Software app for bending text?

[Tiana]

I've come to the conclusion that Inkscape is resisting me with a will of its own >.<

My tablet refuses to function in Inkscape. A little google-fu came across two known issues, one that is GTK+ based (which can't be it, because GIMP works like a dream and the issue was happening in both programs), and the other saying that Inkscape can't handle two pointing devices at the same time. I unplugged my spare mouse, and the tablet worked great ... for about 2 minutes. Now it's back to consistently not functioning, even after reboots/program restarts.

If it matters, I'm using a Wacom Bamboo. I've tried turning the pressure sensitivity off in Inkscape (with my spare mouse before I unplugged it), and making sure both the tablet pen and the tablet eraser pointing devices were set to screen (which they already had been).

I'm usually a better geek than this, but Inkscape just seems to keep foiling me. Any ideas?

I can't use Inkscape due to the tablet-fu issue. My problem happens to be this:

A tablet will not function properly in Inkscape if it is set to mouse mode. Set it to tablet mode and it'll work perfectly.

I don't know if that's your problem. It's mine and why I unfortunately can't use Inkscape. I found, however, another free vector program that's fun to use. It's called Expression 3 / Creature House.

I have no idea whether it bends text or not because I've only ever used it to do lineart, but it's another free vector program! That lets you paint and uses pressure sensitivity. Really, it's a weird program.

It depends on how you're wanting to bend it. PS can do most of that by itself but there is one type, that I know of, that it can not do...text that is curved at the bottom but straight across the top for something like logos or letterheads in the old Victorian style.

If what I'm imagining from your description is correct, it's found in warp text, and should be arch lower or shell lower. If what you're describing is one line of text straight and one line of text arched, just do two seperate text layers and arch the lower one.

I can't quite imagine an old Victorian arched letterhead style, though, so I might be imagining wrong--in which case, pics?

[Ascension]

Here's an example of what I'm talking about. I know that there is professional sign-making software that can do this (I don't remember the name of it but I ran across it once on the Letterhead Fonts website once). At any rate, this is the one type of thing that you can't do easily. You can turn your type into a path and then move the nodes around but that is tedious.

[Gidde]

@Ascension: Yeah, PS's bending works, I just only have PS on my work PC, which makes it difficult to use for personal projects.

@Tiana: I'll try the other program you mentioned ... I only use the tablet in tablet mode, so I don't think it's the mouse mode issue.

Thanks a lot for trying to help me solve this, everyone ... it's really frustrating to have a roadblock when it comes to labels.

[Immolate]

ahem

[Ascension]

Looks pretty darn close, but still not straight across the top or bottom edge. Looks like CS4 does it better than my CS, though.

[Immolate]

Yup not perfect, but you can probably compensate in some way. The function is "arc upper" and "arc lower".

[Immolate]

faked it with a transform/warp

[Aylorian]

Rob's "Using GIMP to Create an Artistic Regional Map" tutorial (in his signature above) has quite a very detailed examples of bending text towards the end of the tutorial.

[Gidde]

Thanks Aylorian, I'll check it out. Gimp was the first thing I tried though, and it bugged out on me (for some reason the path created by using Text Along Path wanted to attach itself by one point to the corner of the map). I fiddled with it for 15 minutes or so then went looking for another option.

[RobA]

That is bending text along a path, though, not deforming text within an envelope.

I use Inkscape with the bezier envelope extension for that

-Rob A>