Quark Forums

I thought I knew how to do it, but I must have forgotten. How do you create text on a curve ... specifically on the top and bottom of a circle. Thanks for any help you can give me! Karen

Create a circle with any one of your tools. Picture, Text, None, Bezier tools, does not matter. Convert to freehand shape via Item>Shape menu. At this point make sure your content is converted to text. Type your content. Center the content to force it to the top. If you need it on the bottom, rotate the circle 180 degrees and invert your type. Use baseline shift to get the type in the right place. Don't forget to set the stroke on the line to 0 or it will print.

Thanks - that did the trick!

No problem.

eyoungren:

Create a circle with any one of your tools. Picture, Text, None, Bezier tools, does not matter. Convert to freehand shape via Item>Shape menu.

Just for bringing this up, you are so cool!

Can you explain that in laymen's terms. I am dumber than a box of rocks about terminology and such. Can you give me a step-by-step, using simple terms (i.e. Push the option button, go etc. etc.)

 OK.

1. Select the Circular Text Box on your tool palette.

2. Click and drag on the page to create your shape.

3. Go to the Item menu, highlight Shape with your cursor and then when the flyout menu pops out highlight the Freehand shape which is the shape at the very bottom that looks like a squiggly line. Click on the squiggly line (freehand shape).

4. Type in your text. Style as you need with font and size.

5. Select all of your type. Center your type either by clicking on the Center button in the Info/Measurements palette or by holding down CMD+SHIFT (CTRL+SHIFT on PC) and then pressing the C key. This will force your type to the top of the curve.

6. If you need this type at the BOTTOM of the curve, then go to the Item Menu and highlight Modify. Click on Modify.

7. Select and click on the Text path tab. You will see a little check box towards the left that says "Flip Text". Click on that. Click the OK button. Your copy is now centered upside down. To fix this we have to rotate the text circle.

8. So, either enter 180 degrees for rotation on the Info/Measurements palette OR go to the Item Menu, highligh Modify and click and then go to the Line tab where you will find a box that says "Angle" and enter 180, then click ok. You may also use the Rotation tool on the tool palette if you desire.

9. To make it look right at this point you can baseline shift and/or manipulate the Align Text popup tab on the Text Path tab in the Modify box (Item menu>Modify).

The following I just updated here, 2-12-2010:

10. To get rid of the guide line (the circle) make the line 0 pts in both the info bar and by going to Item>Modify. In both spots the line will be indicated as hairline BEFORE you make this change. You want it to be 0.

11. On your color palette make sure the line color is set to None IF YOU DO NOT WANT THE LINE TO PRINT. No color. No print. Everything else will print just fine unless you specifically tell XPress NOT to print it. 

Hope that helps.

Can this be done on a shape other than a circle? Seems like I could do that in earlier versions of Quark.

 Yes it can. Either make a text container of the shape you want and start typing or convert a text box to a shape and THEN to a freehand shape.

WoW... the "help" section of Quark's site does not mention the fact that you have to select the freehand option to put text on the outside of a shape, etc. Thanks for the layman's terms, eyoungren. I joined this forum just so I could thank you, but I hope to get some use out of it too. -]@/\/\!3

 You know, I really don't know what the help section says because I usually get my info from the Visual Quickstart Guides, but I can just imagine what ISN'T in there.

In any case, all of this is an old, old trick. I picked it up on XPress 4.x in 1999 from an Ad Compositor who clued me in. It hasn't changed any since version 4.x.

Glad I could help though!

 Thanks for taking the time and giving the step-by-step guide. I moved a giant step up on the learning curve (speaking of curves).

You are welcome. Glad this is still proving to be useful. 

P.S. If I have not mentioned this before, for anybody wondering...I use a circle in describing this because usually most designs call for circular text and usually it's a perfect circle. Using the circle shape gives you perfectly circular text. But you can use any shape you want. You can also make the shape irregular just by modifying the points of the circle or whatever shape you had the object in before you made it freehand. 

Hi Erik,

good points. And it even goes further:

You can chain several "text on a path", so if you have two, text will continue to flow automatically to the next circular path.

And of course you can synchronize content. So let's say you have a very irregular path and find it difficult to edit there. Just synchronize the content, put it in a regular text box somewhere on the pasteboard. Now every time you edit the text on the pasteboard, the text on the path changes automatically.

Regards
Matthias

Hi Matthias. Fancy meeting you here.  

Excellent. All new stuff added with verson 8.x correct?