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Right off the top, I am going to start with what still makes raster
programs hide in shame: text on a curve. Yes, yes, they have some capability
now, but when it comes to text that wiggles, nothing can even stay in
the race with an illustration program. And Illustrator does it well.
How easy is it to do text on a curve in Illustrator? How about draw
a curve and type? That is not an exaggeration.
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ALT or Option key is pressed and the mouse is over
the circle to show this cursor. Click and start typing.
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Let's start with one of the most common requests I hear for text on
a path – text in a circle. Create a circle by selecting the Ellipse
tool and constraining the ellipse to a circle with your SHIFT key.
Select the circle with your Selection Tool. Click on the Text tool
to activate. You must choose a location on the circle carefully, as
your text will be justified around this point. At the location you have
chosen, hold your ALT (PC) or Option (Mac) key down and click. Your
cursor will look like the image at the left when you ALT or Option key
is pressed and the mouse is over the circle.
You can adjust the text in any way once it is typed. All kerning and
tracking commands work, and can be very useful for spacing your text
exactly around an object or along a path. Sometimes it can help to create
a smooth effect if you kern one character to fall at a better place
on the path. See Text as Design for
more information about typography adjustments.
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Left, right and center justification for the same text
on a path.
Individual words or characters can be edited as shown
in this sample. The black area is selected text.
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The image at the left includes the same text on a path, but each is
set to a different justification. The yellow mark indicates the entry
point for the text. The red titles state the justification that was
applied to that sample. To edit justification, insert the cursor in
the text and make changes in the Paragraph palette.
 To kern,
place the cursor between the characters you would like to kern, and
select or type a kerning value in the Character palette.
You can also change the color or size for any text along a path. Other
than the fact that it does not follow a straight line, the text is identical
to any text. In the sample at the left, each word has been selected
and assigned a different font size and color.
The sample below shows a line of text that was originally created around
a rectangle. The characters were kerned to fit the top of the rectangle
exactly, and then the bottom corners were moved out to provide the angled
shape. There is no limit to the effects you can create with this feature.
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Two copies of the same
image. The bottom sample is selected to let you see the construction
lines. A drop shadow has been added to the text. This text is still
fully editable. |
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 You
are certainly not restricted to text around an object. Any path that
you can draw will shape text, and you can adjust the path while the
text is already in place. When you have the power to move nodes along
a path, plus kern your text, there is little that you cannot accomplish.
In this sample, the letters were breaking over the curves. Between
kerning and moving the nodes on the path, I was able to pull it into
a much smoother path.
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Dragging a node to adjust the text path. The Direct
Selection tool is shown here in its "tear-away" form.
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To edit the path, deselect the text and object, and activate the Direct
Selection tool. Click on the path to select, and then select a node
to move. You can also click and drag the node handles to change the
shape of a curve.
There is certainly no formula to success for creating text on a path,
but Illustrator does offer the power if you choose to use it.
We still have a few Illustrator tricks up our sleeve though. Read on
to learn how to use click and drag styles and weird and whacky lines.
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