Caesar disk

[nicolleen]

Hello,

 

I would like to make a cesar disk. It's for encoding and decoding secret texts for children.

It consists of two turnable disks of paper with the alphabet and other symbols or numbers on it. Everybody knows them. I thought, if I have to make 10 different ones, it would be an easy task with Designer. I made a circle and a center, I wrote the alphabet letters around the inside of the circle, printed it  out in the desired size, perfekt. But now to the second, inner disk. I thought I just change the font to some numbers or symbol font, adjust the font size and spacing, print it out a smaller size, and finished. But I don't manage. The symbol font seems to overlay itself in several spirals and no matter what I try, I cannot adjust its spacing, so that it spreads out evently around the circle as before. I can manage with some ancient gothic font, but not with the symbols. If I make the spacing wider or narrower, it just moves the symbols in even more spiralling around. Who can help me? Attached is the file.The little block on top is like control field, so that I can see that the adjustment turns out correct in the end as the disks have to match up.

 

thanks, 

nicolleen

Caesarscheiben_innereScheibe_58mm.afdesign

[Joachim_L]

There are perhaps a millions better ways to get your result, but this is mine. You can work on the attached file.

1. Change the characters inside group Symbole to your desired symbols.

2. Convert this text layer to curves.

3. Click the group Symbole and scale it to 145 mm width and height around the centre point. You can use the Transform panel for this.

4. Print and cut the inner ring.

Caesarscheibe.afdesign

[GarryP]

Attached is my basic attempt.
Some hints:
* Make sure you get the measurements of the circles absolutely correct – changes later will require further Tracking changes;
* Use fixed-width fonts – otherwise the letters will get out of alignment (I’ve used “Courier New” and “Source Code Pro”);
* Make sure you get the sizes of the fonts correct – changes later will require further Tracking changes;
* Convert the circles to curves – this stops the text ‘spiralling’;
* Experiment with the Tracking (Character Panel) to see how closely you can get the distance between the first and last letter to match the spacing of the others.

caesar-disk.afdesign

[PaulEC]

Caesar Wheel.afdesign

I made this using shapes (cog tool and ellipse) then placing each letter individually (by eye). By no means perfect, but at least the symbols line up! Took me about 20 minutes, so it should be possible to do quite a good job in a reasonably short time.

[nicolleen]

Wow, thanks for your efforts!

I see there are really lots of different ways and I appreciate your input. 

I'm going to try it all out, the last option from Paul should be my last resort, as I need 10 different disks. I'll be growing old using this method 10 times more

lg

nicollen

[GarryP]

You’re welcome.

You could use the Power Duplicate function to take a lot of work off your hands if you don’t use the ‘text string method’.
* Set the first letter to be Align Centre – otherwise they won’t look right when altered later;
* Move the Transform Origin of that first letter to the centre of the circle;
* Make a duplicate;
* Rotate it – the rotation amount needs to be calculated from the number of characters around the disk (360/chars);
* Use Power Duplicate to create a ring of letters.
Then you need to change each letter to what it should be.
See attached GIF.

(I rotated my letters so they are readable from the outside of the disk but that step isn’t needed.)