• Moth
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Topic: X6 - Artistic Text Alignment.

This is my first post on this forum. HELLO!

Drawplus X6 - Artistic text alignment to a circle.
Is there a way to align the top of the characters to a circle?

I have a circular logo with a text border.  The text automatically aligns to the bottom of the characters.
I don't want any of the text to be "upside down" so I use the following method.
The text around the upper half of the circle runs clockwise and is outside the circle.
The text around the lower half of the circle runs anticlockwise but is inside the circle.
That is artistically displeasing because the top and bottom text aren't in the same annulus.
I have to put the lower text on a larger diameter circle. So I have to faff with 2 circles.
Furthermore , because it is anchored at the base of the characters the lower text folds in at the top necessitating an increase in character spacing to appear consistent with the text on the upper arc.

I've ploughed through the help and can't find any topics about aligning the top of the characters to a circle.

Thank you.

  • Alfred
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Re: X6 - Artistic Text Alignment.

Welcome, Tim! Thanks for joining us here.

I’d love to be able to offer some practical suggestions, but DPX6 mostly crashes for me on Windows 10 when I try to set up button text (curved at top and bottom, blank in the middle). I did get halfway there once, and on that occasion I was able to move the text baseline so that the circle was at the top of the text instead of the bottom, but that’s clearly of limited use if there isn’t a ‘recipe’ to make it work consistently without crashing.

"Has it ever struck you that life is all memory, except for the one present moment that goes by you so quick you hardly catch it going?"
― Tennessee Williams

3 Reply by GB (edited by GB 2024-09-06 23:28:29)

  • GB
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Re: X6 - Artistic Text Alignment.

aligning the top of the characters to a circle.

See illustration: dragging the blue dot along the blue line will adjust the text position relative to the circle.

By the way, I'm getting crashes as Alfred described, but managed eventually. I'll try to find out how!
https://i.postimg.cc/Ln2PYNW6/movetext.jpg

  • Moth
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Re: X6 - Artistic Text Alignment.

Thank you both for your replies.
[Mine is working on Windows 10 thus far and stayed installed when I did the "upgrade" from Win 8.1. My laptop is actually slower with Win 10]
GB -I remember your bus from the other forum - hello!
Ah, dragging the dot - Duh, how did I miss that? I didn't find that step in the Help instruction.
That does it and the character spacing is good. It won't let me add a second reverse arc of text to the same base circle. It gives the squiggly line on hover but that one wants to tweak the curve nodes. So I've copied and pasted a duplicate circle at the onset to carry the lower text arc then grouped the two together to manipulate them as a whole.

5 Reply by GB (edited by GB 2024-09-07 18:01:25)

  • GB
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Re: X6 - Artistic Text Alignment.

Hi Moth,

Glad to have helped. I seldom use DrawPlus, since PagePlus is capable of most things.

About the bus: it developed slowly!

Much of my career with MoT involved buses, which in South London were mainly London Transport.
That particular one is roughly the same age as me.
The placard on the side reads "Community Bus" inspired by Serif's "Community Plus".
It is actually a model given away by Force Wheat Flakes (my favourite breakfast cereal from way back - taken over by Nestle's and killed).
The background photo was taken in my backyard here in Washington State, on beautiful starry night.
The bus being in my backyard was inspired by the old joke about a drunk taking the bus home because he was in no fit state to drive his car.

Geoff

  • Alfred
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Re: X6 - Artistic Text Alignment.

GB wrote:

About the bus: it developed slowly!

Much of my career with MoT involved buses, which in South London were mainly London Transport.
That particular one is roughly the same age as me.
The placard on the side reads "Community Bus" inspired by Serif's "Community Plus".
It is actually a model given away by Force Wheat Flakes (my favourite breakfast cereal from way back - taken over by Nestle's and killed).

Force cereal was apparently stocked at Sainsbury’s and Waitrose until Cereal Partners (a joint venture between Nestlé and General Mills) took the decision to stop making it just over a decade ago:

https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/cereals/for … 14.article

"Has it ever struck you that life is all memory, except for the one present moment that goes by you so quick you hardly catch it going?"
― Tennessee Williams

7 Reply by GB

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Re: X6 - Artistic Text Alignment.

Thanks Alfred. I remember Sainsbury's used to sell their own-brand wheat flakes, which from the size, shape, taste and packaging was obviously made for them by the makers of Force.

Reading the comments on the Grocer site, I see someone mentions Grape Nuts Flakes by Post. I don't know if they are available in the UK, but they are readily available here, and are indeed very similar to Force.
With no Kennedy's sausages or Force in the UK, eases any homesickness I may feel!

  • Alfred
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Re: X6 - Artistic Text Alignment.

GB wrote:

Reading the comments on the Grocer site, I see someone mentions Grape Nuts Flakes by Post. I don't know if they are available in the UK, but they are readily available here, and are indeed very similar to Force.

Thanks, Geoff. I didn’t read the comments.

I frequently had Grape Nuts for breakfast as a child, and probably as a young adult, too, but I wasn’t aware of the existence of a ‘Flakes’ variant. I imagine the original Grape Nuts are easier/cheaper to distribute because the boxes are so small.

"Has it ever struck you that life is all memory, except for the one present moment that goes by you so quick you hardly catch it going?"
― Tennessee Williams
  • Alfred
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Re: X6 - Artistic Text Alignment.

Upon further investigation, Grape Nuts are offered by all of the major UK supermarkets but Grape Nuts Flakes are nowhere to be found.

"Has it ever struck you that life is all memory, except for the one present moment that goes by you so quick you hardly catch it going?"
― Tennessee Williams
  • Moth
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Re: X6 - Artistic Text Alignment.

@Geoff  Thank you for the bus context. Don't get me started on the fickleness of MOT class designation.

Makes me chuckle how we drift on to breakfast cereals. FWIW I'm a muesli man myself. Best soaked with a fun size apple chopped up in it. Muesli eaten dried and straight from the packet with negligible soaking does little to promote the virtues of the stuff which originated as an ostensibly fresh fruit dish.

  • Alfred
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Re: X6 - Artistic Text Alignment.

Moth wrote:

Makes me chuckle how we drift on to breakfast cereals.

In the old Serif Forum days (custom code, predating the vBulletin incarnation) going off topic was more or less mandatory, but that didn’t seem to stop users getting the help they needed. The Affinity Forums don’t even have a general discussion area, so if you just want to chat with your fellow Serif software users the best place now seems to be here.

Moth wrote:

FWIW I'm a muesli man myself. Best soaked with a fun size apple chopped up in it. Muesli eaten dried and straight from the packet with negligible soaking does little to promote the virtues of the stuff which originated as an ostensibly fresh fruit dish.

I think most of the dried stuff includes apple flakes, so a good long soak is probably more beneficial than adding yet more apple that you’ve gone to the trouble of freshly chopping yourself.

"Has it ever struck you that life is all memory, except for the one present moment that goes by you so quick you hardly catch it going?"
― Tennessee Williams

12 Reply by GB

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Re: X6 - Artistic Text Alignment.

I like muesli too, and have it now and again. It is available in most stores, at least in this area (maybe because the only brand, Bob's red Mill, is Oregon based)  but it's not as popular here as in Europe and UK. There's a wider choice of granola, but that tends to be too sweet for my taste. Added sugar is the American way! The only time I've seen Alpen, was in the Grocery Outlet, a store that sells off discontinued or overstocked products.

Weetabix seems to be disappearing here too.