I’ve seen an effect where text is laid over a solid block of color. Then, where the text lies over the color block, it is one color and, where it lies outside the block, it is another.
Does that make sense?
Anyway, if it does, can anyone help me figure out how to create that effect using MS Tools (Word, Publisher, etc)?
Sounds like a masking effect. I doubt Word has those capabilities but I’m sure that Publisher might have those capabilities. Search the help files for masking effects.
Make two versions and then cut-and-paste sections. For example, if you want the left half to have white text on black background and the right half to have the opposite, make two complete copies, one black-on-white and one white-on-black and then overlay half of one with half of the other. Pretty simple maneuver in any good graphics app.
You can’t create this effect in basic DTP programs. You generally have to create this effect in two halves (one for each side, one reversed out, one not), then place them next to each other. This is most easily achieved in programs like Freehand or Illustrator.
And if you think that’s a pain in the butt, I used to do this effect with pasteups and negatives. That was REALLY a pain.
Thank you, all, for the replies so far.
The answers you’ve given are about what I expected; I didn’t think that there was an easy way to do this (in Publisher), but I wanted to make sure.
Looking throught the Publisher help files, I found references to Trapping and Layers. Would either of these functions help me achieve my goal?
I don’t use Publisher myself (Quark Xpress and Freehand being my programs of choice), however I would hazard a guess the “Trapping” won’t help you. In the Publishing/Design biz, trapping refers to how colors abutting each other interact. (If, for example, you are doing a 2 color poster using red and blue and you want there to be an area where a field of blue is right next to a field of red, you’d have to decide how you want it to trap. Usually, you overlap the color fields just a bit to prevent a white line from appearing between them while the job is printing. This can be done automatically now and is called trapping.)
The layers might help you organize your file so you can more effectively accomplish your goal, but I don’t think it in and of itself will help. If publisher does “masking”, or “paste inside [of a shape]”, that’s what would help.
One way some programs achieve this effect rather cheaply, and crudely, is using what is known as “xor mode”. (“xor” is short for “exclusive or”.) Check your layering methods to see if you can do this. Another magic term is “BitBlt”.
Wired magazine couldn’t look so awful without it.
FtG
(First used the original “BitBlt” machine (Xerox Alto) way back in '78.)