How to Put Text on a Path

(2-Minute Training)

Welcome to Expression Design. When you first launch the program, you'll find the artboard (white area you draw or create in), the tool box to the left. This is where the main tools for creating and manipulating exist. To the right is the property inspector; here you can organize your artwork/ objects using the layers panel, change the color or other various properties using the appearance panel.

You can customize the interface by docking and undocking Toolbars, and changing Option settings.

Let's get started.

1. So to begin with open Expression Design and create a new document. File/ New or CTRL + N- These are the settings I used. Although, it really doesn't matter for this lesson. Rename the file whatever you want. Click OK or press enter to create the new document.

   

2. We need to create the path that the text will follow. Select the ellipse tool by pressing "L" , Navigate to the appearance panel and select the stroke tab, give it a dark color. Select the fill tab and remove any color from it. Click and drag out to create an ellipse.

   

   Select the Text tool by pressing "t" , position the cursor just over the top most point of our newly created ellipse. The cursor will change to indicate when you are in position to enter Text on a path. Click once, you'll notice you now have a blinking text cursor on the path. You may want to adjust the size of your text at this point. You can navigate to the Text Panel in the properties panel. I set mine to 21 pt. Now type whatever you want.

3. Now that we have Text on our path,

   

   we can further manipulate it by using the "text positioning handle" located at the beginning of the text string. To see this, go to the tool box and activate the Selection tool , click and drag a selection marquee over the path and the text. Position the cursor over this handle and you'll see the cursor update to indicate you're in position edit the text string position. Click and drag the handle.

   

   Experiment with this tool enough and you'll quickly see how easily you can change the Texts position.

This lesson was designed to provide a quick introduction to using Warp Groups with bitmap images and/ or vector artwork in Expression Design.

This short lesson was created by Jesse Brown, a freelance designer and presenter for Total Training. Jesse's keen design sense and "big picture" sensibility are among the reasons his skills are in high demand. Total Training, Inc. ( www.totaltraining.com), with offices in California and New York, is a pioneer in innovative video-based training for leading software applications. Total Training is best known for its superior product quality, entertaining content, and strategic partnership with Microsoft which includes tutorials in Microsoft software boxes.