TextMesh

A d v a nced Text R e n d e r in g f o r Un it y 3 D
Pro!

USER GUIDE
Release 1.0.54
Dec 2016

Copyright (C) 2016 Stephan Bouchard - All Rights Reserved

This manual, as well as the software described in it, is furnished under license and may
be used or copied only in accordance with the terms of such license. The content of
this manual is furnished for informational use only, is subject to change without notice
and should not be construed as a commitment by its authors. The author assumes no
responsibility or liability for any errors or inaccuracies that may appear in this manual.
 TextMesh
User Guide / Table of Contents
Pro!

Getting Started
Overview........................................................................................................................ 4
Installation..................................................................................................................... 4
Quick Start..................................................................................................................... 4
Support & API documentation.................................................................................. 4

TextMeshPro Component
Text Input Box............................................................................................................... 5
Font Settings................................................................................................................. 6

Material Editor & Shaders Overview

Shader Overview.......................................................................................................... 7
Material Editor UI Panels & Features........................................................................ 7

Font Asset Creator

General Overview...................................................................................................... 10

Font Asset
General Font Information & Sub-Assets............................................................... 13
Font Settings............................................................................................................... 13
Character Set Info...................................................................................................... 14
Kerning Table.............................................................................................................. 14

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 TextMesh
User Guide / Getting Started
Pro!

Overview
This User Guide was designed to provide TextMesh Pro users with a basic overview of the
features and functionality of the tool.

Installation
Once you have downloaded TextMesh Pro from Unity’s Asset Store, go to: “Assets->Import
Package->Custom Package...”. In the Import Asset window, find and select the TextMeshPro.
unitypackage file. After the “Importing package” window appears in Unity, verify that all items to
import are selected and then click the Import button in the bottom right of the window.

Quick Start
There are two TextMesh Pro components available. To add a new TextMesh Pro text object
which works with the Mesh Renderer, go to: “GameObject->3D Object->TextMeshPro Text”.
To add a TextMesh Pro Component which works with the New UI, go to: “GameObject->UI-
>TextMeshPro Text”.

You may also wish to watch this short video showing how to add TextMesh Pro text objects into
a scene.

Support & API Documentation

Should you have questions or require assistance, please visit the TextMesh Pro User Forum
where you will find additional information, Video Tutorials and FAQ. In the event you are unable
to find the information you seek, feel free to register and post on the user forum or to contact
Support@DigitalNativeStudios.com

Online Documentation is also available on TextMesh Pro including Rich Text tags, Shaders,
Scripting API and more.

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 TextMesh
User Guide / Component Overview
Pro!

Component Overview
The TextMesh Pro component is divided into two sections: The Text Input and the Font Settings.

Text Input Box

This area is where you will type the text to be rendered. Multiple lines of text can be entered by
pressing <Enter> on your keyboard or by typing the special character \n.

Tabulation can be achieved by using \t. These are tab stops with a spacing interval equal to
roughly 25% of the point size. For an alternative to tabs, see the <pos> tag below.

The Text Input area also supports Rich Text tags. Tags are defined by enclosing the tag between
“<” and “>” characters. Below is a partial list of supported tags. Updated tag list is available here.

<b>Bold</b>
<i>Italics</i>
<u>Underline</u>
<s>Strikethrough</s>
^Superscript
_Subscript
<size=48>Point size 48</size>
<size=+18>Point size increased by 18</size>
<size=-18>Point size decreased by 18</size>
<pos=5.5>Characters positioned about 5.5 characters from left side.
<color=yellow>Yellow text</color>
<#00ff00>Green text</color>

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 TextMesh
User Guide / Component Overview
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Font Settings
Font Asset This is the TextMeshPro Font Asset that
will be used to render the text.

Font Style Applies a global style to the text like

bold, italics, etc.

Vertex Color Color that will be assigned as a vertex

color for each character unless a color
tag has been specified.

Color Gradient Enables using a Vertex Color Gradient.

Override Color Tags Enables overriding color tags. This

results in all characters using the Face
Color instead of the color tag.

Font Size The point size of the characters.

Auto Size Dynamically adjusts the point size

between the min & max to fit the size
of the text container.

Character Spacing Controls the spacing between individual characters.

Spacing Enables adjustments to character, line and paragraph spacing.

Alignment Controls the alignment of the text. Options are Left, Center, Right and Justified. When Justified is
selected, the ratio controls how additional spacing is added between words and characters.

Enable Word Wrap Enables or disables Word Wrapping.

UV Mapping Options Controls how the texture (face & border) are mapping on the text object.

Enable Kerning Enables or disables Kerning if any kerning pairs are defined in the kerning table of the Font Asset.

Extra Padding Extra padding may be required for very small fonts. This extra padding prevents the characters
from being clipped.

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 TextMesh
User Guide / Material Editor & Shader Overview
Pro!

Material Editor & Shaders

TextMeshPro includes several custom shaders along with a custom material editor which was
designed to keep things simple by only exposing those properties which are expected to be
modified.

