Text Alignment in Shapes

[CdV]

Hi Affinity Community,

This question has probably been asked before but is it possible to align text in a shape once it's been converted to text frame? I have segmented a donut and would like the text to align as if there were invisible lines pointing away from the centre of the doughnut - essentially a fan of words going around the wheel. The arrow in the attached photo is an attempt to try an illustrate the direction of said invisible lines.

Thank you!

[walt.farrell]

How did you create that segment of the donut, before you turned it into a text frame?. It appears that you have ended up with a shape whose bounding box is a horizontal rectangle. And once you convert it to a text frame the text will be aligned with that horizontal shape.

If you want the text aligned differently, the bounding box will need to be aligned differently before you convert the shape to a text frame.

For example, you could make one of those shapes that is horizontal, centered on 12 o'clock. Then move it so it is roughly where you want it, and rotate it into position. Now you have a shape with a rotated bounding box, and when you convert it to a text frame the text will have that rotation.

[GarryP]

As an alternative to the instructions above, I’ve attached a short video showing the possible steps for one method to do what I think you want to do.
If neither of these what you want then you might need to give some more specific details.

[walt.farrell]

Great approach, Garry!

[GarryP]

Thanks Walt, however I’m not entirely happy with the technique.
I tried to have two curves – in a single (Curves) layer – so that the text would flow from one curve to the other – instead of having two layers – but I haven’t figured out if that’s possible yet.
Also, manually justifying the text is a pain; it would be better to have an easier way to do it but, again, I’m not sure if that’s possible either. I think I’ve come up with something that’s a little better but haven’t tried it properly yet.

[Move Along People]

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[prophet]

Perhaps a series of linked text boxes rotated and spaced around the shape? Would make it easier to adjust all the text at the same time.

[CdV]

Thanks for all the insights guys, very much appreciate it.

@walt.farrell I made segments firstly by creating a donut shape. I need 14 segments, so found the outside angle for that (roughly 25.71), reduced the outside angle as such, duplicated it 13 times, converted all to curves, and used 'Smooth' with the node tool - essentially what @Dan C does in his first message in this thread

Thank you @GarryP for that approach, nice to know an alternative route. That's almost what I'm after - if the text could be perpendicular to the way it is in your demonstration then we have a winner. Ideally, i'm trying to replicate what is done in the attached photo from Wine Folly. 

Thank you for the support tho people, appreciate it a lot

 

[Old Bruce]

27 minutes ago, CdV said:

 

Thank you @GarryP for that approach, nice to know an alternative route. That's almost what I'm after - if the text could be perpendicular to the way it is in your demonstration then we have a winner. Ideally, i'm trying to replicate what is done in the attached photo from Wine Folly. 

Thank you for the support tho people, appreciate it a lot

 

 

What you have here is text on a path for the outermost set of words and then inside you have text in text frames, three sets of them, rotated around a common centre. Some of the text frames would need to be Right Aligned and some Left Aligned depending on whether the text is rightsize up or upside down. Look at Spice and Vegetable and within the Spice section Asian 5 Spice and Anise. 

[CdV]

8 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

What you have here is text on a path for the outermost set of words and then inside you have text in text frames, three sets of them, rotated around a common centre. Some of the text frames would need to be Right Aligned and some Left Aligned depending on whether the text is rightsize up or upside down. Look at Spice and Vegetable and within the Spice section Asian 5 Spice and Anise. 

Hi @Old Bruce, thanks for the words of advice. This sounds particularly tricky and onerous to do... would i have to do text on a path for every single text entry?

[prophet]

You could create a 2 column text frame, a single line high, right and left aligned per column. Dupe it and rotate it the correct angle (assuming you did the math right). Then Power Duplicate (Command J on the Mac) to get the right number. You might have the flip flop a few, or even cut some in half and re-align, but could save a few tedious steps at the beginning.

[Ami_M]

If you know how many lines of text you want around the circle, you could just create the text, change the point of rotation to the centre of the circle, then rotate it however much (maybe this will be mathematical) and Ctrl+J to power duplicate, meaning you'd end up with them evenly spaced around the entire thing.

[Alfred]

13 minutes ago, Ami_M said:

rotate it however much (maybe this will be mathematical)

You can let the app do the mathematics for you! For the 14 segments shown in the OP you could specify the number of degrees as 360/14 to keep everything as precise as possible.

[Ami_M]

2 minutes ago, Alfred said:

You can let the app do the mathematics for you! For the 14 segments shown in the OP you could specify the number of degrees as 360/14 to keep everything as precise as possible.

Even better!

[CdV]

Thank you for all answers everybody, all amazingly helpful!