Can text be set in the shape of a circle or an oval

Based on the date, Roger was using Pages '09, which has better finesse for this text fitment than does Pages v5 or v6.

Basically, it is a circular shape that can remain a perfect circle or receive a slight squashing. You must disable Text Wrap on the Circle object, before you can double-click within and paste your text content. You may, or may not want some color fill within the shape, but then remove the fill color and border line when done.

You select the text content, and ascribe your font attributes to it. Then you play with the exact line and (negative) character spacing to flow the text into your shape, while you enlarge or contract the shape using a diagonal drag with shift key to keep it proportional.

Here was my attempt using Pages '09 v4.3 on El Capitan. A tad too much negative spacing for readability. The advantage of this older version of Pages is that when I copy this shape with text to the clipboard, I can open it in Preview (new from clipboard) as a vector PDF document. Pages v5 and v6 cannot do this.

From Pages v6.2 heart shape. ITC Garamond Book 12 pt. Character spacing at 1%. Spacing line height exactly at 16 pt.

Discus will also do it for less.......

Hello

On my old G4, I retrieved a script built years ago for AppleWorks.

As I can't work on some projects requiring the recent machine, I played with this old thing and now I have a version writing along circles (in fact ovals) in Pages.

It seems that it's too long for the message parser.

Go to my iDisk :

<http://public.me.com/koenigyvan>

Download :

For_iWork:iWork '09:for_Pages09:Pages écrit en cercle.zip

At the beginning, you will see a property named : skipSpaces

It rules the behavior when there is a space character to display.

Here is what we get with skipSpaces set to false

And now, what we get with skipSpaces set to true.

Have fun with it.

Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) 12 mai 2011 19:14:02

Thank you so much for the speedy reply. I'm not all that great on the mac so will try to follow the step by step instructions this morning. It is actually a heart shape not a cirlcle i need to fill with text, but I assume the principles are still the same? Also I am using a MacBook Air which is 3 years old and the pages has taken an update in the last week or so. Is this ok? Or may it not work? Thanks kelly

Hi Roger

I know this is an old post but can you advise how to do this on mac without using AI?

Many thanks in advance

Kelly

Excellent thank you, I've done it 😁

m,

You may add text to a shape, but you will not find tools to shape text in Pages. The third party app Art Text will give you that capability. See: http://www.belightsoft.com/products/arttext/overview.php

Jerry

Fruhulda,

I learned something this evening. Art Text is now available in a free Lite version. From download to simple graphic in 10 minutes. Mac App Store.

Or did the OP mean like this:

I never took time to add code allowing us to define parameters on the fly.

As is, we must define them directly by script edition.

I will try to use a text file to define these parameters.

Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) 12 mai 2011 22:21:20

Hello

My script is supposed to be able to do what you request.

Alas, due to a Pages bug, it fails.

To be able to put close characters along the curve, the Wrap property of the text boxes must be set to none.

I coded the script to do that but in real life, when we use AppleScript to do that, the Wrap attribute isn't set to none but to center so we don't see the characters but a small sqare with a plus.

I filed a report but at this time we must live with the bug 😟

Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) 13 mai 2011 20:12:49

It can but isn't the fastest or easiest way to do it. Art text 2 is better. But if you like ti fiddle go here http://i-work-in-pages.blogspot.com/2010/03/curving-text-in-pages-suggestion.htm l

That is neat!

Roger,

We may never know.

Jerry