There are two groups of shaders which include a Bitmap shader & a few Signed Distance Field
shaders. TextMesh Pro’s shaders can be found in “TextMeshPro/...” section of the shader list in
the material component. Below is a list and brief description of the SDF shaders. Updated shader
information is also available here.

Distance Field Mobile

This lightweight shader contains just the bare essential features and offers the best overall performance.

Distance Field
This more advanced shader includes a large selection of features. It is the shader that is assigned by default to all
Signed Distance Field font assets. It still offers excellent performance.

Distance Field Surface

This shader includes essentially the same features as the Distance Field shader. However, instead of using simulated
lighting, it uses the scene lights. These text objects can also cast shadows. This shader uses per pixel lighting.

Distance Field Surface Mobile

This is a lightweight version of the Surface shader with limited features. It uses per vertex lighting and does not use
directional information from lights. However it does factor in light distance.

Material Editor Feature Panels

In this section, you will find an overview of each of the feature panels used by the custom
material editor. Clicking on these panels will hide or reveal their features. Some of these panels
need to be enabled to turn on their functionality. Different panels will be available on the various
shaders.

Face Panel
Color - Select the color and transparency for the face of the characters.
This color will be combined with the vertex color.

Texture - Select a texture to be applied to the face of the characters.

The Color will affect the color of the texture. How the texture is applied
to the characters / text object is controlled by the mapping options in
the Editor Panel. The texture option is not available on all shaders.

Softness - Controls the softness of the face of the characters. Please not the face softness begins at the edge which
may be underneath the Outline.

Dilate - Increases or decreases the size of the characters.

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 TextMesh
User Guide / Material Editor & Shader Overview
Pro!

Gloss - Controls how shiny the surface of the characters appears

when using the Surface shaders.
Outline Panel
Color - Controls the color and transparency for the Outline of the
characters.

Texture - Select a texture to be applied to the face of the characters.

The Color will affect the color of the texture. How the texture is
applied to the characters / text object is controlled by the mapping
options in the Editor Panel. The texture option is not available on all
shaders.

Thickness - Controls the thickness of the Outline. The Outline is

applied on the edge of the face and expands inwards and outwards.

Gloss - Controls how shiny the surface of the characters appears when using the Surface shaders.

Underlay Panel
Underlay can be used to add a shadow or border to the text object.
This is a very efficient way to add contrast to small text.

Color - Controls the color and transparency for the Underlay.

Offset (X, Y) - Controls the position of the Underlay. Please not

Underlay has a limited range.

Dilate - Increases or decreases the size of the underlay. This can be

used to make the shadow appear bigger or with an Offset of (0, 0)
create a nice border around the text.

Softness - Controls the softness of the underlay.

Bevel Panel
Bevel simulates the visual appearance of a 3D bevel on a 2D object.

Type - Two types are available; Outer and Inner bevel.

Amount - Controls the amount of bevel being applied.

Offset - Controls the position of the bevel relative to the edge of the
face of the character.

Width - Controls the width of the bevel effect.

Roundness - Determines if the bevel ridges will appear sharp or

rounded.

Clamp - Limits the height of the bevel. This visually looks like the edges have been flattened.

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 TextMesh
User Guide / Material Editor & Shader Overview
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Lighting Panel
The lighting settings controls the appearance of the bevel, bump and
environmental mapping.

Light Angle - Controls the angle of the light.

Specular Color - Determines the color of the specular highlights.

Specular Power - Controls the strength of the specular highlights.

Reflectivity Power - Controls the amount of light being reflected.

Diffuse Shadow - Increase or decrease the amount of light received

by the object.

Ambient Shadow - Controls how pronounced the light and bevel

edges appear.

BumpMap Panel
Texture - The normal map to be applied to the text object.

Face - Controls the amount of bump mapping to be applied to the

face of the characters.

Outline - The amount of bump mapping applied to the Outline of the

characters.

EnvMap Panel
Color - The color will brighten, darken or tint the environmental map.
Default color is black which leaves the text object unaffected.

Texture - The Cube map to be applied to the text object.

Glow Panel
Color - The color and transparency of the Glow.

Offset - Controls the position of the glow. A value of 0.0 is on the

edge of the face of the character.

Inner - Controls how far the Glow effect extends towards the inside
of the face.

Outer - Controls how far the Glow effect extends towards the outside
of the face.

Power - Controls the amount of Glow.

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 TextMesh
User Guide / Font Asset Creator
Pro!

Font Asset Creator Overview

To access TextMesh Pro’s Font Asset Creator go to: “Window->TextMeshPro Font Asset
Creator”. The following video provides a detailed overview of the Font Asset Creation Process.

Online documentation is also available on

this topic at this location.

It is also strongly recommended that you

video the following video about Creating &
Working with Material Presets with TextMesh
Pro.

Font Settings
The Font Settings panel is where the font for which a font asset is to be created is selected along
with various settings.

Font Source is where the font for which an asset is to be created is

selected.

Point Size determines at what point size the font will be created.
You can either manually select the size of the font or use the Auto
Sizing mode which will find the largest possible font size to fit in the
given Atlas Resolution. It is recommended to use Auto Sizing.

