modern_min

I've just tried that and it works a treat. Thank you so much, Jill. I am gradually getting the hang of PTE. It is such a good product, and I am really proud of the slideshows I have produced so far, simple though they are.

Davegee - your question sent me off to Barry's videos to find out what a parent/child relationship is, how to know if you've got one and to create one. I can confirm that when you select a text box (T button on the top menu), it makes it a child of the picture, which explains the behaviour. So it would appear that every time I want to put a caption on an animated picture, I have to cut the text item, paste it into empty space and move it to the top. Then I highlight what it is I want to zoom and do it. I am correct? It's a bit of a faff - is there a simpler way (like telling PTE I want it to create text boxes unrelated to the picture? Thanks for your help. I'm still near the start of my learning tree.

I know this is a bit basic, but I have searched for a long time without success. It is about picture slides with text captions. In Objects and Animation, I can zoom the text alone, or the text and picture together. But I want the picture to zoom and the text remain static. Can someone point me in the right direction?

Merci, Bruno for your excellent demonstration of the difference between adding and cloning (duplicating) keyframes. This has helped my learning. A few days ago, I posted that I had realised why my text was not staying aligned on the left. I said: 'I had set up the style correctly for the first keyframe, with alignment 'left' and centre X=-100. I assumed that the centre setting would be retained on the subsequent keyframes, as they are for zoom, opacity, etc. In fact, the centre setting was reverting to 0 in all subsequent keyframes. This caused each slide to start with the text aligned left, but change to aligned centre as the slide played. When I set centre to x=-100 on every keyframe, the text remained left aligned throughout.' In my example, I was adding keyframes with the '+' button. I had not discovered the clone function at that stage in my learning. As you say, Bruno, each time I added a keyframe, all the animation boxes were unchecked. But when I checked the 'center' box, the vale of '0' (not -100) appeared. That explained why the text was changing alignment as the slide moved through the timeframes. As I said in my quote above, I could correct this by manually entering '-100' on each keyframe. I have now tried the same exercise again. As you say, when you add a new keyframe (with the '+' button) the boxes are all unchecked. If you uncheck them, you see the value that was set before. What I observed was that the value of 'center' had reverted to '0'. Today, this is not the case. It is '-100', which is what I had set in the previous keyframe. I can only humbly apologise for wasting your time. I was honestly reporting what I observed. The only explanation is that I am going slightly mad. At least it has prompted you gentlemen to produced two really good videos on the subject, which I am sure will help a lot of people.

Your video makes things very clear. Did you try using keyframes? I did, because I wanted the text to fade in and out. I discovered that the centre value is reset to zero on all the keyframes after the first, which causes the effect you accurately demonstrated at the beginning of your excellent short video. This can be prevented by manually changing the value to 'x=-100' on every keyframe - but I don't think it should have been happening in the first place. Bruno also recommends that you set the alignment to 'left'. I couldn't help noticing that in your example it was 'centre'. However, the text still behaved the same way. Does the 'centre' setting (x=-100 in this case) override the alignment setting? I would be interested in your thoughts. But thank you for making the video, which I hope will help others.

Thank you all for being so helpful. What a nice community this is! Bruno - I blew the dust off my school French and found your video very clear. I'm very happy to say that I finally understand what was going wrong. I had set up the style correctly for the first keyframe, with alignment 'left' and centre X=-100. I assumed that the centre setting would be retained on the subsequent keyframes, as they are for zoom, opacity, etc. In fact, the centre setting was reverting to 0 in all subsequent keyframes. This caused each slide to start with the text aligned left, but change to aligned centre as the slide played. When I set centre to x=-100 on every keyframe, the text remained left aligned throughout. You've made an old man very happy!

Thank you, Barry, for taking the time to offer help. The video is indeed very useful. Putting the automatically generated title in the upper middle of the screen with the justification set to 'centre' means that it is always correctly positioned, whatever its length - I will try that. Although it was not part of my enquiry, I have realised I do have slides with different aspect ratios in the same show, so showing them at 85% zoom, below the title, as you suggest, would be a good idea. It may (or may not) be of interest to you that the particular projects I am working on are slideshows of butterflies, moths, plants, etc. These are 'record' shots, where precise detail is more important that artistic merit. I want to use text captions for the English Name (taken from the File Name), Latin Name (inserted manually), Place (inserted manually) and Date (taken from EXIF). Using the above approach, I ought to be able to display the English and Latin names at the top of the screen, centred, and the Place and Date at the bottom of the screen, also centred. This avoids having to have the text on top of the image, fading it to allow the viewer to move their attention from the text to the image, which was my original intention. The only disadvantage I can see is that the images will be smaller, so the distinguishing features of the subjects may be more difficult to discern. In short, you have set me on a path that I had not considered, for which I am indebted to you. Just to spoil this euphoria, however, I would like to return to my original issue, which I feel I did not adequately explain. It is one that has come up previously on the forum, and usually ends with the originator saying 'thanks, that has fixed it'. Here it is: When you create a text object which is automatically derived from a variable length string, such as File Name, with justification set to 'left', and apply this as a style to multiple slides, you would expect the beginning of the text to be aligned where you put it. But this is not what happens. Instead, it behaves more like centre-justified text, expanding in both directions when encountering a longer value. This results in a very scrappy presentation, with the text sometimes going partially off the screen. The usual answer is to set justification to 'left' and Center to '-100'. (I apologise for calling this 'Rotation Centre' - I was confused, because this point is also used as the fulcrum if you wish to rotate the text). I have not seen any rationale explaining the significance of '-100'. I have seen a video explaining how you can get text justified the way you want by placing the centre point in different positions within the text box, but I can't work out how you move this point to where you want it. I really appreciate your expertise, Barry, I hope you can expose some misunderstanding on my part that will explain my predicament.

I am a new user. One of my key requirements is to display the file name of a slide as text. This is a variable length string. I have watched the videos and trawled through the forum for hours to learn how to do this, but two things happen (whether I set the rotation center to -100 or not): 1.) As soon as I set the rotation center to -100, the text box jumps to the right of where I placed it. 2.) When I apply the style to all my slides, the file name text moves unpredictably to the right or left on different slides. I have selected left justification. Like previous posters, going back to 2020, I just want to tell PTE where I want the text to start and to extend the text to whatever length it requires. Please help me, someone. I am getting more and more depressed about my inability to get the result I want. By the way, what has the rotation center got to do with the matter, and why the magic -100?