PeterH Posted May 11, 2015 Share Posted May 11, 2015 Hi. I have a line of text converted to paths. Each letter is an individual object. When I want to select all the individual letters so as to change the fill colour on all, I drag a marquee over them, but then choosing a fill colour will colour the overall background of the marqueed rectangle, not the fill of each individual item. If I select each item using by clicking while holding down the shift key I can then colour their fills, but it's a chore to do that each time. It would be much quicker to just draw a marquee over all the items. What am I missing? Paul Bravery 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Bravery Posted May 11, 2015 Share Posted May 11, 2015 Hi. I have a line of text converted to paths. Each letter is an individual object. When I want to select all the individual letters so as to change the fill colour on all, I drag a marquee over them, but then choosing a fill colour will colour the overall background of the marqueed rectangle, not the fill of each individual item. If I select each item using by clicking while holding down the shift key I can then colour their fills, but it's a chore to do that each time. It would be much quicker to just draw a marquee over all the items. What am I missing? Hi Peter H, Are you referring to Affinity Designer or Affinity Photo Beta? I've tried replicating what you've described with both the 'Art Text Tool' and the 'Frame text Tool', in both apps, but to no avail. My screen shots are attached. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staff MEB Posted May 11, 2015 Staff Share Posted May 11, 2015 Hi PeterH, Welcome to Affinity Forums :) Can you post the file, so i can take a look? You should be able to drag a marquee to select all objects and change the fill of all at once. Quote A Guide to Learning Affinity Software Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterH Posted May 13, 2015 Author Share Posted May 13, 2015 The file is Affinity Designer, though it wasn't originally created in this software. Maybe that is the problem? I think the document was originally Freehand, then exported as .eps, then opened in Affinity Designer. Here's a part of the file (edited down for anonymity) which exhibits the problem. It's as though the shapes were grouped or pasted inside another rectangle. Its not possible (or at least I can't see how) to select only some of the objects by dragging a marquee. I have to use the Node tool while holding Cmd and Shift (on a Mac). SocEspOnly-grey.afdesign Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staff MEB Posted May 13, 2015 Staff Share Posted May 13, 2015 Yes, you're right: the letters are clipped inside a rectangle shape. Select all the letters in the Layers panel (select the first on top, press ⇧ (shift) and click on the last one) and drag them to the Layer 1, then delete the clipping rectangle (it isn't doing anything there anyway). From here you can select them normally in the canvas by dragging a marquee around them. If you want to select them keeping the rectangle there, the only way is how you are doing now: holding ⌘ (cmd) and ⇧ (shift) while clicking on the letters. Quote A Guide to Learning Affinity Software Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterH Posted May 13, 2015 Author Share Posted May 13, 2015 That worked very well - thanks for the tip. I still need practice in understanding layers in Affinity. I have a lot of legacy Freehand docs which occasionally need modifying so I guess it means a little bit of extra work but it beats having to battle with Illustrator. I notice that I can't open Freehand files directly but must go back and export them as .eps or .ai first - is that right? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterH Posted May 13, 2015 Author Share Posted May 13, 2015 Sorry to clutter up the forum with my last question. I found a previous post that explains to add .fh11 to the file name. Seems to work sort of. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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