Can I switch between “free” and “bounded” text boxes?

Talk about Pixelmator Pro, share tips & tricks, tutorials, and other resources.
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2018-09-12 05:55:11

In Pixelmator Pro there are two types of text box: you can click to create a free text box (which changes size to match what you type) or drag to create a bounded text box (which remains the same size regardless of contents). But is there a way to switch between these two modes?
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2018-09-12 08:40:15

Hi Andrew, I already responded on Twitter, but I might as well leave the answer here as well — there isn't a way to switch between text box types at this time, so the simplest solution would probably be to add a new text box and cut/paste the text from the original one. If this is particularly inconvenient, could you let us know a little more about your workflow?
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2018-09-13 00:13:15

Thanks for your reply Andrius.

My workflow: When I'm messing around with designs I like to experiment with fitting text on one line or wrapped onto multiple lines and that's what bounded boxes are great for. But half the time I conclude that a single long line is better then I change the font size and the text starts wrapping again... so I want to switch it to a free text box which auto-sizes. Sometimes it's the reverse, I set up a design with some single lines but then I want to see how that would work with more text which requires wrapping... but there's no way to convert so I have to delete the layer and start again.

It might sound like a small thing but it will happen multiple times on each design I work on. I'm in the process of transitioning from Photoshop to Pixelmator and currently it's the feature I'm missing the most.
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2018-09-13 08:00:06

Yeah, I can see how that's definitely a little inconvenient — I reckon it might be possible to add this as an option to the canvas shortcut menu, so I've put it on the feature request list.