Vertical text - Classic menu

[laffin_boy]

(Using Textmaker 24, rev S1208.0127, on Win 10-64 machine)

I need to align some text vertically - ie: rotate it 90°. The Textmaker manual explains how to do it if you're using the ribbon menu but not when using the Classic menu. I use the classic menu. After wasting 45 min trying to rotate the text I broke down and switched to the chaotic ribbon menu and verified the Textmaker can rotate text. I then found a Ribbon to Classic translation in the help pages that said I needed to use Object > Autoshapes. And having converted back to the sanity of the Classic Menu I found that command and successfully put some text into an "autoshape". Then hit Object > Rotate or Flip > Rotate Right and it did. But what it rotated was the box, leaving the text where it was!

So what are the real directions to be able to rotate text 90° from the Classic menu?

[Jossi]

Object > New text frame.
Type the text inside the frame.
Right-click the border of the frame and choose "Properties..." in the context menu.
Select tab "Inner text".
In "Rotate by..." select 90°.

Hope that helps.

[laffin_boy]

Thanks Jossi ! That works. But I would have never figured that out without an explanation

I can sympathize with SoftMaker's problem - they're forever in M$'s shadow. If M$ decides to boost their sales of Office s/w, by adding a New & Improved, Must-Have Feature™, then SoftMaker has to follow suit in order to prove that it's "just as good". Even when the "Improvement" is really Stupid. (As many M$ Improvements are) And the chaotic, un-intuitive Ribbon is an excellent example of this problem.

But, to their credit, SM does still offer the Classic Menu for it's customers that aren't seduced by M$ but then they "shoot themselves in the foot" by making their (otherwise excellent) Help completely Ribbon-centric. Look at the process difference between rotating text 90° using the Ribbon interface vs the Classic Menu interface. It's a night vs day difference. Ribbon is 2 steps. Classic is 6 steps. But, much more importantly, the easy & relatively intuitive Ribbon process is documented. The much more involved but less intuitive Classic process is not documented! Help is written almost exclusively for Ribbon users.

I am sympathetic, as I said, to SM's problem. Because the interface change clearly changes the way the program works SMO really needs 2 separate help files / manuals - one for Ribbon followers and one for Classic menu users.

[Woody44]

Somewhere, somehow, I managed to snag a TextMaker user manual dated 1987-2013. I think it covers Textmaker 2012. If you would like a copy of it, send me a private message with a valid e-mail address.

I agree that supporting the dual interfaces is a logistical issue. Nonetheless, I also use the classic menu and I am often frustrated when the support team provides answers only for the ribbon menu. Since any question that makes it to the forum probably affects multiple users, it would be much more helpful and proactive to supply answers for both interfaces.

As to the user manuals, SoftMaker obviously had user manuals when the classic interface was the only interface. I think it would be a smart move to update those user manuals and make them available for download from the SoftMaker web site. Beyond that, I wonder if it would be possible to somehow link the on-line help according to which menu interface the user has selected. I find it very annoying when I have to look for help, only to find that the only help available is for a user interface that I don't use.

[stascheit]

There is also another (shorter) way to find the "Rotate by" command in the classic menu: Use the Autoshape toolbar.

[stascheit]

Because the interface change clearly changes the way the program works SMO really needs 2 separate help files / manuals - one for Ribbon followers and one for Classic menu users.

A little help to find a corresponding classic menu command:
Look into the table of commands (ribbon -> classic menu) in the Appendix at the end of the manual.