Review of Text Generating Websites
By Val Houde
There are so many text generating websites on the Internet these days, it’s amazing we aren’t all experts at generating our own fonts and effects. For me, this has been a lesson that will enhance my love of playing with fonts and I get to do it with more than just Microsoft Word. I played with several apps on a couple of the sites suggested for this lesson. I also ventured out on my own in search of the perfect font-fabricating site. Here’s what I found.
This was my first foray into the world of animating text and creating a GIF. The first thing I did was type my text, which I planned to use on the Intro Page of my ePortfolio. I selected the font type called “Showtime”, left the font size at the default size of 50, and selected a deep red background color so it would mesh with the colors on my site. The next option to play with was the “Direction” I wanted the effects on the fonts to go during animation and selected Top->Bottom. I then selected to have a shadow on the bottom of my lettering and to delay movement at the value of 10. I then selected a red and black pattern I thought would look good. I clicked the “generate” button and was off and running! Just over the top of the box where I selected my options was an example of my GIF. I thought it looked pretty good so the next step was to put it on my website. I think the best way to do this is to get the html code and embed it on a page. When I clicked on the link to get the code, a little box popped up with four options. The only option I could choose was to download the image; so I did. I uploaded the image to my site but was not happy with it so I went back to try something else. It took me quite a while to find something that I would consider using on my website, but I finally did.
This site was simple to use, but limited. It was difficult to find an effect that was just that right color, and the effects colors are predetermined so it was not possible to change them. I was not very impressed. This site gets a C+.
http://www.marqueetextlive.com
The next site I chose to try was Marquee Text Live. This was a confusing site to look at first off. There were several ads actually crowding the application for making the GIFs. It was very poorly laid out. I decided to make an animated banner for the Week 1 page of my website. Working my way through the ads, I found the fields I needed to use. I typed in my text, selected “The Guru Font”, which I really loved, sized it to 75, selected a deep red color, right to left direction for the scroll effect and 30 milliseconds for the speed of the animation. I clicked on “Create Marquee Text” and wah-lah! It took a second to find the field with the html code, but I finally did and embedded it on my Week 1 page. I was very happy with this GIF.
This site was easy to use in spite of the intrusive ads all over the place. It was much faster to use than the first site but difficult to look at and navigate. This site gets a B-.
This site was a little disappointing at first. There didn’t appear to be much in the way of animations for text. I selected a logo type called “glitter”. I was taken to a page where I could format it and was pleasantly surprised. I typed in my text, left the font size at the default setting of 50, left the number of sparkles at the default settings of 100 and color on white, selected black for the text color and a deep red for the background. There were no other text styles to pick from for this banner. It had a default text called “psychosis”. I clicked on the “generate text” button and was taken to a page to preview my work. I really like it so I clicked on “get html code”. I was taken to a page that said I could download and use what I made without restriction on my website as long as I agreed to post a link to their site. I clicked on the “I Agree” button and was taken to a page where I copied the html code. I embedded it on my Week 2 page using an html widget.
This was an easy site to use. It took me all of a couple of minutes to generate my GIF. The lack of selection for generating animated text was disappointing because the site is so easy to use. This site gets a B+.
This was the one I went out on my own and found. It is specifically set up for only glitter. On the home page I selected button number 5, “Text Generator”. The page I saw next was where I could format my creation. I typed in my text, selected my font color, selected a font called “Mia’s Scribblings”, selected a size of 24, and the background color. When I clicked to get the URL link, I was redirected to a site called Auplod.com. I think it was a foreign site because the English was a little off and the webmaster spelled thumbnails without the “b”. I copied the html code and put it on my Week 3 page using an html widget.
This was a very easy experience. This site offered so much more than glitter, and it was the easiest to use of all the sites I went to. I would use it again and it is, hands down, my favorite so far. This site gets an A++.
In summary, I believe apps and tools like this, with their easy instructions and accessibility could, and do, become very addictive for many of us. It could probably be said that many of the poorly designed websites are creations of multimedia apps and tools addicts.
