Text on a Curve

[MaryLou]

I was putting text around an ellipse in Affinity Desiger but cannot get the text to "connect" back at the beginning.  For example, I wanted to use the upper case letter "T" to go all the way around the ellipse.  When I get back to the beginning, the last letter leaves a gap.  I tried it again with the letter "o" and had the same results.

My question is, how do I close the gap.  I have moved the beginning and ending "markers" on top of one another but still get the gap.  I've added two images here so you can see what I mean.

[carl123]

You can select all the text and try adjusting the tracking in the character panel

Or, as an alternative way, Power Duplicating will allow you to specify precise degrees to get the spacing exactly right for a circle

[firstdefence]

1. Draw your circle
2. Type your letter of choice and align out with the top centre of the curve ( You may be to play with Snapping to get this right)
3. Convert your letter of choice to a curve by Right_Clicking and choosing Convert To Curve
4. Turn on Show Rotation Centre  and move the now visible Rotation Centre to the centre of the circle
5. With your your letter of choice selected, press Cmd+J (Ctrl+J on windows) and move your letter of choice using the rotation bar that sticks out of the object box
6. Now press Cmd+J (Ctrl+J on windows) until your letters complete the circle

[A_B_C]

There is an even simpler way. Type your letters, select Justified All from the Paragraph Menu, and adjust the Text On Path Handles accordingly. It might require adjustments for the font size, but it should be easy to get there … 

 

 

Justified-All.afdesign

 

 

[firstdefence]

Just tried @A_B_C tip and it works very well, simplicity is always the most elegant solution.

 

I've noticed on Mac you cannot just hold the letter button down to repeat the text and let it run around the shape, you have to repeatedly press the letter key, thats a bit of a pain.

[R C-R]

2 hours ago, firstdefence said:

I've noticed on Mac you cannot just hold the letter button down to repeat the text and let it run around the shape, you have to repeatedly press the letter key, thats a bit of a pain.

This is a consequence of the Mac OS 'press & hold' feature that allows users to type accented characters like é or ñ by holding down the key & choosing the accented character from a popup menu. As explained in many 'how to' articles like this one, you can disable this feature via a Terminal command. (Not mentioned there, it may require logging out & back into your user account for the changes to take effect, so it is not necessarily quick & easy to change between repeating & press & hold behaviors.)

 

As "MacBiter" mentioned in the comments section of that article, the way this should work with the default 'press & hold' feature enabled is that only the characters that have alternate accented versions pop up the menu. All characters that do not should instead repeat, using the settings shown in System Preferences > Keyboard for repeat speed & delay. This is how it used to work for me on OS versions up to El Capitan or so. However, sometime after installing one of the more recent OS versions, on my iMac it has become an 'all or nothing' feature -- with the 'press & hold' feature enabled, no key repeats. I don't know if this is because of some problem specific to my Mac or what, but it is very annoying. 

[firstdefence]

@R C-R just created an Apple Script to turn the repeat text function on and off. I've attached the file if anyone wants to use it.

 

Turn repeat text on or off.scpt

[R C-R]

3 minutes ago, firstdefence said:

@R C-R just created an Apple Script to turn the repeat text function on and off. I've attached the file if anyone wants to use it.

Thanks, but while that saves me the effort of entering the defaults write commands in Terminal, I still have to log out & back into my user account for them to take effect, & I still end up with the 'all or nothing' behavior instead of the enabled version just affecting characters that have accented versions. 

[Alfred]

Why not simply leave the ‘press & hold’ feature disabled? As long as you have an Internet connection, you can make use of an online facility for accessing accented characters.

 

http://www.typeit.org

[firstdefence]

35 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Thanks, but while that saves me the effort of entering the defaults write commands in Terminal, I still have to log out & back into my user account for them to take effect, & I still end up with the 'all or nothing' behavior instead of the enabled version just affecting characters that have accented versions. 

You just have to restart the app not log out of your account, any app that isn't running will just pick up the enabled repeat. was just a play about, not a script kiddie, in fact I'm amazed it actually worked lol!

 

display dialog "Okay be afraid... I'm playing in Automator now, 
if "The Internet" goes down "I've probably done something wrong" 
else "I've not"
end if

 

[R C-R]

7 minutes ago, Alfred said:

Why not simply leave the ‘press & hold’ feature disabled? As long as you have an Internet connection, you can make use of an online facility for accessing accented characters.

When it worked as before & only affected characters that had accented versions (basically just the vowels & the letter n) but not any other characters it was very handy, much quicker than opening a web page. I prefer to use accented characters when appropriate, like for Spanish words like piñon or particularly when referring to people with proper names that include them, for example Günter, Björk, José, Ramón, Léonie, or María, to name a few. In this part of the world & in some of my online correspondence, not using those forms may be considered disrespectful or insensitive.

 

1 hour ago, firstdefence said:

You just have to restart the app not log out of your account, any app that isn't running will just pick up the enabled repeat.

Unfortunately, that does not work for me. Unless I log out & back in, not even Apple apps like Textedit or Safari pick up the changes.

[Alfred]

1 hour ago, firstdefence said:

display dialog "Okay be afraid... I'm playing in Automator now,

 

 

Syntax error: Unmatched quotation mark.

 

[v_kyr]

That's right, usually default system changes don't affect immediately already running system services or running applications here, see also ...

