Editing text

Double clicking on a text object in many of the tools takes you into the Text Tool and places the cursor at the click position in the text.

All the normal word processor-style cursor and mouse operations can be used. For example:

Click where you want to place the cursor.
Use the left and right arrow keys to move left, right, up or down.
Use "Ctrl + left and right arrow keys" to move left or right one word.
Press "Home" or "End" to move to the start or end of the line.

Press "Ctrl + Home", or "Ctrl + End" to move to the start or end of the text object.

Text selection:

"Shift + any" of the above keys to select text
Double click to select a word. Double click and drag to select whole words at a time.
Triple click selects a whole line of text, or "Ctrl + L". Triple click and drag to select whole lines at a time.
Quadruple (4x) click selects a paragraph of text. Quadruple click and drag to select whole paragraphs at a time.
Or just drag across the text in the Text Tool to select the text

"Ctrl + A" will select all the text in the text object (you must be in the Text Tool.)

If you have a text selection any attribute change will apply only to the selected region of text. If you have only the cursor in the text, then any attribute change, say selecting a new color, will only appear when you type new text.

Selecting the whole text object

There is a quick shortcut for selecting the whole text object. Instead of using "Ctrl + A" or dragging across all the text, simply press the "Esc" key. This removes the cursor but selects the whole text (the status line will confirm 1 text object). This makes it easy to apply an effect or attribute to the whole text selection.

For example, to change the font size of the whole text object, just press "Esc" and select the new size from the InfoBar.

Switching case

Use the context menu to change the case of selected text, so right click and choose from the following options..

"Change case to" > "all lower"
"Change case to" > "ALL CAPS"

"Change case to" > "Initial Caps"
"Change case to" > "Small Caps"

Additionally...

Pressing "Ctrl + Shift + F1" will make selected text toggle between all uppercase and all lowercase. So, if you've accidentally typed a section of text with the caps lock key on, just select the text and press "Ctrl + Shift + F1".

Pressing "Ctrl + W" will swap the case of the character after the cursor and move the cursor on. You can swap the case of a selected region of text, the same way. Uppercase characters will become lowercase and vice versa. The cursor will not be moved.

Smart Quotes

When you type quote ' or double quote " characters, Xara will automatically convert these into the more appropriate and aesthetically accurate opening or closing quotes. It is also smart enough to understand the use of single quotes within words to signify missing characters.

Entering special characters

There are a number of useful shortcuts to allow insertion of special characters, like © or ™. See Special characters (in Text Tool) section in "Menus and keyboard shortcuts".

All these shortcuts (with the exception of the hard space) are compatible with Microsoft Word.

Entering dummy text ('Lorem Ipsum')

You can insert a paragraph of dummy "Lorem ipsum" text by pressing "Ctrl + Shift + L" ("L" for Lorem) while using the Text Tool. To insert a larger block of text, just press the key combination a few times.

The function is also available on the main Insert menu or else as part of the right-click context menu. "Insert" > "Lorem Ipsum Text".