There are plenty of industries that are generally text based, such as offset print shops, graphic design shops that create yard signs, banners, and magnetic signs for cars, CAD cutters, and printers that create business cards, print ads, menus, and similar items. While many of these artists have word processing programs that they use for much of their work, and perhaps even vector-based programs, Photoshop can play an important role too, especially since Photoshop supports vector-based text in the latest versions of the software. For those artists who use Photoshop for their print work, a text-based workspace certainly increases efficiency.
Tip: You can make many changes to a type layer and still edit the type, including but not limited to: changing the orientation, applying anti-aliasing, converting between point and paragraph type, and using layer styles.
There are several palettes designed particularly for working with text, including the Character and Paragraph palettes. From the Character palette, a language can be chosen for checking the spelling in a file, and font, font size, and other text attributes can be set. The Paragraph palette can be used for configuring how paragraphs of text should be laid out.
In addition to these, the Styles palette can be useful, as text effects can be applied from there, and the Layers palette is useful since adding text also adds layers to the image and those layers can be chosen and manipulated using this palette.
Finally, consider adding the History palette and the Actions palette. In the additional options for the Actions palette, add the text effects actions. A sample palette is shown here. [See Image 1]
Even though I’ve put all of the palettes together in a single box, you can separate them into two, three, or even four boxes and configure them to fit on the screen however you want. However, when the palettes are docked together as one, you can very easily drag it around the screen, moving it out of the way to optimize the workspace. Once you’ve arranged the text-based workspace the way you want it, choose Window>Workspace>Save Workspace and name the new workspace Text-Based. The new workspace will appear in the Window>Workspace options and will be available anytime you need to work with text. (When saving the Workspace, make sure to check Keyboard Shortcuts and Menus if you’ve made additional changes to those items.)
Tip: You can even dock the palettes in the Dock if desired, and then collapse the Dock. This will further keep the work area clean.
This information was excerpted from my book, Photoshop 7.0 for Screen Printers. A new version is available for CS3 at www.wordware.com. Use the code ps0365 for 35% off this book and any others at the site.