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Text on a Path

Lesson 8 from: Type in Adobe InDesign CC

Jason Hoppe

Text on a Path

Lesson 8 from: Type in Adobe InDesign CC

Jason Hoppe

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Lesson Info

8. Text on a Path

Next Lesson: Wrap Text

Lesson Info

Text on a Path

This is all about text in containers. Well, what happens about text on a path? You may want to change and put text in a path, or you may want to put text in a different container. Well, texted a different container is pretty easy. If I want to put text in a different container, they can just draw container any shape that I want and I can put text in it. Straw container, take my type tool and simply click inside that container that Aiken type away. I'm gonna fill with placeholder text right there. Text inside a container if I already have text inside a container because I've taken my type tool. But I've drawn a container and I've put text in there and I fill it with placeholder text, and I would like to change the size of my container or the shape It's easy. Don't have to start over. Select a container with a selection tool going to go into the object menu. We're gonna change the text container, which is an object to convert the shape of that container to something other than my rectang...

le or my square. I can then go in and say I'd like to convert this to the lips, converts my container to an ellipse. Simple, nice and easy. But if I want to put type on a path, I can do that around a shape or a free form line. I want to put type on a path. I can create a container in which the type will go around. So in this case, I'm gonna create an oval animal to use a different type tool, which is going to be my type on a path tool. The type on a path has little arms. You see those big blow up things at the car dealership? You float around there, you won't take those alarms and you want to click right on that path and zoom in here so you can see that you want to touch those arms on that path because we wanted to make sure that we're gonna put the type right on the path. You see that Plus, when you connect with a path and there's your floating cursor and then you can type something in something great and there's your type. Now we select the type the same way you can double click to select the word triple click to select the line or go in and just use a command, A disliked everything. And you can set your type in your point size anyway that you want Teoh same thing. But moving the type along the path is going to be a little bit more tricky because now we only have a fixed amount of information around that path. So just like a text container, you've got the confines of the text container. We also have our little start and stop bumpers is what I call them. It's like when you pull car into a parking space, you got the little concrete bumper. Well, that's what we have here, and the type comes up against those bumpers. So I'm gonna zoom in really big here so you can see and we have a little bumpers starting here. And if you hover over, those little lines are going to see an arrow pointing to the right, which is the directional. The type is going to pull that that direction, and there's my end bumper of where the type is going to stop. Don't click on these handles. This is your text linking you know, the little red. Plus that shows up at the bottom of your text container in the lower right hand corner. These air not handles to grab and do this This If you have text going around the circle and overflows, you can click on this red plus ones that shows up and linked to another one in the path. So while those look like handles, those air not handles. I know. Yeah, I'm not gonna get started on that. It annoys me to say the least, but anyway, so I grabbed my handles. And if you can't find the handles there, one of the problems when you zoom out, they get smaller too. So I've actually magnified my screen a bit so we can see how this is going to look. Pay attention to your cursor cause that's going to kind of be doing this by field so I could run my type around by using my little bumper here to control the start mechanism of where my copy is going to be. That's kind of a pain, because as we go around, I'm gonna want to move my type all around the circle. Well, as I move my type around the circle here. I keep moving this moving this. And if I want to get it all the way over here and I move this too far, it runs into my end bumper. And then I get overflow. And then I gotta move my end bumper out of the way. But you'll notice as they begin to move this halfway in between by first bumper. And my last bumper is this little joystick. Amanda's have been really big. There's that little joystick. Okay, that's always in the middle between my first and my last bumper, and sometimes you can't find him, but you got to go searching for it. So we zoom in really big and you find that it shows you little thumbtack This is your joystick that you can grab onto that and you can simply pull all the way around. And this will go ahead like a joystick. Just drag all your copy around that path. This path could be an open past. You can draw a line via closed shape, whatever. So this prevent this keeps you from having to adjust your first in your last stop here. It just takes the whole thing, and it drags right along. If you pull your cursor by dragging this and you pull your cursor in, it's gonna flip your copy into your container. And then if you pull this out, it flips it out of your container and grab that joystick. You can see it gets a little difficult to see. Zooming in is nice, but as you zoom in, those little things get smaller, which is really frustrating. But you can drag that all around, said it where you want to. Now, if you want to have options of your type on a path, you can access those options under the type menu type. Type on a path options and here click on your preview. You can flip this, which will automatically flip it from the inside to the outside. And then you could have the rainbow effect to skew effect the three D ribbon. And it just gets more and more crunchy. And, yeah, you can imagine all the adjectives that we can describe this so there's our type on a path. Do you want the type to be on the path top bottom or centered here or aligned on the base line so that it's gonna be in the center of the line here. Do you want to have it so the D senders touch so the A centers touch. Baseline is usually fine, and that's what you get. So there is our type on a path at it that just by double clicking, accessing your type tool, changing the size and the font, going back to your selection tool, finding your little joystick in their running this around and setting your type. So that's type on a path. People ask me, Is there a way that you can? Then take this and put the bottom type on a path? And the answer is no, not easily. If you want type in the bottom of the path, you're going to have to create another circle. Draw another circle, put it on top of this, but the type under there and size it appropriately. And this is where, if you want type on the bottom in the top to make it look realistic, you've got to go to type on a path options, and you will need to put your type in the center here so that when you create two circles, you can have the type, be in the center of the circle here. And if I copy this by holding down my option key and option, click and drag and then I can go and find my little joystick dragged us around to the bottom here. But this here again, finding a little joystick. Move this around. Take these and put these circles on top of each other, and that's how it can create type that's going to be on the bottom or top of the circle. And if you don't go in with your type options and have that be centered here on the baseline, then the type is gonna B inside the circle on this one, and it will be outside the circle in the other one, and it won't look like it's on the same circle. So, Senator and on the inside on the center line is what's going to make it look realistic. It is to circles to make the type look realistic, so I know that's what your house. But that's the basics of going in and putting type on a path open or closed path, not a problem

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