Merrimo User Guide › Lettering and dialogue

Add and position speech balloons on Mac

In Merrimo on your Mac, you can add speech bubbles, thought clouds, and shout bursts directly to comic panels, format character dialogue, and customize balloon borders.

Insert speech and thought balloons

Place dialogue bubbles linked to speaking characters or narration:

1. Select a comic panel on the canvas.
2. Choose Insert > Speech Bubble (or press ⌘B), or arm the Speech Bubble tool by pressing B. To start the balloon with text you've selected in the manuscript (or, with nothing selected, the text on the Clipboard), choose Insert > Speech Bubble from Selection (⇧⌘B) instead.
3. For unspoken inner monologue, choose Insert > Thought Bubble (or press ⌘T), or arm the Thought Bubble tool with T. Thought Bubble from Selection (⇧⌘T) starts it with the selection or Clipboard text.
4. Click or drag on the panel to place the balloon. Type your dialogue line with the text cursor ready.
5. Click and drag the balloon body to position it. When you move the host panel later, the balloon moves with it automatically.
6. To change a balloon’s or caption’s text later, double-click it. Or select it and press Return: all its text is selected, so what you type replaces it. Click away to finish, or press Esc to leave the text as it was.

Place a panel's own dialogue and caption

When a panel's script already has dialogue, a caption or a generated image, the insert tray at the top of the canvas’s right edge offers them, so you don't have to type them again:

1. Select a comic panel on the canvas.
2. Look at the top of the insert tray. Each dialogue line and the caption that isn't on the page yet appears as the balloon or caption box it will become, and the panel's image appears as a picture (or an empty image frame until it has one). A thin line separates them from the tray's usual tiles below.
3. Click one to place it in the panel. You can also drag a dialogue line or the caption onto the panel, to place it where you drop it.

A placed item leaves the tray. When the panel has nothing left to place, or no panel is selected, the tray shows only its usual tiles.

Letter lines from your prose

The canvas sidebar's Dialogue mode lists every line of quoted speech in your prose, so lettering a page is picking lines rather than copying them out of the manuscript:

1. In the canvas sidebar, click the Dialogue button (the speech bubble) at the top.
2. Use the menu under the mode buttons to show All Chapters or one chapter. The chapter you pick is shared with the Panels list.
3. Lines are grouped under the name of the character who says them, in the order they appear. A tick in front of a line means it's already lettered on the canvas; an empty circle means it isn't yet. Click Unplaced to list only the lines still missing, or All to list them all again.
4. Drag a line onto the canvas to place it as a speech bubble where you drop it, or hold Option while you drag to place it as a thought bubble. You can also double-click a line to add it, or right-click it for Add as Speech Bubble, Add as Thought Bubble, Add as Caption and Copy Text.

The bar along the bottom of the sidebar shows how many of the lines are on the canvas, for example "16 of 20 placed".

Change balloon shapes and borders

Match the emotional tone of the scene with expressive borders:

1. Select the balloon on the canvas and open the Inspector (⌥⌘I).
2. Under Balloon Style, choose from:
   • Standard Speech: Smooth rounded oval with uniform border stroke.
   • Thought Bubble: Cloud-like scalloped perimeter with descending bubble tails.
   • Shout / Starburst: Spiky, angular perimeter for loud outbursts, explosions, or alarms.
   • Whisper: Dashed perimeter for quiet, confidential, or stealthy speech.
3. Adjust background fill color, border thickness, and padding to balance layout readability.