distorted text

[stefangs]

hi all,

can you distort text so that only the upper or lower half follows a curve?

kind of hard to describe - think of a large caption where the first and last characters are large size, but become smaller towards the center. the middle character would be the smallest one. the actual baseline of the text stays the same, however.

or, in reverse, the fixed line would be the invisible top line, but the bottom of the characters follow the invisible curve.

hope i made myself clear.

thanks,
stefan

[GarryP]

Hi stefan.

If I've understood you properly, I'm not sure if you can do this in Scribus but you can do it in Inkscape and import the graphic into Scribus.

In Inkscape, create your text, convert it to a path (Path Menu -> Object to Path), then enter the Path Effect Editor (from the Path menu). You can then add an "Envelope Deformation" effect and change the top/bottom bend path as you want it. And there's all sorts of other stuff to play with in there too!

I've attached an example graphic.

I hope this helps.

Garry.

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[GarryP]

As an addendum to my previous post, you can also achieve something similar (see attached image "Scribus Distort") within Scribus itself by doing the following:

1. Create a text frame and add the required text.
2. Item -> Convert to -> Outlines.
3. Select the newly converted object.
4. If necessary, resize the text so it's taller than normal.
5. Item -> Path Tools -> Mesh Distortion...
6. Drag the nodes of the mesh as necessary (see attached image "Mesh Distortion").

Note 1: Once a mesh has been applied, if you go back into the mesh distortion tool the mesh will not be the previously distorted one but a "fresh" one, so make a copy of your object before having a go so you can try again if you're not happy with your first attempt.

Note 2: As with the previous answer, the text is no longer editable once it's been converted, so you might want to keep a copy of the original until you're happy with the outcome.


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