# Beginner (I assume?) Question: How do I make words appear onscreen

**URL:** <https://discourse.processing.org/t/beginner-i-assume-question-how-do-i-make-words-appear-onscreen/12172>\
**Category:** Project Guidance\
**Created:** [June 18, 2019, 11:01pm UTC](https://discourse.processing.org/t/beginner-i-assume-question-how-do-i-make-words-appear-onscreen/12172 "2019-06-18T23:01:18Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![joshshaman13](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a6a055/32.png) [@joshshaman13](https://discourse.processing.org/u/joshshaman13)\
**Post date:** [June 18, 2019, 11:01pm UTC](https://discourse.processing.org/t/beginner-i-assume-question-how-do-i-make-words-appear-onscreen/12172/1 "2019-06-18T23:01:18Z")

</div>

Hey guys, I’m trying to make text appear in a sketch when I touch ‘X’ value on my MPR121 TouchBoard. The problem is I’m not very familiar with Processing, so I was wondering how I might go about this. I feel like most of the “beginner” stuff I’ve looked at on YouTube isn’t… explaining basic concepts. I specifically really only need to make words render for this project. How best (and let’s be honest: easiest) might I go about this?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![8BitRift](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/user_avatar/discourse.processing.org/8bitrift/32/3495_2.png) [@8BitRift](https://discourse.processing.org/u/8BitRift)\
**Post date:** [June 19, 2019, 12:44am UTC](https://discourse.processing.org/t/beginner-i-assume-question-how-do-i-make-words-appear-onscreen/12172/2 "2019-06-19T00:44:06Z")

</div>

[https://processing.org/reference/](https://processing.org/reference/) This is the complete reference of all processing functions and even has tutorials on the site, for help with text specifically look here [https://processing.org/reference/text\_.html](https://processing.org/reference/text_.html)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jeremydouglass](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/user_avatar/discourse.processing.org/jeremydouglass/32/20_2.png) [@jeremydouglass](https://discourse.processing.org/u/jeremydouglass)\
**Post date:** [June 22, 2019, 12:59pm UTC](https://discourse.processing.org/t/beginner-i-assume-question-how-do-i-make-words-appear-onscreen/12172/3 "2019-06-22T12:59:09Z")

</div>

Did you get this working?

Have you already set up the touchboard with a serial sketch from a tutorial? eg using

[https://www.bareconductive.com/make/incorporate-touch-board-to-processing-project/](https://www.bareconductive.com/make/incorporate-touch-board-to-processing-project/)

After that is set up and you are sending messages to your sketch, the sketch can react by doing something.

```auto
void draw(){
  background(128);
  if(myMessage){
    text("hello", 20, 20);
  }
}

```