Arcing Engraving Part 2
We have gone over creating arcs so let us look at a few more manipulations that can be done with text that is arc. We originally talked about how we can manipulate our text size, position and circle size.
Let us look at how we can manipulate the actual fonts and characters on the arc.
Changing the Kerning of the Characters
Activate the Shape Tool
Before we can manipulate the kerning or the character position or height we need to activate the shape tool. To do this we need to click on the shape icon located on the toolbar just below our pick tool see figure 1. Your cursor will turn into a triangle
Click on The Text Line with The Shape Tool
Now with your text on an arc click on it with the shape tool. Figure 2 shows you what happens – you will get a series of nodes that will appear on the bottom of the text.
Increase the Kerning on the LIne of Text
You will notice that along with the nodes that appear at the bottom of each character there are two “arrows” on either end of the text. The arrow on the left we will not worry about. The arrow on the right is the one that we want to look at.
4. Figure 3 shows us what happens when we click on the arrow and pull it to the right (bigger) or to the left (smaller). You will see that the inter character spacing either becomes larger or smaller.
We Can Change the Kerning on One Character
Now if let us suppose that you want to manipulate a kerning pair. Let us assume that we want the “T” and the “h” to be closer. To move a character all we need to do is click on the node that is below the character. This allows us to move the character see Figure 4.
We Can Move More Than One Character at a Time
If we want to move more than one character than all we need to do is to select the nodes that we want to move. Figure 5 shows us moving 3 characters.
Text Property Bar
If you had not noticed before this when you select a node or nodes you will see that a property bar becomes active – see figure 6.
Horizontal Character Shift
The blue box in Figure 6 allows us to do a horizontal shift of our character – see figure 7.
Vertical Character Shift
The red box in figure 6 allows us to do vertical shift of our character – see figure 8
Rotate Our Character
The green box in figure 6 allows us to rotate our character – see figure 9.
Vertical Text Change
Figure 10 shows 3 nodes selected and the vertical placement changed to 60.
