Text Editing Tips and Tools

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Proclaim provides many options for displaying text in your presentation. Continue reading to learn how to customize your text’s format on the screen.

Create a Manual Slide Break

When you enter text into a text field, Proclaim automatically formats the text in your slides. You can also create manual slide breaks where needed.

Place the cursor at the place in your text where you want to insert the slide break and click the Slide Break icon Section Break icon.

Slide with multiple slide breaks and slide break button highlighted

Note: You can also add or add two line breaks with the Enter key to add a new manual slide break.

Create Space between Lines

If you want to create space between lines of text without causing a slide break in a Song item, press Shift + Enter.

Slide Content With Non Breaking Space

Embed a Bible passage

Quickly add a passage to a slide by embedding the reference. Enter your Bible reference surrounded by double brackets. (e.g. [[John 3:16]]). Proclaim adds the passage to your presentation, spreading out over several slides if necessary. By default, embedded Bible verses use the same styling and translation as the most recently added Bible service item. from your default Bible. 

Add Bible verse button highlighted showing Bible passage inserted in presentation

Note: Learn more about embedding Bible verses.

Fade in Text

If you want your text to fade in gradually, use the fade text icon Fade In Text icon or insert two plus signs ++ at the beginning of the line. When you navigate to this slide in the presentation, the text following the plus signs does not display until you advance the slide.

Fade Text button highlighted showing results

Note: This feature automatically creates additional slides in your presentation to accommodate a gradual display and are not animations within a single slide.

Edit the text transition effect by clicking no in the Use no transition option.

Transition popup showing transition options

When a transition is selected, you can edit the transition timing. Click the number to select your desired transition time.

Transition duration popup showing timing options

Did you know? You can change transition effects and timing for all presentation slides.

Fill-in-the-blank

You can hide words or phrases by creating blanks in your text that are filled in with the missing words. When you enter the command to advance, Proclaim fills in the blank with the hidden word or phrase.

Highlight the text you want converted to a blank and click the Fill in the blank icon Fill In The Blank icon. Proclaim substitutes the word or phrase with a blank on your slide.

Fill in the blank button highlighted with blank visible

Note: You can also manually type an underscore mark _ on either side of the word or phrase you want converted to a blank (e.g. _love_ or _glory of God_). Proclaim substitutes the word or phrase with a blank on your slide.

Underline Text

The text editor in Proclaim does not include a button for underlining text. You can, however, apply an underline to selected text with a keyboard shortcut.

  • Windows: Ctrl + U
  • macOS: Cmd + U

Note: Some fonts do not support underlining.

Emphasize Text

You can select a word or phrase in a text box or field and make it BoldItalics, or all capital letters (indicated by TT). Emphasis text highlights words by coloring them differently and can be applied to the main text fields of Content, Announcement, and Bible service items. It can be useful in call and response readings, with bi-lingual songs or Bible verses, or during a sermon or announcement slide to highlight especially important words or phrases.

To change the text color, click the Color Swatch Icon  or press Ctrl + H (Windows) or Cmd + H (Mac).

text color palette showing with orange color selected

Edit the text color by expanding the drop-down menu. The color you choose becomes the default color for future selections.

Add Effects to Text

Proclaim provides nearly infinite options for customizing your text display in the Effects menu. To add an effect, select a textbox in the editing panel and click Effects to expand the drop-down menu. Checking a box enables the EDIT command for more customization.

effects panel visible with pattern overlay examples

Note: Palette options vary depending on the effect you selected.

Text edits occur instantly. If you want to discard your change, right-click in the text box and select Undo or press Ctrl + Z (Windows) or Cmd + Z (macOS).

Additional Resources

The following articles provide additional instruction on working with text:

The Proclaim Guide to Beautiful Church Presentations is an in-depth guide to creating high-quality presentations. Learn more about this great resource here.

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