Text on a Circle in QuarkXPress
Believe it or not, it’s really easy to set type around the outside of a circle in QuarkXPress:
- Use any tool to create a circular object.
- Change its content type to “text”. (Item> Content> Text)
- Change its shape type to “line”. (Item> Shape> Freehand line)
- Get the Text tool and type your text on the new path.
To control the starting point of the text, you can use the usual text formatting techniques such as left indent, tabs or spaces, or use the Scissors tool to cut the outline of the circle. (The Scissors tool is added when Quark’s free Scissors XTension is active.)
If you’re using QuarkXPress 7 and above, be sure to check out the Text On A Path controls in the Measurements palette. There, you can make the text align to the path in all kinds of weird ways, flip it to the other side of the path, and adjust the width of the stroke on the path.
Jay Nelson is the editorial director of PlanetQuark.com, and the editor and publisher of Design Tools Monthly. He’s also the author of the QuarkXPress 8 and QuarkXPress 7 training titles at Lynda.com, as well as the training videos Quark includes in the box with QuarkXPress 7 . In addition, Jay writes regularly for Macworld and Photoshop User magazines and speaks at industry events.
Hi,
I have Quark 8.02.
I do not have the text on a path option in my measurement palette… where is it?
It would be very helpful.
thanks,
Judy
Would it be a plug in?
Judith: the Text on a Path controls appear in the Measurements palette after you’ve attached some text to a path and then select that path. Click on the picture above to see a close-up of that tab of the Measurements palette.
Very useful tip thanks!!
This is extremely helpful. Thanks so much. I had completely forgotten this could be done in Quark.
nice ibfo…many thanks (^_^)
How do you attach text to the inside of a circle? I need it to base align to the inside bottom of a circle.
Thanks.
David
David: you could cut the circle using the Scissors tool as mentioned above, leaving just the bottom. Then put your text on that path and adjust its baseline to be above the path where you want it. That’s one way to do it, anyway!