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Adobe Fireworks CS3 Tutorials
Working with Text / Attaching Text to a Path
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Subtitles of the Movie (Adobe Fireworks CS3 / Working with Text / Attaching Text to a Path)
You can free text from the restrictions of the typical rectangular text block by drawing a path and then attaching text to it, as I've done here with my Product of the Month example. The text flows along the shape of the path and remains editable, so if I put my cursor right before that "p" and click to select, and then press the Space bar, notice that my text wraps all the way around that shape, including on the bottom side. I can Spell Check this text and add or edit the text itself, or change its orientation along that path. Now what's nice is the path to which you attached the text, will temporarily lose its stroke fill and filter attributes. Any stroke fill and filter attributes you apply subsequently are applied to the text and not the path. Notice also the path will disappear when I deselect the objects. Let's go ahead and demonstrate by changing the color of my object. Let's change it to this maroon color. Notice that the text changes, but not the path. If I then detach the text from the path, the path regains it's stroke fill and filter attributes. Let's go ahead and select the object and then choose from the Main menu, Text, Detach from Path. I can now apply changes to the path, for example, make it a lot thicker. Notice however, if I highlight both objects, let's go ahead and remove my Gems out of the way here, let's highlight both the path and the text, and then choose from the Main menu, Text, Attach to Path. The text is attached to the path, the path loses all of its properties. Attaching text that contains hard, or soft returns to a path can produce unexpected results, so I recommend not adding soft or hard returns. So to summarize, to attach text to a path, draw out a shape, add some text, select both objects, and then choose from the Main menu, Text, Attach to Path, or Detach from Path, whichever route you want to go. Let's go ahead and take this path here, let's delete it, and let me demonstrate from the beginning. Let's take the Vector Pen tool. I'm going to draw out a line from left to right like so. Double-click to finish the path. Now, let's add my text on a path like so, take my Selection tool, draw a marquee around both objects, and choose Text, Attach to Path. Now again, the text that you've attached to the path remains editable. In addition you can edit the shape of the path. So, let me first edit the text itself, add a capital "P" to that. I can also add more text at the end, add more text. To change the shape of the path, use the Sub-selection tool. Click on the object and then notice that there are some handlers here that allow you to change the shape of the path, and then the text will modify to conform to that new shape. It's easy to get text that's no longer readabale, or legible here, bso you want to be careful, but you can get some very creative visual effects with this tool. Now, you can also change the text orientation and direction on a path. It turns out that the order in which you draw a path establishes the direction of the text attached to it. In the last example, notice that I drew the line from left to right, and that gave me text that appears forward and right side up. However, if you draw a path from right to left, the attached text appears backward and upside down. Let me demonstrate that. Take the Pen tool, and this time let's draw a line from right to left, add my text now, like so, take my Selection tool, highlight both objects, choose from the Main menu: Text Attached to Path. Notice that sure enough, the text is backwards and upside down. I can change the orientation of the text on a selected path using the settings here. Text orientation, my options are: Rotate Around Path, Vertical, Skew Vertical, or Skew Horizontal. This is easier to demonstrate with the text that's the right side up here. Let me go ahead and modify this so that we can, with the Sub-selection tool, so we can see this a little bit easier. Let's go ahead and select the text, and now choose Text Orientation. Vertical looks like this. Skew Vertical skews it so the text remains vertical, and then the last option is Text Orientation, Skew Horizontal, and again, this will change depending on the shape of this line here. You can get some very interesting effects. Notice that if I choose this text here, the results are a little less predictable. Let's change it from Rotate Around Path to Vertical. That text, notice, is still backwards but at least now it's popped up to the top of the line. Skew Vertical, pretty similar, and the last option, Skew Horizontal. Not much change there. Now you can transform text blocks in the same ways that you can transform other objects. You can scale, rotate, skew, and flip text to create more unique text effects, as well as converting text to paths. Let me now move on to the next movie and demonstrate these techniques and much more.
Tutorial Information
| Course: | Adobe Fireworks CS3 |
| Author: | James Gonzalez |
| SKU: | 33836 |
| ISBN: | 1-934743-42-9 |
| Release Date: | 2008-01-25 |
| Duration: | 8.5 hrs / 93 lessons |
| Work Files: |
Yes |
| Captions: | No |
| Compatibility: |
Vista/XP/2000, OS X, Linux QuickTime 7, Flash 8 |
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