Manga Studio question: Entering text to the page...

[Terminator X]

So I recently got Manga Studio Debut, and am currently trying to learn how to use it. I got "Manga Studio For Dummies" and it has been quite helpful. Going through the steps the author outlines, though, there are a couple of things that look different for me. I will post about some of those later, if I can't figure them out on mine. For now, I just have a question about lettering/adding text.

In the book, when he clicks the text tool on the tool bar, the little properties box pops up...mine does too. However, in the picture/instructions in the book, it shows a place where you can type in the text that you want to be on the page. Mine does not have that. There is no place to type anywhere. I did manage to get a box to pop up where I could click the characters I wanted to be there, but that process takes sooooo long compared to typing. And besides....according to the book, I should be able to type into the properties box.

Am I doing something wrong or missing something?

[Inkthinker]

Are you using version 3 or 4?

Have you tried entering the text directly onto the page, PS-style? In v3 there's a dialogue box, but I think the text tool is one of the ones changed for v4.

[Terminator X]

Ah, ok..that makes sense then. I hav version 4.

Shortly after my initial post, I figured out how to type directly onto the page, but was still frustrated that everything didn't look like it did in the book...but the different versions thing makes sense.

Thanks!

[Inkthinker]

The book may refer to v3. I'm told a bunch of stuff changed between 3 and 4, but from what I understand it was all improvements. The text tool in v3 is, quite honestly, a bit of a piece of crap. It always reverts to Tahoma 12pt and seems to have very limited formatting options.

[Adam Masterman]

I upgraded from 3 to 4, mainly because the lettering options were better. You do type directly onto the page, and it still makes weird characters when I cut and paste from textedit, but the balloon options are increased 1000fold.

[Lingling]

One handy trick is that you can input an entire script all at once to the Story Editor (under the Story menu), and apply styles to them all at once, rather than putting each on the page one at a time. Of course then you still have to place them and make them look nice, but it saves some time.