Have you wondered if there’s a way to type along a curved path in Procreate? If so you’re not alone. It’s a question I’ve received several times so I wanted to answer it today.
Software like Photoshop and Illustrator have a feature of the text tool that enables you to snap text to a custom path. It can be a circle, an arc, or even a wavy line.
There’s a lot of situations you might want to do this… logo design or perhaps inside a curved ribbon. Or even just aligning lettering of a quote to an arc shape.
Procreate doesn’t have this feature natively, so we have to get creative and find a work around. It’s a bit more of a manual process, but with some attention to the details you can still get a great result!
I’ll be using text rather than lettering today, but you could use the same method with hand lettering.
Watch the video then see the ‘Take-away’ notes for a few extra pro-tips below.
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- Use a block font rather than a script. We’ll be transforming and rotating each letter so a joined script won’t work well in this instance.
- Align your text to the middle of the circle before you start distributing it around the curve. This will ensure both the first and last letters line up!
- Get your text size right first. You don’t want to enlarge or shrink the size one your start moving your letters.
- Take a backup of your text before you rasterize. Your text will need to be converted into artwork which will mean you won’t be able to edit it. Take a backup before you do this so you can revert if you notice any spelling mistakes. (Though it’s a good idea to double check everything before you start!)
- Watch your kerning. Pay attention to the space between the letters and try keep them consistent.
JB Gilbert
Thanks for this video. I am fairly new to Procreate and learned a couple of new things!
Nicole Mauloni
So glad to hear that JB! Thanks for watching 🙂
Autumn
Whenever I rotate the selected letters they become pixelated. WhT am I doing wrong?
Nicole Mauloni
Hi Autumn, There may be a slight loss in crispness when rotating, but it shouldn’t be too bad. Make sure your interpolation setting is ‘Bicubic’. You can change this by selecting your text with the arrow tool and it’s the 2nd icon from the right in the menu bar. (It might say ‘Nearest’ or ‘Bilinear’ depending on what it’s currently set to). Also try to get the rotation right in one go rather than redoing too many times. This will also help.
Here’s some more info:
https://procreate.art/handbook/transform/transform-interpolate?section=11608
Mohammed Umer
How did you aligned that both circles at the starting of this video
Nicole Mauloni
Hi Mohammed, See 2:05 of the video for how to centre objects 🙂 Since Procreate 5x, you can turn on ‘snapping’ for an even easier way
Mary Beth Boyett
Did you say you had the shapes somewhere on your website?
Nicole Mauloni
Hey Mary Beth, Yes, that’s right. There are over 20 shape stamp brushes both as solid and outline included in this pack – https://ipadcalligraphy.com/product/ornament-brushes/