Artistic Text Tool wil not accept a leading space

[oliver_fuchs]

Hi,

 

I am trying to set a leading SPACE before my text (that looks nicer when doing a Rectangular to Polar later on). The probelm is that the Artistic Text Tool does not accept a leading SPACE (even if it is inserted via the Glyph Browser).

How can I change this behaviour?

 

Thanx in advance!

 

Oliver

whatcanido.afphoto

[GaryLearnTech]

I've just had a quick tinker with that and it appears that it does accept space characters - even simply typed manually.  The only thing is that they are positioned on the outside left of the frame.  Try turning on Text > Show Special Characters to see them.  (NB the file you uploaded has more than just space characters at the start, though I'm not sure what they are.)

If that doesn't quite give you the solution that you're after because of the inside/outside aspect, cheat.  😃  Use whatever characters you like to get the spacing right.  Once you've confirmed that it's basically giving the result you want, undo as far as required, set the spacer text that I've highlighted below in orange to have opacity=0%.  That'll hide it when you do the rect/polar distortion.

[thomaso]

3 hours ago, oliver_fuchs said:

The probelm is that the Artistic Text Tool does not accept a leading SPACE

1 hour ago, GaryLearnTech said:

Once you've confirmed that it's basically giving the result you want, undo as far as required, set the spacer text that I've highlighted below in orange to have opacity=0%.  That'll hide it when you do the rect/polar distortion.

Transparent areas (like leading spaces and text without colour or opacity) don't get converted as pixels for Rectangular Polar.

A workaround could be to use white text instead and filter that afterwards via the Blend Range Curve.

Here a sample with a separate white rectangle: Bottom: before -> Centre: after distortion -> Top: with filtered white.

[oliver_fuchs]

Hi GaryLearnTech  and thomaso!

 

Thanks for answering!

1) As workaround I tried the method of setting an "I" at the start of the text and set it to full opacity. But ... Space (punctuation) in typography is a quarter of a quad ...so using any kind of character set to opacity wouldn't give me the right amount of space (its is wider or thiner).

2) "Transparent areas (like leading spaces and text without colour or opacity) don't get converted as pixels for Rectangular Polar" ... the problem isn't the Rectungular Polar filter ... the problem is the Artistic Text Tool which deletes leading (or sometimes ending) whitespaces like character tabulation, space and next line. This problem does not appear when using the Frame Text Tool which accepts leading whitespaces!

So that is the difference between the two tools ... did not know this.

 

Thanks for answering!

 

Oliver

[thomaso]

32 minutes ago, oliver_fuchs said:

This problem does not appear when using the Frame Text Tool which accepts leading whitespaces!

That is interesting feedback, and possibly an improvement in V2 ?

To me in V1, although a quick test shows respected leading spaces for Frame text, the result appears not to differ other than in visual rotation. – Or am I missing something in my trial?

[MikeTO]

Art Text doesn't display leading spaces by design but if you want some leading space, just type a character and assign no fill.

[oliver_fuchs]

Hi thomaso,

 

start with a square canvas (1080x1080) and insert the Artistic/Text Tool (all the way from left to right) ... than use the Polar filter - should be a circle!

[oliver_fuchs]

2 hours ago, MikeTO said:

Art Text doesn't display leading spaces by design but if you want some leading space, just type a character and assign no fill.

Hi,

yes I did that ... but the character is bigger than the space ... I do not understand why Art Tool hasn't the ability to show leading spaces? I prefer the Art Text Tool because it is easier to use!

 

Oliver

[thomaso]

18 hours ago, oliver_fuchs said:

start with a square canvas (1080x1080) and insert the Artistic/Text Tool (all the way from left to right) ... than use the Polar filter - should be a circle!

Thanks for this hint "all the way from left to right". Yes, "all the way" results in a full circle. As consequence it appears you don't need space characters or 'simulate' space within a text frame – instead simply the art text frame's position on the canvas matters. So, instead of extra characters you just can leave space to the left or right canvas edge. Like so:

[oliver_fuchs]

13 hours ago, thomaso said:

instead of extra characters you just can leave space to the left or right canvas edge.

