|  |  | 5.2 Text objects

## 5.2 Text objects

Text objects come in two flavors: simple labels, and minipages. There are two variants of these: titles (a label that serves as the title of the page), and textbox (a minipage that spans the entire width of the page).

The position you have to click to start creating a label object is the lower left corner of the piece of text. A popup window appears where you can enter Latex source code.

A minipage object is different from a simple text object in that its width is part of its definition. When you create a minipage object, you first have to drag out a horizontal segment for the minipage. This is used as the top edge of the minipage--it will extend downwards as far as necessary to accomodate all the text. Minipages are formatted using, not surprisingly, Latex's `minipage` environment. Latex tries to fill the given bounding box as nicely as possible. It is possible to include center environments, lemmas, and much more in minipages.

To create a textbox object, simply press "F10". Ipe automatically places the object so that it spans the entire width of the page (the margins settings in the style sheet determine how much space is left on the sides), and places it vertically underneath the textboxes already on the page. This is particularly convenient for creating presentations with a lot of text, or with items that appear one by one.

(Title objects are not yet supported.)

You can use any LaTeX-command that is legal inside a `\makebox` (for labels) or inside a `minipage` (for minipages). You cannot use commands that involve a non-linear translation into PDF, such as commands to generate hyperlinks or to include external images.

You can use color in your text objects, using the `\textcolor` command, like this:

    This is in black. \textcolor{red}{This is in red.} This is in black.

All the symbolic colors of your current style sheet are also available as arguments to `\textcolor`. You can also use absolute colors, for instance:

    This is in black. \textcolor[rgb]{1,1,0}{This is in yellow.} This is in black.

If you need LaTeX-commands that are defined in additional LaTeX packages, you can include (`\usepackage`) those in the LaTeX preamble, which can be set in Document properties in the Edit menu.

After you have created or edited a text object, the Ipe screen display will show the beginning of the Latex source. You can select Run Latex from the File menu to create the PDF/Postscript representation of the object. This converts all the text objects in your document at once, and Ipe will display a correct rendition of the text afterwards.

If the Latex conversion process results in errors, Ipe will automatically show you the log file created by the Latex run. If you cannot figure out the problem, look in the section on troubleshooting.

You can use Unicode text, such as accented characters, Greek, Cyrillic, Chinese, Japanese, or Korean, in your text objects, once you have set up the necessary style files and fonts.

|  |  | 5.2 Text objects