How to curve and warp text in Paint by Zaweba

Straight lines of text are fine for most things, but badges, stamps, logos and playful posters often want type that bends. Paint by Zaweba gives you two ways to do it. Warp Text bends a whole block of text into a shape, and text on a path lays the letters along a line or the edge of a shape.

In both cases the text stays editable, so you can change the words, the font or the size after the curve is set.

Warp Text

Type > Warp Text has a set of warp styles: arc, arc lower, arc upper, arch, bulge, shell, shell lower, shell upper, flag, wave, fish, rise, fisheye, inflate, squeeze and twist. Each bends the text block as a whole, letters and all.

Arc and arch are the everyday choices for curved headings. Arc lower and arc upper bend just one edge, which makes the classic shop-sign look where the top curves and the baseline stays flat. Flag and wave give movement, good for a summer sale or a festival poster. Bulge and inflate push the middle out, fisheye magnifies the centre, and squeeze pinches it. Twist spins the text, which is best kept for short, fun words.

Use small amounts. A gentle bend tends to look intentional, a strong one can make text hard to read. Short, chunky words warp best; long sentences in thin fonts usually distort badly.

Text on a path

For lettering around a circle or along a curve, use text on a path. Select a path or a shape, click on its edge with the Text tool and type. The text follows the line. Drag the start and end handles to set where it begins and ends, which is how you centre a word on the top of a circle or keep it away from a join in the path.

Flip Text on Path moves the text to the other side of the line, so you can put one line along the top of a round badge reading normally and another along the bottom reading the right way up as well.

Unlike Warp Text, the letters on a path are not distorted; each one stays upright to the line. That keeps text readable even on tight curves, which makes it the better choice for stamps, seals and circular logos.

Turning text into shapes and paths

Convert to Shape turns text into shape layers. After that you can reshape individual letters with the vector tools, combine them with other shapes using the boolean commands, or round off corners. It is the step to take when the lettering is final and you want to customise it as a logo.

Create Work Path makes a path from the text outlines while keeping the text itself. That is useful for selections, for stroking an outline onto a pixel layer, or for using the letters as a clipping shape for a photo.

A badge in a few steps

Draw a circle shape for the badge. Draw a smaller circle as a guide path. Click on the top of the guide with the Text tool and type the name, then drag the handles to centre it. Duplicate, flip the copy to the inside bottom and change the words. Add a short arc-warped tagline in the middle, and the badge is done, with every word still editable.

Mistakes to avoid with curved text

Warping text and then running it along a path at the same time rarely looks good; pick one. Check spacing on curves, as letters on the outside of a circle spread apart and on the inside crowd together, so adjust tracking to suit. And convert to shapes only when the wording is final, because shapes cannot be retyped.

With warps for quick character and paths for precise lettering, Paint by Zaweba covers most curved type jobs without a separate layout program.