UI Text GameObjects

By default, a TextMesh Pro UI Text GameObject has the following components:

• Rect Transform: Controls the GameObject's position and size on the canvas. For more information, see the Rect Transform documentation in the Unity Manual.
  
  
• Canvas Renderer: Renders the GameObject on the canvas. For more information, see the Canvas Renderer documentation in the Unity Manual.
  
  
• TextMesh Pro UGUI (Script): Contains the text to display, and the properties that control its appearance and behavior. These properties are described below.
  
  
• Material: A Unity material that uses one of the TextMesh Pro shaders to further control the text's appearance. For more information see the Shaders section.

Properties Overview

	Text input
A	Text: Where you enter the text to display, along with any rich text markup.
	Main settings
B	Font: Specifies the font to use, as well as basic font attributes (size, style, and so on).
C	Color: Defines the base color or color gradient for the text
D	Spacing: Controls spacing between characters, words, lines and, paragraphs.
E	Alignment: Controls horizontal and vertical text alignment.
F	Wrapping and Overflow: Controls word wrapping and defines what happens when text doesn't fit inside its display area.
G	UV Mapping: Controls how textures are mapped to the face and outline of the text.
H	Extra Settings: Additional options for controlling the appearance and behavior of text.

Text Input

The text section is where you enter the text to display, and optionally customize it using rich text markup.

Property:		Function:
Text		The input field for text to display.
Enable RTL Editor		Enable this option to display text right-to-left instead of left-to-right. The Inspector displays an additional input field where you can view the reversed text and edit it directly. The text is reversed before it is displayed on screen or rendered.

Main Settings

The Main Settings section contains the properties needed to define the basic appearance of text. You can further customize the look of text by changing or editing its material.

Font

The fonts settings panel is where you choose a font for your text, and customize the font style.

Property:		Function:
Font Asset		Choose a font Asset for the TextMesh Pro GameObject to use. TextMesh Pro ships with several font assets, and you can create others from standard font files such as truetype (ttf) fonts. Note: You can set the default font Asset for new text objects in the TextMesh Pro settings.
Material Preset		Choose a material for your font. Each font Asset has a default material, but you can also create customized materials for it. This preset list includes all materials whose names contain the font Asset's name, and use the corresponding font atlas texture.
Font Style		Enable standard text styling options. You can use these options in any combination, except for the casing options (lowercase, uppercase, and small caps), which are mutually exclusive.
	B	Bold the text. The appearance of bold text is defined in the font Asset properties.
	I	Italicize the text. The appearance of italicized text is defined in the font Asset properties.
	U	Underline the text. This renders an extra line below the baseline.
	S	Add a strikethrough line to the text. This renders an extra line above the baseline.
	ab	Convert the text to lowercase before rendering. This does not change text casing in the Text field.
	AB	Convert the text to uppercase before rendering. This does not change text casing in the Text field.
	SC	Use small caps. The text is displayed in all uppercase, but letters you actually entered in uppercase are larger.
Font Size		Specify the text display size, in points.
Auto Size		Enable this option to set the font size automatically, based on the Auto Size Options. When this option is enabled, TextMesh Pro lays out the text multiple times to find a good fit. This is a resource intensive process, so avoid auto-sizing dynamic text that changes frequently. Tip: For static text, you can enable Auto Size, note the calculated font size (displayed in the Font Size field), then disable Auto Size and apply the calculated size manually.
Auto Size Options		Define the basic rules for auto-sizing text.
	Min	Specify the smallest acceptable font size, in points.
	Max	Specify the largest acceptable font size, in points.
	WD%	Specify the maximum acceptable amount to reduce character width when sizing the text. TextMesh Pro squeezes characters to make them taller. This is usually only acceptable for digits.
	Line	Adjust the line height. This is useful for fitting a larger font into a given space.

Color

TextMesh Pro uses vertex colors to tint the text. You can apply a uniform color as well a gradient of up to four colors.

