Text that has been created as a vector may be in one of three different states. Text, Single Shape, or Charactor Shapes.

Up to this point, I've been using Text mode, where the text may be changed with the Text tool (incidently, right clicking the text from the Vector Object Selection tool- selected- right click the selection and clicking Properties will take you back to the Text Entry box). There are many things that may be done to text if it's converted to vector information. For example, Outlined text.

With the text (only) selected, using the Vector Object Selection, Right click on the selection, click 'Convert Text to Curves'- 'As Single Shape'.

This will make all of the text in the selection a shape. Clicking 'As Character Shapes' would make each letter a seperate shape. This is great if you want to modify one letter at a time, but tedious if you're wanting the effect applied to all letters in a sentance.

Now that the text is one big vector, right click the selection, Properties- Stroked, 1 pixel, black, visible, and antialias. If the text is more than 3 pixels wide, you'll have nice outlined text.

Is it possible to Node edit text which has been converted to a Shape? Yes! Just right click on the text (from the Vector Object Selection tool) and select 'Node Edit'. By the way, this is likely one of the places you'll really discover what 'Focus' means. If you're in Node Edit mode and you click anywhere outside the work desk, the program goes out of Node Edit. This is known as 'Losing Focus'. It's easy to Right click- Node Edit to get back in, but a minor annoyance.