Participant

Question

How do I create text colums in Photoshop 2020?

Forum|Forum|6 years ago
December 12, 2019
5 replies
19850 views

Can anybody please tell me how to easily and quickly make colums for text in Photoshop 2020. It seems crazy that it is not possible. I work a lot in Indesign, Illustrator and Photoshop and have just bought Photoshop 2020 after using CS4 for a long time. It seems weird that it is missing atogether.

Thanks very much. Dan

How to

A

arthur_2824

Participant

// Copy to a text editor and save with the .jsx extension.

// Created by ChatGPT. Make changes as needed.

// Paste code into ChatGPT and ask to increase column to 3 etc.

// Go nuts!

// Prompt user for the original text

var originalText = prompt("Please enter the text to be divided into columns:", "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Quis ipsum suspendisse ultrices gravida. Risus commodo viverra maecenas accumsan lacus vel facilisis.");

if (originalText != null && originalText != "") {

// Function to remove leading and trailing whitespace

function trim(str) {

return str.replace(/^\s+|\s+$/g, '');

}

// Create a new document with specified dimensions and white background

var doc = app.documents.add(1920, 1286, 72, "New Document", NewDocumentMode.RGB, DocumentFill.WHITE);

// Create the original text layer

var originalTextLayer = doc.artLayers.add();

originalTextLayer.kind = LayerKind.TEXT;

originalTextLayer.name = "original text";

originalTextLayer.textItem.contents = originalText;

originalTextLayer.textItem.position = [100, 100];

originalTextLayer.textItem.size = 50;

originalTextLayer.textItem.font = "Arial-BoldMT";

originalTextLayer.textItem.justification = Justification.LEFT;

// Split the original text into two equal parts

var splitIndex = Math.ceil(originalText.length / 2);

var firstHalfText = trim(originalText.substring(0, splitIndex));

var secondHalfText = trim(originalText.substring(splitIndex));

// Create the 'column text' layer group

var columnGroup = doc.layerSets.add();

columnGroup.name = "column text";

// Set width for each column text box (allowing space for both columns and padding)

var columnWidth = 860; // Just under half the document width to fit both columns and 50px padding

var columnHeight = 1086; // Slightly shorter than document height to avoid overflow

// First column text box

var leftTextLayer = columnGroup.artLayers.add();

leftTextLayer.kind = LayerKind.TEXT;

leftTextLayer.name = "Left Text Box";

leftTextLayer.textItem.contents = firstHalfText;

leftTextLayer.textItem.size = 50;

leftTextLayer.textItem.font = "Arial-BoldMT";

leftTextLayer.textItem.justification = Justification.LEFT;

leftTextLayer.textItem.kind = TextType.PARAGRAPHTEXT; // Convert to paragraph text

leftTextLayer.textItem.position = [100, 100]; // Top-left of left text box

leftTextLayer.textItem.width = columnWidth;

leftTextLayer.textItem.height = columnHeight;

// Second column text box

var rightTextLayer = columnGroup.artLayers.add();

rightTextLayer.kind = LayerKind.TEXT;

rightTextLayer.name = "Right Text Box";

rightTextLayer.textItem.contents = secondHalfText;

rightTextLayer.textItem.size = 50;

rightTextLayer.textItem.font = "Arial-BoldMT";

rightTextLayer.textItem.justification = Justification.LEFT;

rightTextLayer.textItem.kind = TextType.PARAGRAPHTEXT; // Convert to paragraph text

rightTextLayer.textItem.position = [100 + columnWidth + 50, 100]; // Positioned 50px to the right of the left box

rightTextLayer.textItem.width = columnWidth;

rightTextLayer.textItem.height = columnHeight;

// Position group 100px from the top of the document

var groupTop = 100;

columnGroup.translate(0, groupTop - columnGroup.bounds[1]);

// Remove the original text layer

originalTextLayer.remove();

} else {

alert("No text was entered. Script canceled.");

}

// Place saved file in ...\Presets\Scripts\

jane-e

Community Expert

At its core, Photoshop is an image editor with some text capabilities. You will find more and more text features that you are used to in InDesign that simply don’t exist in Photoshop. You could discuss that with your client now if that’s a possibility.

~ Jane

R

r-bin

Legend

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OeQt4dp5gM

D

Dan BlackAuthor

Participant

This looks great r-bin, thanks a lot. Does this work for Photoshop 2020?

Many thanks,

Dan

R

r-bin

Legend

Should work. Did not check.

Derek Cross

Community Expert

As you have InDesign as well as Photoshop, why not use the correct tools for the job. Optimise your image(s) in Photoshop and then Place them InDesign, where you can add text and employ its wide range of text editing facilities.

D

Dan BlackAuthor

Participant

Thanks a lot Derek,

Normally I'd definitely do that but I have a client who wants to work on the job that only wants to use Photoshop.

Dan

davescm

Community Expert

For simple rectangular columns just draw out text boxes , using the text tool, then add text inside them. For more complex shapes use the pen tool to draw a path then the text tool to put the text inside the path.

However, whilst that allows you to place text over an image, in whatever shape you wish, it does not flow text from one box (or column) to the next. For that you need a layout application such as InDesign.

Dave

D

Dan BlackAuthor

Participant

Thanks Dave,

Dan

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