Procreate showing a square image with a range of 7 different fonts. They all read twitch.tv/simonfairbairn, and all have different effects. The top is a gold gradient, the second is black but fades away to nothing at the bottom, the third has a reddish gradient along the top, the fourth has a thick drop shadow, the fifth has been warped to give a fisheye effect, the sixth is coloured purple, and the seventh is coloured blue.

Using Adobe Fonts in Procreate

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I have a subscription to Creative Cloud which includes access to Adobe Fonts (formerly TypeKit). I want to use some of these fonts in Procreate.

Adobe has an app for the iPad called Adobe Comp CC that allows me to use Adobe Fonts when creating mockups of designs.

So far so good. I can create a Comp CC document that’s the same size as the Procreate document, import a copy of the sketch from Procreate as a background image in Comp CC, and position the text over the sketch.

Ideally, once I’d positioned the text, I would then set the background to transparent and make a copy of the text which I could then paste into Procreate.

Unfortunately, there’s no way to export a design from Comp CC in such a way that it has a transparent background.

Screenshot showing the Procreate drawing app with a white box that has twitch.tv/simonfairbairn written in it. This box is offset so that the right and bottom edges show some blue from the layer below to illustrate how the white background is copied from Comp CC.
The exported text pasted in to Procreate, with a white background the same size as the Comp CC document.

If I just need pure black text, then this isn’t a problem. I can set the layer blending mode to “Multiply” and the white background disappears leaving the black text on top.

Screenshot showing the Procreate app with the layers palette open. The layer with the text has been selected and its blend mode has been set to 'Multiply'. This has made the white box disappear so it now looks like black text on a blue background.

Sometimes I want more control than that.

After a bit of research, I found a method that works (adapted from this post at the Procreate forums).

The Workaround

Load up Comp CC and create a document the same size as the Procreate document. Create a rectangle that fills the entire document and colour it black. Create a new text layer, set the colour to white, select the font, and write out the text. Make sure the text is set to white.

Share this image and hit Copy.

Screenshot showing the Comp CC app. It's a large, square document with a black background and white text on top. The text says twitch.tv/simonfairbairn. The share sheet is open and it has an option that says 'copy' visible.

In Procreate, create a new layer and fill it with the desired colour.

Add a layer mask.

Screenshot showing Procreate with the layers palette open. There is a layer that is filled with blue, and next to this layer a popup which has the option 'Mask' highlighted.

Select this mask.

Procreate with the mask layer selected

Then three finger swipe up and tap paste.

Procreate with the paste dialog open. The dialog has the usual array of clipboard controls, including cut, copy, and (most importantly for us) paste.

The mask adopts the values of the pasted Comp CC document. The white text shows through the layer underneath while the black background blocks everything else.

The Procreate app with the layer mask applied, which has caused the blue background to turn in to blue text on a white background. The blue text says twitch.tv/simonfairbairn.

The colour layer now determines what appears under the text mask, which gives me a lot more control over how the text appears:

Procreate showing a square image with a range of 7 different fonts. They all read twitch.tv/simonfairbairn, and all have different effects. The top is a gold gradient, the second is black but fades away to nothing at the bottom, the third has a reddish gradient along the top, the fourth has a thick drop shadow, the fifth has been warped to give a fisheye effect, the sixth is coloured purple, and the seventh is coloured blue.

For even more control, I can tap on the layer and tap Merge Mask and it will make the black in the mask layer transparent and clip the layer to the bounds of the text.

Procreate with the layers palette opened. One of the layers that has a mask is selected, and the option that reads 'Merge Mask' is highlighted.

While it’s not as efficient as having full text control within Procreate, switching between the apps to make adjustments is relatively painless. Not only that, but even if Procreate did have full text editing, it wouldn’t have access to the massive number of fonts available on Adobe Fonts.

It’s a great way to give Procreate wider design capabilities without ever having to leave the iPad.