Property:		Function:
Vertex Color		Choose the main color for the text. Any colors and textures defined in the TextMesh Pro GameObject or its material ar multiplied with this color.
Color Gradient		Enable this option to apply a color gradient to each character sprite. You can then set the gradient’s type and colors, or apply a color gradient preset. Gradient colors are multiplied with the Vertex Color. If Vertex Color is set to white you see only the gradient colors. If it’s set to black you don’t see the gradient colors at all.
Color Preset		Choose a color gradient preset. When you apply a preset its Color Mode and Colors replace the text's local properties in the Inspector. Editing these properties modifies the preset, which affects every TextMesh Pro GameObject that uses it. Set this property to None to revert to the text’s local gradient properties.
Color Mode		Choose the type of color gradient to apply. TextMesh Pro applies gradients to each character individually.
	Single	A uniform color that modifies the base Vertex Color.
	Horizontal Gradient	A two-color gradient with each color emanating from one side of the character.
	Vertical Gradient	A two-color gradient with one color emanating from the top of the character, and the other from the bottom.
	Four Corners Gradient	A four-color gradient with each color emanating from a different corner of the character.
Colors		Choose each gradient color. The number of available colors depends on the type of gradient, and the color fields are arranged to match the position of each color in the gradient (left and right, top and bottom, 2 rows of 2 for four-corner gradients). You can set the color in any of the following ways: Swatch: Click to open a color picker. Eyedropper: Click to choose a color from any part of the screen. Hex Value: Enter the RGBA hex value directly.
Override Tags		Enable this option to ignore any rich text tags that change text color.

Spacing

These options control spacing between characters, words, lines and, paragraphs. You can use them to fine-tune the text for individual TextMesh Pro GameObjects, without adjusting their font assets.

To control spacing within a single TextMesh Pro GameObject, use rich text tags.

Property:		Function:
Character		Set the spacing between characters for this TextMesh Pro GameObject.
Word		Set the spacing between words for this TextMesh Pro GameObject.
Line		Set the spacing between lines for this TextMesh Pro GameObject.
Paragraph		Set the spacing between paragraphs for this TextMesh Pro GameObject. Paragraphs are defined by explicit line breaks.

Alignment

The horizontal and vertical alignment options control how text is placed in the display area.

Property:		Function:
[Horizontal Alignment Options]
	Left, Center, Right	Position the text horizontally in the display area, without changing the text itself.
	Justified, Flush	Stretch the text to fill the width of the display area by increasing the distance between words and characters. The Wrap Mix option controls the balance between word and character spacing. Justified mode does not stretch the last lines of paragraphs, while Flush mode does.
	Geometry Center	Centers the text based on the mesh rather than the text metrics. The difference is not always noticeable, but in some cases this mode yields better looking results than regular Center alignment.
[Vertical Alignment Options]
	Top, Middle, Bottom	Position the text vertically in the display area, without changing the text itself.
	Baseline	Position the text so the baseline of the line is aligned with the middle of the display area. This is useful when working with a single line of text.
	Midline	Use this as an alternative to Middle alignnment. This option determine vertical placement using the bounds of the text mesh, rather than line metrics. This is useful in tight spaces when ascenders and descenders might otherwise extend too far.
	Capline	Position the text so the middle of the first the line is aligned with the middle of the display area.
Wrap Mix (W <-> C)		Adjust the balance between extra word spacing and extra character spacing when horizontal alignment is set to Justified or Flush.

Wrapping and Overflow

Wrapping splits lines of text to ensure that they don't get wider than the display area. Lines are normally wrapped at word boundaries, but words that are longer than an entire line are split as well. Overflow controls what happens when the text doesn't fit inside the display area.

Some overflow options supersede wrapping. For example, if Overflow is set to truncate, the text is truncated when it reaches the edge of the display area, irrespective of whether Wrapping is enabled.

Property:		Function:
Wrapping		Enable or Disable word wrapping.
Overflow		Specify what happens when the text doesn't fit inside the display area.
	Overflow	Extends the text beyond the bounds of the display area, but still wraps it if Wrapping is enabled.
	Ellipsis	Cuts off the text and inserts an ellipsis (…) to indicate that some of the text is omitted.
	Masking	Like Overflow, but the shader hides everything outside of the display area.
	Truncate	Cuts off the text when it no longer fits.
	Scroll Rect	A legacy mode that’s similar to Masking. This option is available strictly for compatibility with older TextMesh Pro projects. For new projects, use Masking mode instead.
	Page	Cuts the text into several pages that each fit inside the display area. You can choose which page to display. You can also use rich text to manually insert page breaks. Note: The vertical alignment options work on a per-page basis.
	Linked	Extends the text into another TextMesh Pro GameObject that you select. This is useful for creating multi-column text.