Font Padding determines how much space in pixel units between

each character. Font Padding also determines the spread used in the
Signed Distance Field Font Render Mode. For an Atlas Resolution of
512 X 512, a value of 5 for padding is generally adequate.

Atlas Resolution determines the size of the Font Atlas. For most fonts
which include the full ASCII character set, a size of 512 X 512 works usually
well for Signed Distance Field Render Mode.

Character Set determines what characters will be included in the font atlas.

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 TextMesh
User Guide / Font Asset Creator
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Custom Range allows you to define a range that represents

which characters to be included. To define a range the includes
the ASCII set + Latin supplemental characters, a user would enter
32-126, 161-255 in the Custom Range window.

Custom Characters allows the user to specify characters to

include by typing them Custom Character window.

Characters from File enables a user to supply a plain text file that
contains all the characters to be included in the atlas.

Font Style allows the user to select if the characters will be

created as bold, italics or as an outline as well as defining the
thickness of the outline or boldness. Keep in mind that this is
mostly useful for normal bitmap fonts. Since Signed Distance
Field font rendering enables the creation of bold or an outline
dynamically these style options are fun to experiment with but
not essential.

Font Render Mode determines how the characters will be

rendered.

Hinted Smooth is anti-aliased rendering with hinting.

Smooth is the same without hinting.

Raster Hinted renders the characters without anti-aliasing with

hinting.

Raster is no anti-aliasing or hinting.

Signed Distance Field 16 is the standard mode for creating a

SDF Atlas. The font will be up sampled 16X to produce a more
accurate Signed Distance Field Atlas.

Signed Distance Field 32 is the same as above but with 32X up sampling. Using this mode will result in a more
accurate SDF Atlas which although more accurate may deliver only subtle visual improvements. This options should
mostly be used when trying to fit a full ASCII set into a small 256 X 256 atlas or when dealing with a complex shaped
font with high frequency curve changes. Note: This processing mode will be significantly slower than the 16X mode.

Note: Padding represents the spread that will be used in the creation of the SDF Atlas. The larger the spread the longer it will
take to process the atlas. Higher spread provides for better control over outline thickness, bevel and glow “tweak-ability” but will
result in the characters being smaller in the atlas. Smaller point size means potentially less sampling points and perhaps not as
good contour accuracy. It is a trade off or balance between those two. Typically a Spread or padding of 5 is good for normal text
and Spread of 7 for things like titles which typically have larger outline, bevel and glow options.

Get Kerning Pairs determines if the kerning pairs that may exist in the font file will be added to the font asset. In the
event no kerning pairs are found in the font file, new kerning pairs can always be added in the TextMeshPro Font
Asset Editor Panel.

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 TextMesh
User Guide / Font Asset Creator
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Generate Font Atlas will get the font engine to render the select font / characters.

Save TextMeshPro Font Asset will bring up a file requester allowing you to choose a file location and a name for
the newly created asset. By default the font name will be that of the font name. When using Signed Distance Field
Render Mode, this name will be Font Name with SDF added. We recommend you save your font assets in the
“Assets/Resources/Fonts/...” or create such folder structure if one does not exists. As text objects are frequently
created via scripts which results in font assets not being referenced by any scene objects, this guarantees your fonts
assets will be include in the build and available.

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 TextMesh
User Guide / Font Asset
Pro!

Font Asset
TextMesh Pro uses a custom font asset which contains
information necessary to display the font. The font asset is
divided into five sections which are as follows:

Face Info contains information specific to the font that was

rendered using the Font Asset Creator. This includes the
follow information:

Font Source - The name of the font.

Font Size - The point size at which the font was renderer in the font
atlas.
Line Height - This is the spacing between each lines of text.
Baseline - The position where the characters “sit” on the line.
Ascender - The highest point of any characters in the font.
Descender - The lowest point of any characters in the font.
Underline - The position of the underline.
Width & Height - The width and height of the font atlas.

Font Sub-Assets displays the sub assets that are part of the
custom font.

Font Atlas - Texture which contains all the characters of the font. This
texture is specific to such font.
Font Material - Default material for this font which holds a reference to the Font Atlas texture.

Face Style contains style properties for the font.

Normal & Bold weight - This defines the normal & bold weight of the font.
Italic Style - Defines the slant of italic.

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 TextMesh
User Guide / Font Asset
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Glyph Info contains specific information about each

character in the font.

ASC II & Char - The ASC II code and Character.

X & Y - The X and Y position of the character in the font atlas.
W & H - The Width and Height of the character in the font atlas.
Offsets - The X Offset is where the character is drawn relative to (0, 0).
The Y offset represents where the top of the character is located relative
to the baseline or (0, 0). The Advance is how far to advance after this
character.

Kerning Table Info contains the kerning information for the

font. Kerning data can either import at font creation time or
added manually using this panel.

Left Char - The left character part of the pair.

Right Char - The right character part of the pair.
Offset - The offset between the left and right character.

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