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Using the Text tool

Place a typed label or note directly on the canvas — text content, font size, alignment, and box colors set in a small modal.

Where this lives
Customers → Appointment → Drawing → Tools → Text
For
  • Admin
  • Manager
  • Customer Care
  • Sales

Step 1 — Select the Text tool

Tap Text in the drawing toolbar on the left — the icon is a small "T" in a square. The button highlights to show it's the active tool.

Text is a tool you use on top of other shapes, not a primary shape-creation tool. The Text tool itself doesn't pick up presets or styling from the toolbar's color controls — those controls are for the shape tools. The text's own styling is set in the entry sheet that opens after you place the box.

Screenshot coming soonMac — Selecting the Text tool in the toolbar/screenshots/support-running-an-appointment-text-tool-01-mac.png Screenshot coming sooniPad — Selecting the Text tool in the toolbar/screenshots/support-running-an-appointment-text-tool-01-ipad.png

Step 2 — Place the text box

There are two ways to position a text box:

  • Tap the canvas at the position where you want the text. Bidvio creates a small text box with a sensible minimum size (about 40 × 30 points) at that location. Useful when you want a quick, compact label.
  • Drag from one corner to the opposite corner. Bidvio uses the rectangle you drew as the text box's bounds. Useful when you know roughly how wide the text needs to be — a long label, a paragraph-style note, or something that needs to fit between two existing shapes.

Either way, Snap to Grid applies if it's on: the box's corners snap to grid intersections. For text that needs to line up with a specific feature, snap-on gives you predictable placement; for free positioning, turn snap off.

A very short or accidental drag (less than a few points of movement) is treated the same as a tap — Bidvio falls back to the minimum-size box at the tap location rather than producing a tiny unreadable rectangle.

Screenshot coming soonMac — Placing a text box by tap or drag/screenshots/support-running-an-appointment-text-tool-02-mac.png Screenshot coming sooniPad — Placing a text box by tap or drag/screenshots/support-running-an-appointment-text-tool-02-ipad.png

Step 3 — Fill out the Text Entry sheet

As soon as the text box is placed, the Text Entry sheet opens. It's a modal with the controls that define what the text says and how it looks:

  • Text content — what to display. Plain text only; no inline formatting.
  • Alignment — Left, Centre, or Right. Set once at creation and held fixed; resizing the box later doesn't change alignment.
  • Font size — choose from a preset list of common sizes (8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 16, 18, 24, 36, 48, and 72 points). Like alignment, font size is fixed at creation and doesn't change if you resize the box afterwards — only the text reflows to fit the new shape.
  • Text colour — the colour of the letters themselves. Defaults to black.
  • Fill colour — the inside of the text box. Defaults to white; set it to transparent if you want the underlying canvas to show through behind the text.
  • Stroke colour — the outline around the text box. Set to transparent for a borderless label.

Hit Save to place the text and close the sheet. Cancel discards the box entirely — useful when you tapped by accident and don't actually want a label there.

The sheet's helper text reminds you that resizing the box later reflows the text but doesn't change the font size or alignment. If you want a different font size, the only path is to erase the text and redraw it.

Screenshot coming soonMac — Text Entry sheet with content, alignment, font size, and colors/screenshots/support-running-an-appointment-text-tool-03-mac.png Screenshot coming sooniPad — Text Entry sheet with content, alignment, font size, and colors/screenshots/support-running-an-appointment-text-tool-03-ipad.png

Step 4 — Reposition or resize a text box after placement

To move or reshape a text box:

  1. Tap the Select tool in the toolbar (the hand icon).
  2. Tap the text box. Four corner handles appear.
  3. Drag a corner handle to resize the box. The text reflows to fit the new shape — wraps onto more lines if you make the box narrower, fits on fewer if you make it wider. The font size and alignment don't change.
  4. Drag the body of the text box to slide the whole label without resizing.

To change the text content, font size, alignment, or colors, the only path is to erase the text box (Eraser, or Select + delete) and create a new one. There's no "re-open the Text Entry sheet on an existing text box" gesture.

Screenshot coming soonMac — Resizing a text box with the Select tool/screenshots/support-running-an-appointment-text-tool-04-mac.png Screenshot coming sooniPad — Resizing a text box with the Select tool/screenshots/support-running-an-appointment-text-tool-04-ipad.png

Step 5 — Text vs. Scribble handwriting

Text and Scribble handwriting both put words on the canvas, but they read differently:

  • Text is typed. The font is consistent, the size is a known preset, the alignment is fixed. It reads on the contract as a clean printed label and the wording is exact. Right for anything customer-facing, anything that needs to be the same across appointments, or anything where the rep's handwriting would slow the customer down.
  • Scribble handwriting is hand-drawn. It reads on the contract as the rep's own handwriting alongside the rest of the drawing. Right for quick on-site notes where the personal-handwriting feel is part of the meaning and the time to open a modal would slow the appointment down.

When Scribble is used as the draw tool for a product, the scribble is a product instance, not handwriting; the handwriting use case applies only on general or custom layers. Text never represents a product on its own — Text labels are always annotations.

Screenshot coming soonMac — Text vs. Scribble handwriting on the same canvas/screenshots/support-running-an-appointment-text-tool-05-mac.png Screenshot coming sooniPad — Text vs. Scribble handwriting on the same canvas/screenshots/support-running-an-appointment-text-tool-05-ipad.png

Step 6 — What ends up on the contract

A text box only shows up on the contract if the layer it lives on is included in the option being sold. Every layer carries a per-option inclusion toggle in the layer sidebar with three states:

  • Included (green check) — the layer renders on the contract drawing for this option and any text on it appears.
  • Recommended (orange triangle) — the layer shows in the recommendations view so you can pitch it, but it's not on the contract until you (or the customer) flips it to Included.
  • Excluded (red X) — the layer doesn't render on the contract; the text doesn't appear.

When the layer is Included, the text box renders on the canvas-area of the contract, the proposal, and the job information sheet, with the font, size, alignment, and colors you set in the Text Entry sheet. Text boxes render above every other shape on the canvas, so they don't disappear behind whatever they're labeling.

The drawing is illustrative — a text box doesn't change a product's quantity on the option card. Use text labels to communicate intent and context; use the layer's measurement inputs to drive pricing.