How to Add Text in Procreate: A Beginner’s Guide

Procreate is known for its digital drawing tools, but it can do so much more than just turn your stylus into a digital paintbrush. With its text tools, you can incorporate words into your designs and use them to tell stories in new and exciting ways. And no, you don’t have to be an expert at calligraphy or hand-lettering. Procreate offers a suite of typography tools, giving you everything you need to bring to life any text you can imagine.

Simple Steps to Add Text in Procreate

Whether you’re just getting started with Procreate or you’re a seasoned digital artist, adding text is quick and easy. Follow the steps below to learn how to type it in and take advantage of Procreate’s endless options for customizing it.

Step 1: Add a Textbox

Tap the wrench icon in the top left corner of the screen to pull up the Actions menu. Under the Add menu, select Add text. This will add a textbox to your canvas, containing the word “Text”. A keyboard will also pop up and fill the bottom half of the screen.

Skillshare instructor Jennifer Nichols has the Procreate app open on the iPad and demonstrates how to add a new textbox onto a blank canvas. — Add a new textbox by tapping on the wrench icon, then Add text. Still from Skillshare class Typography in Procreate: Using Fonts to Make Gorgeous Letter Art by Jennifer Nichols.

Step 2: Input Your Text

The word “Text” should already be highlighted, so you can go ahead and start typing to replace it with your own text. The size of the textbox will adjust automatically to accommodate the new content.

If you’d like to copy and paste your text from elsewhere, bring up the Text Entry Companion by double-tapping on the textbox and selecting Paste.

Nichols has the Procreate app open on the iPad, demonstrating the Text Entry Companion. — Double-tap on the textbox to bring up the Text Entry Companion. Here you can cut, copy and paste the text, as well as modify certain attributes. You can also access the Edit Style Panel from here.

Step 3: Change the Font

When you open the Text Entry Companion, you’ll see the current font name in the top left corner. To change the font, start by highlighting the text you want to modify. Note that the changes you make will apply only to the highlighted text. This means that you can highlight some letters and not others, and play around with different font combinations.

With your text highlighted, tap on the font name to bring up the Edit Style Panel. Browse through the list of fonts on the left side of the screen and make your selection. You can also import your own font files (Procreate accepts TTC, TTF, and OTF) by selecting Import Font in the top right corner of the Edit Style Panel.

Nichols has the Procreate app open on the iPad, demonstrating the Edit Style Panel. — In the Edit Style Panel, you can choose a font, as well as modify its style, design, alignment and other attributes.

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Step 4: Choose a Style

Some fonts have different versions you can choose from, such as regular, light, bold, or italic. Not all fonts have this option, but if yours does, you can make a selection in the Style section of the Edit Style Panel.

Step 5: Adjust the Design

With your font and style selected, you can further customize your text by adjusting the sliders in the Design section of the Edit Style Panel. Below are the settings you can play around with and how they will affect your text.

Size determines how big your font is.
Kerning affects the spacing between any two letters. By highlighting two letters at a time, you can manually set a different kerning for each of the spaces in your word.
Tracking also affects the spaces between the letters, but it does so equally across the entire word. Once you’re happy with the kerning, you can highlight the word and adjust how much horizontal space it takes up.
Leading affects how much space there is between the lines of your text.
Baseline is the imaginary line that your text sits on. You can adjust it to change the positioning of your text.
Opacity determines how opaque or translucent your text appears.

To adjust each of these settings, you can move their respective sliders or enter specific values manually.

Step 6: Modify the Attributes

In the Attributes section of the Edit Style Panel, you can:

Align your text to the left, right, center or justify it
Underline your text
Create an outline for your text
Choose whether your text is displayed vertically or horizontally
Toggle between lowercase and uppercase letters

Step 7: Choose a Color

If you’d like to change the color of your text, tap the Color icon in the top right corner of the screen. This will bring up the Color Disk. Highlight the part of the text you want to change and select your desired color.

Nichols has the Procreate app open on the iPad, demonstrating how to access and use the Color Disk. — Access the Color Disk by tapping the colored circle in the top right corner of the screen.

Step 8: Place Your Text

Drag and drop your textbox to wherever you’d like on the canvas. You can also adjust the boundaries of your textbox by shifting the dots on either side of it. Note that this will not change the size of the text—if you make the boundaries of the textbox narrower than your text, the content that doesn’t fit will shift onto the next line.

Since your textbox now exists as one of the layers in your artwork, you can change whether it appears above or below other layers. Simply tap the Layer icon in the top right corner of the screen and shift the text layer to your desired position.

Nichols has the Procreate app open on the iPad, demonstrating how to view layers and rearrange them. — View the different layers of your artwork by tapping the two overlapping squares in the top right corner of the screen.

Step 9: Rasterize Your Text (Optional)

If you’d like to take things a step further and achieve a more artistic look for your text, you can rasterize it. Rasterizing turns your text from a vector-based to a pixel-based image. This allows you to use the same Procreate tools you would typically use for drawing, and apply complex text effects and transformations.

You should only rasterize your text once you’re absolutely happy with your edits from the previous steps. This is because once you’ve rasterized it, you’ll lose the ability to modify the content, font or any of the design and style settings. You also won’t be able to scale your text without losing quality. In other words, Procreate will treat the rasterized layer like a drawing, rather than editable, scalable text.

When you’re ready to rasterize, tap the Layer icon in the top right corner, tap the layer you want to rasterize and select Rasterize.

Nichols has the Procreate app open on the iPad, demonstrating how to rasterize a text layer. — Rasterizing allows you to use certain Procreate tools that don’t otherwise work on text, but it limits your ability to edit or scale it.

From here, you can use your favorite Procreate brushes and effects to turn your text into a work of art.

Nichols has the Procreate app open on the iPad, showing an example of how rasterized text can be further customized with brushes and effects. — Once rasterized, you can treat your text like a drawing and use Procreate tools to embellish it however you like.

Skillshare instructor Voni Lim has the Procreate app open on the iPad and shows an example of how to mask text within a photo. — You can even separate each letter into its own layer and mask it behind other elements of a photo. Still from Skillshare class Learn to Mask Quotes and Illustrations on Photos in Procreate by Voni Lim.

Experiment with Text and Typographies

Try adding text to your next Procreate project and see how it can transform your digital art. Use it to convey a message in a more exciting or impactful way, add visual interest or simply test your artistic limits. With countless options to customize and embellish your text, the opportunities to get creative are endless!

Written By

Sayana Lam

Sayana is a musician, writer and graphic designer based in Toronto, Canada.