204. Tutorial #20 - How to Create Text Along a Path in GIMP
Tutorial: How to create text along a path in GIMP
Version / Transferability: I am currently using GIMP 2.10.22 but this should be transferable to other versions of GIMP.
Prior knowledge required: This tutorial assumes you know how to create new layers, create basic text, change active foreground colour, change active layer, turn off layer visibility.
References: I used this tutorial to learn how to do this process, so it forms the basis of this tutorial.
Before you start, you should know roughly what shape/path you want the text to be in (e.g. arc, circle, oval, square, wave etc.). If you want it to be a full circle, I suggest you get familiar with the steps below and then check out this page for how to make a circular path. I have gone with a simple arc for this example, but this method will help you make other shapes/paths too. A couple of examples:
1) Select the Paths tool from the Toolbox .
2) Click to place the first point of the path.
Click to place the second point of the path.
If you just want a simple straight path you can leave it there and skip to Step 7).
3) Click to place the next point(s) of the path.
If you want a series of straight segments in your path you can leave it there once you have added all the straight segments of the path and skip to Step 7).
If you want to make a closed path (e.g. a square or star), then you need to Ctrl+click join your final point up to the first point.
Worth noting that the sharper the angle between two segments of the path (particularly if you are sticking with straight lines), the more likely you are to have text getting smushed at the corners (like in the star example above). You can play around with putting extra spaces between words or increasing the spacing of the text, but no guarantee it will work 100%.
4) To turn one of those straight segments into a curve, left click on the straight line connecting to points and drag it out to give an arc.
You’ll notice that the arc is by default quite steep at the sides and shallow in the middle.
5) To adjust the steepness of the curve, use those adjusting points (the square ones at the end of the orange lines) by left-clicking and dragging the adjusting points until the arc looks as you want it.
6) Repeat for all the path segments you want to make curved.
7) Now when you open the Paths tab in the Patterns window you will see your path.
8) Now go ahead and make your text layer. If you can, try to make it roughly the same length as the length of your path, but you can adjust the text size later. You don’t have to worry about the colour of the text, but you will need to adjust the font, spacing and anything like antialiasing or hinting at this stage if you plan to use those options.
9) Make a new transparent layer, then click to select the text layer as active layer. Then in the Layers tab, right-click on the text layer and click Text along Path.
10) You’ll now have a red outline of your text that follows that path. You can see I didn’t quite manage to guess how big/wide my text needed in order to fill the path but that’s ok.
If you don’t get a red outline but instead get a series of small white circles, press Ctrl+Z to undo, click to make the transparent layer the active layer, click to make the text layer the active layer, then repeat the second sentence of Step 9).
12) If you now go into the Paths tab in the Patterns window you will see your original plain path, plus the next text path that follows the original path.
12) If your text didn’t quite fit the path properly, you can right-click on the path, click Delete Path, make the text layer bigger, and then repeat Steps 9)-11), until the text path fits the full path. There’s a bit of trial and error involved here.
13) Once you are happy, go back into the Paths tab. Right-click on the text path and choose Path to Selection.
14) Change the active foreground colour to the colour you want the text to be.
15) In the Layers tab, make sure the new transparent layer is the active layer.
16) In the Paths tab, right-click on the text path and select Fill Path.
17) Then in the pop-up window click Fill. (Alternatively to Steps 15)-16), in the Edit drop-down, you can click Fill with FG Colour, Fill with BG Colour, or Fill with Pattern, as you choose.)
18) Now you can see that red highlighted text path is now filled with the colour you chose, and when you return to the Layers tab, what was the blank new layer will now have your warped text (tricky to see in this example, but trust me!)
19) Press Ctrl+A so the whole image is selected rather than just the path selection.
20) Then in the Paths tab delete the text tab to clear the red highlight around the warped text.
21) Finally in the Layer tab, turn off the visibility on the original un-warped text layer.
There you go!
Now you can rotate, grow, shrink, re-colour or do whatever you like to the warped text to finish it off.
A couple of examples of icons I have made using this method:
I hope that helps; please let me know if you get stuck or have any questions!