Hi,

yes, but that will leave you with the problem of messing around with the right amount of space.

But here is the solution ... I mean, it is a circle we are getting ... no beginning and no end ... you can move it around, so:

Instead of "What can you do about it, honey?" you have to do "at can you do about it, honey? Wh"

Easy? Yes!

 

Oliver

[thomaso]

2 hours ago, oliver_fuchs said:

that will leave you with the problem of messing around with the right amount of space.

In what way? While the absolute spacing before/after is unpredictable, the question what starting space width will result in what 'filtered' space is independent from the method of space creation: It does not matter how you create the empty space: As text character – or as object distance. And accordingly it does not matter where you create the space: Between the words – or left or right of the text frame.

As you mentioned, the result = the canvas width distorted to a circle. Then 50% canvas width = 50% = 180º circle, or, accordingly e.g. 1080 px / 360 = 1º in the result, etc.

[Aammppaa]

I hesitate to ask, but what is the result you are trying to achieve?

If you want a line of text wrapped around a circle, with accurate control over the spacing, why not use text on a circular path, rather than messing with Rectangular to Polar filters?

[oliver_fuchs]

1 minute ago, Aammppaa said:

I hesitate to ask, but what is the result you are trying to achieve?

If you want a line of text wrapped around a circle, with accurate control over the spacing, why not use text on a circular path, rather than messing with Rectangular to Polar filters?

Hi,

hahaha ... that is a good question ... I want a quick way of creating a text in a circle shape without messing around with all the possibilities of a circular path (which by the way leads to the same problem with the beginning and ending space). So I tried the Polar filter (quick and dirty) but I saw that the Art Text tool is deleting spaces at the /beginning/ending. So I thought I have overseen some settings - so I wanted to ask if it is not possible or if my settings are wrong. That is all.

 

Oliver 

[oliver_fuchs]

47 minutes ago, thomaso said:

In what way?

Try a monospace font like Courier and you will see that you have to try a lot to find the right space between the left of the canvas and the left of your Art Text Tool. So ... as I said befor I just wanted a quick way of doing a circle text ... that was all!

But thanx for answering!

Oliver 

[thomaso]

34 minutes ago, oliver_fuchs said:

Try a monospace font like Courier and you will see that you have to try a lot to find the right space between the left of the canvas and the left of your Art Text Tool.

I can't notice any difference with a monospace font in the way how my initial space gets converted to its corresponding part of a circle. Why should the font influence how space gets handled? It's rather simple, strict maths, like so: horizontal width (in mm, px, or number of mono-space characters) devided by 360 … e.g. for a 360 mm canvas width 1 mm text or empty space will result in 1º of the circle – entirely independent of the font face.

Nevertheless, to me it is faster to handle and a lot more flexible via @Aammppaa's text path hint. There you have handy handles (+ modifier keys!), may adjust font size, change font face and use the additional text style options of the character panel, e.g. for spacing/tracking and font width.

[thomaso]

1 hour ago, Aammppaa said:

why not use text on a circular path, rather than messing with Rectangular to Polar filters?

I hadn't noticed before the possibly massive difference in the results of the two workflows: Only via filter each letter gets distorted, too.

[oliver_fuchs]

37 minutes ago, thomaso said:

I can't notice any difference with a monospace font in the way

"A monospaced font, also called a fixed-pitch, fixed-width, or non-proportional font, is a font whose letters and characters each occupy the same amount of horizontal space"

Assume the underline is the space between the words ... with your method you have to measure the space between the words and the distance between left of the canvas and left of your Art Text Tool - and that is more work to be done than simply adding the text the way I suggested. But I think that your method works fine, too. But it is more work!
Using the circle path leads to the same problem! You have to determine the distance by hand and by eye! That means more work!

[oliver_fuchs]

40 minutes ago, thomaso said:

Nevertheless, to me it is faster to handle and a lot more flexible via @Aammppaa's text path hint.

Hi,

to me the Polar Circle looks better than the Text Circle Path! But ... just my opinion!

Oliver