Quote

Defaults allows users to read, write, and delete Mac OS X user defaults from a command-line shell. Mac
     OS X applications and other programs use the defaults system to record user preferences and other
     information that must be maintained when the applications aren't running (such as default font for new
     documents, or the position of an Info panel). Much of this information is accessible through an appli-
     cation's Preferences panel, but some of it isn't, such as the position of the Info panel. You can
     access this information with defaults

     Note: Since applications do access the defaults system while they're running, you shouldn't modify the
     defaults of a running application. If you change a default in a domain that belongs to a running appli-
     cation, the application won't see the change and might even overwrite the default.

     User defaults belong to domains, which typically correspond to individual applications. Each domain has
     a dictionary of keys and values representing its defaults; for example, "Default Font" = "Helvetica".
     Keys are always strings, but values can be complex data structures comprising arrays, dictionaries,
     strings, and binary data. These data structures are stored as XML Property Lists.

     Though all applications, system services, and other programs have their own domains, they also share a
     domain named NSGlobalDomain.  If a default isn't specified in the application's domain, but is speci-
     fied in NSGlobalDomain, then the application uses the value in that domain.

... especially if it is a system prefs related default user setting (system domain) and not an application domain related setting.

[firstdefence]

2 hours ago, R C-R said:

Unfortunately, that does not work for me. Unless I log out & back in, not even Apple apps like Textedit or Safari pick up the changes.

How odd that I can stay logged in  I'm running 10.13.3 but I doubt that would make much difference.

 

I now have automator able to run the script, close affinity designer if open,  open it back up and create a new file. From there I can long hold and do what I need to depending upon the option I chose from the script.

[MaryLou]

10 hours ago, A_B_C said:

There is an even simpler way. Type your letters, select Justified All from the Paragraph Menu, and adjust the Text On Path Handles accordingly. It might require adjustments for the font size, but it should be easy to get there … 

 

 

Justified-All.afdesign

 

 

Thank you so much!!!   This is the perfect solution and so EASY!   I did try using the Character features to adjust the spacing but that didn't work. Just could NOT get the text perfect.   I just now tried the justified text (brilliant idea) and it did the trick!!   

Thanks to all who made suggestions - it's good to know one can always get help here.  And again, a huge thanks to A_B_C for the perfect solution!!!  I am a happy camper! 

[R C-R]

I apologize to @MaryLou for continuing with the Mac key repeat issue but it may still be of interest to some, so ...

 

3 hours ago, firstdefence said:

How odd that I can stay logged in  I'm running 10.13.3 but I doubt that would make much difference.

I am also running 10.13.3, but I agree that should not make any difference. And apparently, after logging out & back in just the one time, it does not! I now only have to quit & restart the apps for the defaults write commands to work. 

 

I am not sure what that changed but it seems similar to some of the comments I have seen on the web from users who have said they variously had to log out of & back into their user accounts or even restart their Macs for the commands to have any effect.

 

Anyway, inspired by your .scpt file I decided to write one of my own, not because there was anything wrong with yours but only because my AppleScript chops were rusty & I wanted to see if I could still write one that works. The attached Repeat or use accents.zip contains both script & application versions for anyone who might find them useful. Both seem to work OK on 10.13.3, but I have not tested them on any earlier Mac OS versions so I make no guarantees about that.

[MaryLou]

Thanks RC-R - it's not a problem.  I am going to opt out of getting emails on this topic because I got exactly what I was looking for.  I actually found it interesting that one cannot keep repeating a letter just by holding down the key on the keyboard. 

[R C-R]

7 minutes ago, MaryLou said:

I actually found it interesting that one cannot keep repeating a letter just by holding down the key on the keyboard. 

For the Mac users still following this topic, it used to be that in OS X, with the default setting all the keys did repeat except for the vowels, the letter n, & maybe a few others that had commonly used accented forms. Now, it seems that with the default setting in the newer macOS versions either Apple has changed it so no keys repeat, or there is something wonky in my system causing that 'all or nothing' behavior.

 

Consequently, I would like to know if other Mac users running High Sierra (or Sierra or El Capitan) see the same thing I do. I searched the web about this but could not find anything relevant.

[firstdefence]

10 hours ago, R C-R said:

I apologize to @MaryLou for continuing with the Mac key repeat issue but it may still be of interest to some, so ...

 

I am also running 10.13.3, but I agree that should not make any difference. And apparently, after logging out & back in just the one time, it does not! I now only have to quit & restart the apps for the defaults write commands to work. 

 

I am not sure what that changed but it seems similar to some of the comments I have seen on the web from users who have said they variously had to log out of & back into their user accounts or even restart their Macs for the commands to have any effect.

 

Anyway, inspired by your .scpt file I decided to write one of my own, not because there was anything wrong with yours but only because my AppleScript chops were rusty & I wanted to see if I could still write one that works. The attached Repeat or use accents.zip contains both script & application versions for anyone who might find them useful. Both seem to work OK on 10.13.3, but I have not tested them on any earlier Mac OS versions so I make no guarantees about that.

 

@R C-R I'll take a look at your take on the script, always eager to learn other views.

 

Mods: I wonder if you could clean this post up and maybe create a new post re repeating keys and migrate the relevant posts from this one over to it?