Text and formatting

Text on a Manimble slide is a Manim Text (or Paragraph) object. You retype and format it on the canvas, and Manimble rewrites the string and its style arguments in the slide's code.

Retype text

1. Double-click the text, or select it and press ↩. A text box opens over it on the slide.
2. Type. Press ↩ for a new line.
3. Press ⌘↩ or click outside the box to apply the change, or press Esc to discard it.

You can also retype text in the Text box of the inspector, with the same keys.

Formatting you have applied to part of the text follows the words it covers as you type: if a bold word moves to a different position in the sentence, it stays bold.

Text made by code

Text produced by computation, such as an f-string or a string built from variables, can't be retyped on the canvas. The inspector says so; edit it in the source pane instead.

Text used in several places

Some decks define text once and use it on several slides, for example a TITLE constant. When you retype such text, the inspector shows Change everywhere (TITLE in config.py, used 3×). Leave it ticked to change the definition, which changes every slide that uses it, or untick it to change this slide only.

Text boxes and wrapping

Text inserted from a slide layout sits in a fixed-size frame, like a placeholder in PowerPoint: the frame keeps its size whatever you type, and the text is aligned inside it. Other text can have a wrap width. Drag the left or right side of a text box to change the width; Manimble re-wraps the lines to fit, using soft line breaks that it can undo when the box gets wider again.

Format characters and whole objects

The formatting commands work on two levels:

• Part of the text. While the text box is open, select some characters and apply a format. Only those characters change.
• The whole object. With the text selected on the canvas (and no text box open), a format applies to all of it.

Format	Menu	Shortcut
Bold	Format ▸ Bold	⌘B
Italic	Format ▸ Italic	⌘I
Underline	Format ▸ Underline	⌘U
Strikethrough	Format ▸ Strikethrough
Superscript	Format ▸ Superscript	⇧⌘+
Subscript	Format ▸ Subscript	⇧⌘_
Text colour	The A on the Home bar, or the colour well in the inspector
Highlight	Format ▸ Highlight, or the highlighter on the Home bar
Bigger, Smaller	Format ▸ Bigger, Format ▸ Smaller	⌥⌘=, ⌥⌘-

The Home bar's B, I, U and S buttons light up to show the format of the selected characters.

How each format is written into the code:

• Bold, italic and colour of part of a text become Manim's per-character style arguments (t2w, t2s and t2c). For the whole object they become weight=, slant= and color=.
• Underline and strikethrough are drawn as lines attached to the text, because Manim text has neither. Manimble adds a small helper function to the deck and a line such as title.add(underline(title)) to the slide. The lines move, scale and are deleted with the text.
• Highlight is a coloured rectangle behind the characters, or behind the whole text.
• Superscript and subscript replace the selected characters with their Unicode superscript or subscript forms (digits, signs and most letters), since Manim text has no raised or lowered characters. In formulas, use ^{} and _{} instead.

Font and size

Choose a font family and type a size on the Home bar, or in the Appearance section of the inspector. In many decks the font is a constant shared by every slide (such as FONT in common.py); changing it then changes the whole deck.

Clear formatting

Format ▸ Clear Formatting removes bold, italic, colour, per-character styles, line spacing, highlight, underline and strikethrough. The font and size stay.

Lists and indents

Command	Shortcut
Format ▸ Bulleted List	⇧⌘8
Format ▸ Numbered List	⇧⌘7
Format ▸ Increase Indent	⇧⌘]
Format ▸ Decrease Indent	⇧⌘[

Lists and indents are written into the string itself, as •, 1. and four spaces at the start of lines. They apply to the lines selected in the text box, or to every line of the selected text. In a content placeholder each new line you type starts with a bullet automatically.

Alignment, spacing and columns

• Format ▸ Align Left (⌘L), Center (⌘E) and Align Right (⌘R) align the lines of a multi-line text, or the text inside a placeholder. A multi-line Text written in the slide becomes a Paragraph with an alignment= argument, which Manimble edits like any text. Manim can't justify text that has manual line breaks.
• Format ▸ Line Spacing sets the space between lines: 1.0, 1.15, 1.5, 2.0, 2.5, 3.0 or a custom value, measured as in PowerPoint.
• Format ▸ Columns splits the lines of a text into two, three or four columns side by side. One merges them back. Converting to columns drops per-character styles and alignment.

Alignment and columns need text written as a plain string in the slide itself, not text made by a helper function.

Hyperlinks

Select a text or a formula and choose Format ▸ Hyperlink… (⌘K), or right-click it. Type a web address; example.com becomes https://example.com, and other schemes such as mailto: are kept. During a presentation, clicking the text opens the link. Clear the box, or choose Remove Link, to take the link off.