On Tue, Apr 23, 2013 at 1:54 PM, Astabeth wrote:

It creates a whole new path and puts the text on it. I have never had any path except the one (visible in blue) around the person's head

It looks to me like it _is_ putting the text along the path, but in 11 or 12 lines. Did you enter newlines/linebreaks in the text editor? If so, get rid of them.

You might consider exporting the image and path to Inkscape, and setting the text there. I've had more luck using Inkscape for text along paths:
http://tavmjong.free.fr/INKSCAPE/MANUAL/html/Text-Path.html

HTH, Chris

The second path IS the result of putting the text on a path. It creates a NEW path, which is the outline of the text once it is put on the path. It looks like the line breaks are "respected" when it puts the text on the path.

-Rob A>

On Tue, Apr 23, 2013 at 9:26 PM, Astabeth wrote:

It looks to me like it _is_ putting the text along the path, but in 11 or 12 lines. Did you enter newlines/linebreaks in the text editor? If so, get rid of them.

There are no new lines or breaks. It is not putting it on the path. The path
is a closed loop that outlines the face and head and runs along the bottom of
the edge. There are no breaks in the text. If you look at the paths menu you
see that a second path has been added.

You might consider exporting the image and path to Inkscape, and setting the text there. I've had more luck using Inkscape for text along paths:
http://tavmjong.free.fr/INKSCAPE/MANUAL/html/Text-Path.html

I have seen several recommendations for Inkscape here, but I am a high school
art teacher trying to teach my students to use GIMP, so an Inkscape solution
won't help me. This is so frustrating because this was going to be their first
assignment where they have to have personal meaning rather than just using their
interests.

--
Astabeth (via www.gimpusers.com/forums) _______________________________________________ gimp-user-list mailing list
gimp-user-list@gnome.org
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On 04/23/2013 09:26 PM, Astabeth wrote:

I have seen several recommendations for Inkscape here, but I am a high school art teacher trying to teach my students to use GIMP, so an Inkscape solution won't help me. This is so frustrating because this was going to be their first assignment where they have to have personal meaning rather than just using their interests.

With GIMP 2.8 on a Linux Mint, this is a typical result for me when doing 'text along path':

http://pilobilus.net/xfer/text-along-path.png

This is one of several test cases. Whether the path is closed or open, and whether or not it has acute angles, seems to make no difference: The GIMP decides "this many letters and not one more." In the example linked above, it stops at #17, in other tests it went into the low 20s before stopping.

As you noted, we have seen reports of problems with putting text on a path in the GIMP before. As far as I can tell, this feature just isn't ready to use.

We can't let a teacher go without resources, though. Asking myself what the GIMP can do with text, that's way artsy and cool AND incorporates meaningful text in a portrait, I thought of this:

http://pilobilus.net/xfer/Michael_J_Hammel_-_text_effect.png

The linked image illustrates a text effect included in this collection of GIMP tutorials by Michael J. Hammel, originally published in Linux Format magazine. 18 full articles in PDF format, available here:

http://www.tuxradar.com/gimp

The image linked is a screen snap from the tutorial on text effects, file name seems to be LXF110.tut_gimp.pdf

Another potential contender I ran across in a quick sweep of teh interwebs:

http://www.gimpusers.com/tutorials/create-text-portrait

Sucks about the 'text on path' thing, but there's hope for salvaging some of the underlying concept in other formats.

:o/

Steve

D'OH!

I forgot to plug Michael's book!

http://www.amazon.com/The-Artists-Guide-GIMP-Photographers/dp/1593274149

:o)

Steve

On Tue, Apr 23, 2013 at 8:26 PM, Astabeth wrote:

It looks to me like it _is_ putting the text along the path, but in 11 or 12 lines. Did you enter newlines/linebreaks in the text editor? If so, get rid of them.

There are no new lines or breaks. It is not putting it on the path. The path is a closed loop that outlines the face and head and runs along the bottom of the edge. There are no breaks in the text. If you look at the paths menu you see that a second path has been added.

Sorry - red herring on the linebreaks then. It is at least attempting to put the text along the path (see attached*). The only other thing I can think to try is to A) either use less text, or B) try expanding the text editor so that all the text is on one line, or both.

You might consider exporting the image and path to Inkscape, and setting the text there. I've had more luck using Inkscape for text along paths:
http://tavmjong.free.fr/INKSCAPE/MANUAL/html/Text-Path.html

I have seen several recommendations for Inkscape here, but I am a high school art teacher trying to teach my students to use GIMP, so an Inkscape solution won't help me. This is so frustrating because this was going to be their first assignment where they have to have personal meaning rather than just using their interests.

Well, the text along path in GIMP has always been a bit frustrating for me (since 2.0 days), and I tend to just avoid it now. And there is that bug floating around that causes text on a path to cut off after N characters on some combos of operating system and font.

As a former art student, I see no problem with treating Inkscape as another source for GIMP compositions - importing a path is much the same is importing a photo or other resource. But hey, I'm not the one having to deal with a classroom either ;)

Maybe just change the requirements of the assignment to just do something creative with the photo and text, and offer text along path in Inkscape as a bonus or example?

I'll shut up now - not sure how helpful this is ;)

*attachment was too large, but if you look at the line of text just outside the path, you can see it does follow the path, and all of the other lines are just offset from that, if that makes any sense.

Chris

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On Thu, 25 Apr 2013 01:39:40 +0200 Astabeth wrote:

I didn't see a reply to thread button, so I am just replying to the latest...

Thank you all so much! I wish all forums were this friendly and helpful. I was gone on a field trip today, so in the morning I'm going to try a variety of things:

Opening the path so it's not a loop - I don't need text at the bottom, anyway. Putting all the text on one line Reducing the amount of text

At any rate, I think that with this project I will be troubleshooting all of my students' projects.

I really appreciate Steve Kinney's suggestions. I think I will go with that. It looks better than my idea, anyway!

And I plan on downloading Inkscape for my own personal use. I don't think I can get it loaded on 20 computers by the end of the semester, but it might be helpful in the future.

Thank you all so much! Beth

Hi Astabeth,
So far claws doesn't have a default reply to thread option. It should be possible to edit ~/.claws-mail/menurc to add that feature. If you try that be aware that Claws-Mail should not be running when you do or any changes will be lost.

Tom

"We could certainly slow the aging process down if it had to work its
way through Congress".     - Will Rogers
--
Tom Taylor - retired penguin - KG7CFC
AMD Phenom II x4 955 -- 4GB RAM -- 2x1.5TB sata2
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KDE 4.7.2, FF 7.0      KDE 4.10.00, FF 19.0
claws-mail 3.9.1
registered linux user 263467

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