Moving entire artistic text along a line

[Jim Monson]

The adjusting the limits of an artistic text along a drawn line is clear in AD. Unlike Illustrator, however, there does not appear to be a way to move the entire text within these limits to the desired position along the line. Of course, I can adjust the two red limit indicators to achieve the desired effect, but this is a longer and more difficult process than simply adjusting a center indicator to move the entire text on the line (as In Illustrator).

 

Am I missing something or is there a way to do this?

[Alfred]

Why do you need to move the middle, Jim? Can't you just move the start to achieve the same effect?

[Jim Monson]

For example, Alfred, in Illustrator I had route names (on a map) along a curvy line which follows the curves of the road. When I brought these objects into AD I wanted to resize the text and reposition it along the longer line. To do this in AD I must adjust the start and the finish markers of the text along the curvy line which is simple *but* to reposition that "enclosed text" along the longer line take a number of adjustments of the two markers, guessing what position might look best. 

 

In Illustrator I also isolated the start and finish markers of the actual text so that the text was bounded by these markers. To reposition this text as a whole anywhere along the longer line I used what I call Illustrator's "center repositioning" option, simply moving the text (with its markers) all along the line until I felt found the best place. There was no need to readjust the start and finish text markers since they moved with the text. I have used Illustrator's "center repositioning" option thousands of times, quickly and with great ease. This simple method appears to be missing in AD.

 

Once positioned I reduce the length of the longer line by simply adding two nodes (anchor points in Illustrator) which encompassed the isolated text, and then I delete the extra nodes beyond the actual text. I can do this last step both in Illustrator and in AD. I hope this helps explain my original post.

[Alfred]

I see, I think! As you may have guessed, I've never used Illy. :)

[Jim Monson]

It is a great program, Alfred, but it has become very cumbersome. My map files are very large with background relief (a tif) and tons of vector work on it (routes, city dots, arrows, names, etc. etc.). Be thankful that you have not experienced the crashes I have, even with a simple move of a layer. I'll take AD any day, even with its present limitations. My large files have never crashed in AD, although I believe that there is a memory limitation (even with my 24gig RAM). I simply save as (which brings down the file size) and bring up AD again. 

[Dave Harris]

Hi Jim, I gather you want to move both the start and finish markers in one step. Is there a reason you can't put the finish marker at the end of the line, use left-aligned text, and then adjust the start marker? Since the finish marker defaults to being at the end of the line, I don't understand why you'd ever need to move it at all.

[Jim Monson]

Nice little trick, Dave. In a map on which I am constantly adjusting various text items, I often must reposition a text (e.g., name of river along a river) along a line longer than the text itself. I've tried your method and agree that it will do this as long as I always have the finish marker at the end of the line, etc. However, in my final editing (when the text position is final), I like to outline the text with a node at the beginning and a node at the end of the text, and then delete the redundant notes. I've tried this with your method and it forces me to again readjust the start marker to correct the wrap-around of the text (upside-down and under the line = text outside the limits of the markers). All that to say that "to move both the start and finish markers in one step" (as you nicely stated) would eliminate these extra steps.

 

With your solution (which is appreciated), I can now function quite well. Thus this should not be a high priority for AD, although I still wish it were easier since I have scores and scores of such texts on lines.