double-click once more to edit it. To learn how to center them, see Align and number keys.
New text starts with the last formatting. When you change formatting in the Text panel or the sub-toolbar, the next text you create starts with that font, size, and alignment. Text color always starts as black.
To copy formatting to other text. Select the text you want to copy from, right-click it, and choose Copy Typography. Then select the text you want to change, right-click it, and choose Paste Typography. Its font, size, weight, and alignment now match.
Shortcuts on this page
| Text tool | T |
|---|---|
| Start editing the selected text | ↩orDouble-click |
| Finish editing | esc |
| Turn bold on or off | ⌘B |
| Increase text size by 1 | ⌘⇧. |
| Decrease text size by 1 | ⌘⇧, |
Updated 10/14/2026 · The videos on this page were recorded in the current editor.