Possible major bug

[IanH]

Ok, I fibbed, as I suspect most people don't use the functionality.

Can someone please confirm in 2012 wether or not solid fill works with text along path when it is rotated along path. It works fine when not rotated but as soon as rotate is selected the characters have no fill.

It doesn't work in 2011 and if same in 2012 I will report a bug.

[Benson Shaw]

Had me going there for a minute, but I think I figured it out.

Text along Path set to Curves starts as polylines, but becomes NURBS curves when rotated about path. The NURBS curves do not have fill even if rendered.

Set the TAP object to Surfaces and it converts to (or is created as) NURBS Surfaces and will display fill only when rendered - Rotated about path or not.

Example is rendered OpenGL

Same for me in 2011 and 2012.

Is that what you are seeing Ian?

-B

Edited November 25, 2011 by Benson Shaw

[IanH]

Yes. I think that is the same. Your explanation makes perfect sense although I was using curves rather than surfaces.

Do you think it is a bug or just a side effect of how it works?

It was certainly a major issue for me yesterday as It was a work around for another issue with TAP that I was having.

I started off with an oval, then converted it into a top and bottom arc. I wanted to put text along these two arcs, but both orientated vertically. The top arc was fine, although it was fiddly to place the text centrally along the arc - I'm sure there is a way to do it, but I had other things on my mind other than reaching for the manual/help.

The bottom arc was the problem, and no matter what I tried, I could not get the text to sit vertically along the line. In the end, I rotated it 180 degrees along the path which is the point that I found that I could not fill it. Im sure there must be some way of doing this, but I the finished image was destined for photoshop anyway so decided to achieve it in that instead rather than again reach for the help/manual.

If it does not already have it, it would be nice if TAP had a flip text command and a command to allow the text to either be left/centre/right justified along the path or to have it shifted by an angle along the length of the path.

[Benson Shaw]

More musings

I think the workaround to fill the letters in a non rendered view is to Convert to Group, enter the group, Convert everything polygons, Compose if needed, and apply fill. But then it's 2d, and the center voids in "O"s, "P"s, etc will need to be moved to front with contrast fill, or clipped from the surrounding poly - big process.

As for justifying, or centering, a couple things which help:

OIP setting for Scale Width Only spreads the TAP along the whole path. This will spread or diminish the kerning. Font size is another variable in this.

Adding spaces to front and/or end of text block pushes the text along the path (depends on scale settings, too).

If path is circular, text can be rotated about the center.

But that's all workaround for the limited functionality of the TAP command.

Is solving these issues more of a Wish for updating the command, or fixing a Bug? Either way it's definitely needed.

[mar schrammeyer]

This is a part answer relating only to orientation

To stop the end of the text bumping into the start put some spaces at the end

Edited November 27, 2011 by mar schrammeyer

[IanH]

For the text on the bottom of the circle, can you make it 'other way up' ie not upside down?

I think I need to play around with some of the edit settings before trying to use this next time.

Think this is all something for wish list.