UV Mapping

Some TextMesh Pro shaders allow you to apply one or more image textures to text. These options control how those textures stretch to fit the text.

You can also edit shader-specific texturing options in the shaders themselves. The available options depend on the shader you use.

When texturing text, make sure that your texture assets have their Wrap Mode set to Repeat. Otherwise the texture is likely to be heavily distorted when applied to the text. See the Render Texture documentation in the Unity Manual for more information.

Property:		Function:
Horizontal Mapping		Specify how textures map to text horizontally when you use a shader that supports textures.
	Character	Stretches the texture horizontally across each character's sprite.
	Line	Stretches the texture horizontally across the entire width of each line.
	Paragraph	Stretches the texture horizontally across the entire text.
	Match Aspect	Scales the texture horizontally so it maintains its aspect ratio, and is not deformed. When you use this horizontal mapping mode, the Vertical Mapping setting determines how the texture is mapped to the text, and must be set to something other than Match Aspect.
Vertical Mapping		Specify how textures map to text vertically when you use a shader that supports textures.
	Character	Stretches the texture vertically across each character's sprite.
	Line	Stretches the texture vertically across the entire width of each line.
	Paragraph	Stretches the texture vertically across the entire text.
	Match Aspect	Scales the texture vertically so it maintains its aspect ratio, and is not deformed. When you use this vertical mapping mode, the Horizontal Mapping setting determines how the texture is mapped to the text, and must be set to something other than Match Aspect.
Line Offset		When Horizontal Mapping is set to Line, Paragraph, or Match Aspect, set this value to add a horizontal texture offset to each successive line. This value is added to the Offset X value you specify in the shader.

Extra Settings

This section contains options for further controlling how text looks and behaves.

Property:		Function:
Margins		Set positive values to increase the distance between the text and the boundaries of the text container. You set the Left, Top, Right, and Bottom margins separately. Negative values make the text extend beyond the boundaries of the text container. You can also adjust the margins by dragging the handles of the text container Widget (yellow rectangle) in the Scene view.
Geometry Sorting		Each character is contained in a quad. Geometry Sorting controls how TextMesh Pro sorts these quads. This determines which character appears on top when two quads overlap.
	Normal	TextMesh Pro draws quads in the order that they appear in the mesh. When two quads overlap, the "later" quad appears on top of the "earlier" one.
	Reverse	TextMesh Pro draws quads in reverse order. When two quads overlap, the "earlier" quad appears on top of the "later" one.
Rich Text		Disable this option to turn off rich text support for the TextMesh Pro GameObject. When rich text support is disabled, tags are not parsed and are rendered as regular text.
Raycast Target		Enable this option to make this TextMesh Pro GameObject a raycast target. Disabling this option causes the UI to ignores this TextMesh Pro GameObject when determining what the cursor interacts with.
Parse Escape Characters		Enable this option to make TextMesh Pro interpret backslash-escaped characters as special characters. For example \n is interpreted as a newline, \t as a tab, and so on. Note: This applies to rendered text. In code, escaped characters are already parsed by the compiler.
Visible Descender		Use this option when using a script to slowly reveal text. Enable it to reveal the text at the bottom and move up as new lines are revealed. Disable it to reveal the text from top to bottom. To set up this type of text reveal, you must also set the vertical alignment to Bottom.
Sprite Asset
Kerning		Enable this option to toggle kerning on for this TextMesh Pro GameObject. Kerning is defined in the GameObject's Font Asset. If new objects use a font with no kerning data, enabling this setting has no effect.
Extra Padding		Enable this option to add extra padding to character sprites. TextMesh Pro creates sprites to fit the visible text, but the result isn't always perfect. This setting reduces the chances that glyphs are cut off at the boundaries of their sprites.