Watermark fit to circle - is it possible?

[jamie1422]

I am using Xara Xreme and I created a photowatermark as shown in the demos that came with the CD. All that worked fine but I would like to convert the text to fit to a circle (to use as text on a CD layout). I have fitted text to circles before, so I know how that works, but when I select a circle and the "text set up as a watermark" the "fit text to curve" command does not work. Is there any way of doing this please?

[steve.ledger]

Provided your text remains 'text' - fitting to circle should work. But once you change the text to shapes the function will be greyed out.

[jamie1422]

Thanks for your help.

You will have to forgive me if I don't know all the correct terms here because I'm just finding my way with Xara Xreme at the moment. Does this mean that when making the watermark the text becomes a shape when it is subtracted and then it is not possible to fit this shape to a circle?

What I am trying to do is to make a copyright statement that follows the curve of a CD and I wanted to produce it with the same effect as shown for making transparent watermarks as shown in the demo that came with the Xara Xreme CD.

[iamtheblues]

If you make your first step to fit the text to a curve and then apply the affects, it should solve the problem.
Saludos,
Bob.

[jamie1422]

Hi Bob,

Thanks for your input. Unfortunately this doesn't work. You cannot successfully subtract the shapes when they are fitted to the circle. At least I couldn't make it work.

James

[steve.ledger]

James,

Subtract from what?

Can you provide a .xar file so we can see what you are attempting?

[Soquili]

Hi Jamie,

I'm not sure why you are not having success following Bob's (iamtheblues) advice.

Using the same technique described in the Xara Video for making a watermark, I created the one shown attached image.

I created a circle and duplicated it so I had identical circles to use for two different lines of text. The first line of text was the CopyRight© 2009 and the second line of text was Bill Taylor.

Selecting one of the circles and the first line of text, use the Arrange menu > Fit Text to Curve.

Selecting the second circle and the second line of text, use the Arrange menu > Fit Text to Curve then switch to the Shape Editor Tool and click the Reverse Paths icon on the Infobar to make the text curve inside the circle. Switch to the Text Tool and Select the text within the circle then adjust the Baseline Shift (lower the value) until the Text is on the outside of the circle.

Rotate the two circles so the text is where you want it to appear. Convert the Circles+Text to Editable shapes and then ungroup. Now remove the two circles. Select the two groups that were once text lines and group them.

Copy the group to the clipboard.
Clone the group and change to top clone to white colour.
Nudge the top group up and to the left one pixel in each direction.
Select the bottom and top group and subtract shapes.

Paste in Place (Ctrl+Shift+V) the group from the clipboard. Apply a white colour to the group.

Clone the group and apply black colour. Nudge down and to the right one pixel in each direction. Select the White and black group and subtract shapes. Group the two resulting groups.

You should now have the Watermark as described in the Xara video.

[jamie1422]

Hi Bill (Soquili),

Many thanks for your terrific help. I didn't know about adusting the base line to remove text from the circle - hadn't discovered that yet! So, of course when I tried to subtract the text still attached to the circles it all fell apart. I still have masses to learn.

OK, I followed everything you wrote and succeeded but I have one problem - when I use the arrow keys to move text it moves about 3 kilometers in each direction, not one pixel. I have all my units set to pixels so I don't know what I am doing wrong there. However, I moved the text by eye and got an acceptable result.

To everyone one who has helped, many, many thanks, I really appreciate it.

James (jamie1422)

[steve.ledger]

From Xtreme Help:

Nudge modifiers
To modify the nudge distance, use these key combinations while using the arrow keys:

Ctrl nudge 5 times the normal distance
Shift nudge 10 times the normal distance
Ctrl+Shift nudge by l/5th the normal distance
Alt nudge by 1 pixel
Alt+Shift nudge by 10 pixels

You can change the normal nudge distance under the general tab in "Utilities -> Options"

[jamie1422]

Re: nudge distance. Thanks.