{"course":{"slug":"vector-and-print","title":"Vectors, Logos and Things That Get Printed","url":"https://addaly.com/learn/vector-and-print","level":"beginner","track":"create"},"lesson":{"slug":"type-on-a-path","title":"Type on a curve, and why it splays","url":"https://addaly.com/learn/vector-and-print/type-on-a-path","position":23,"of":73,"minutes":8,"answer":"Type on a path is positioned by arc length along the baseline while the glyph is rigid.","keyIdea":"Type on a path is positioned by arc length along the baseline while the glyph is rigid, so letters splay on the outside of a curve and crowd on the inside: fixed by a larger radius, more tracking, and a second reversed circle for the bottom of a badge."},"body":{"format":"markdown","text":"## What the software is actually doing\n\nType on a path is positioned by **arc length along the baseline**. The engine walks the path, placing each glyph's origin at the distance the previous glyph's advance width demands, and rotates the glyph to the path's tangent at that point.\n\nEvery problem with curved type follows from one fact: **the glyph has height, and the baseline does not.**\n\nOn a circle of radius r, the baseline has circumference 2πr. The top of a capital, at cap height h above the baseline, sits on a circle of circumference 2π(r+h). Those two circles have different lengths, but the letter is rigid. So:\n\n- **Text on the outside of a curve** splays: the tops of the letters are pulled apart, the bottoms crowd together.\n- **Text on the inside** does the reverse: the tops jam, the bottoms fan out.\n\nThe tighter the radius relative to the cap height, the worse it is. This is not a bug and no setting fixes it.\n\n## The four things that do help\n\n1. **Increase the radius.** The ratio that matters is cap height to radius. At r = 20× cap height the splay is barely visible; at r = 3× it is unusable.\n2. **Add tracking.** Splay is most obvious when letters nearly touch at the bottom. Open the whole line by 30 to 80 thousandths of an em and the crowding disappears; the top-heavy look remains but stops mattering.\n3. **Choose the face.** A typeface with short capitals relative to its width (a wide, low grotesque) splays less than a tall condensed one, because h is smaller relative to the advance width.\n4. **Outline and adjust individually.** For a badge that must be right, convert to curves and rotate each letter about its own optical centre. Twenty minutes, and it is the reason good circular badges look good.\n\n## Baseline shift, which is the control people miss\n\nType sits *on* the path by default. **Baseline shift** moves it up or down relative to the path without changing the path.\n\n- Illustrator: Character panel, the `A↕` field, or **Alt+Shift+Up/Down**.\n- Inkscape: Text and Font dialog, or select the characters and use the vertical-shift field on the text toolbar.\n- CorelDRAW: the *Distance from path* field on the property bar when text is fitted to a path.\n\nUse it to lift text off a circle so the letters' descenders clear it, or to push text inside a ring.\n\n## The bottom of a circular badge\n\nThe classic problem: text on the bottom half of a circle reads upside down.\n\nThe fix is not to flip the text. It is to **draw a second circle, in the opposite direction**, and set the bottom text on that one.\n\n1. Draw circle A, clockwise. Put the top text on it.\n2. Duplicate it, reverse its direction (Inkscape: **Shift+R**; Illustrator: Attributes ▸ Reverse Path Direction), and make it slightly smaller so the two lines of text sit at the same visual distance from the centre, because the bottom text will hang below its baseline while the top text sits above.\n3. Put the bottom text on circle B and set it to align centred at the 6 o'clock position.\n\nHide both circles by setting their stroke and fill to none. They stay in the file and the text stays live.\n\n## Moving text along the path\n\nEvery implementation gives you a bracket or handle you drag to move the start point, and dragging it across the path flips the text to the other side. That flip is the source of most \"my text suddenly went inside the circle\" confusion. In Illustrator the handle is the small perpendicular bar at the start of the text; double-clicking it opens Type on a Path Options, which has **Align to path: Ascender / Descender / Centre / Baseline** and an *Effect* dropdown with Rainbow, Skew, 3D Ribbon, Stair Step and Gravity. Rainbow is the default and the only one you usually want.\n\n## What to do before sending it anywhere\n\nConvert to curves, and check the shape of every letter afterwards. Some text engines apply the rotation at render time in a way that does not survive export cleanly, and CorelDRAW in particular has historically produced slightly different spacing on curved text between the on-screen view and the PDF. Outline it, look at it, then send it."},"check":{"question":"A designer sets a shop name around the top of a 30 mm-radius circular badge in a tall condensed face at 8 mm cap height. The letters fan apart badly at the top and nearly touch at the bottom. Which change addresses the mechanism most directly?","options":[{"text":"Switch to a wider face with a lower cap height and add tracking, so the ratio of cap height to radius falls.","correct":true},{"text":"Apply baseline shift to lift the text further from the path, which restores even spacing between the letters.","correct":false,"tempting":"Baseline shift moves the whole line radially; it changes the effective radius slightly but does not alter that the glyph is rigid across its height."},{"text":"Set the type on a path drawn as a polygon with many sides rather than a true circle, so each letter sits on a straight segment.","correct":false,"tempting":"A many-sided polygon is geometrically almost identical to the circle, so the arc-length difference between baseline and cap line is unchanged."},{"text":"Change the Type on a Path effect from Rainbow to Skew, which keeps the letters vertical and removes the fan.","correct":false,"tempting":"Skew keeps glyphs upright and shears them instead, which distorts the letterforms rather than fixing the spacing."}]},"prev":{"slug":"paragraphs-measure-and-rag","title":"Setting a paragraph somebody can read","url":"https://addaly.com/learn/vector-and-print/paragraphs-measure-and-rag"},"next":{"slug":"complex-scripts","title":"Devanagari, Arabic, and the scripts that break","url":"https://addaly.com/learn/vector-and-print/complex-scripts"},"authorship":"Founder and series editor: Dr Mustafa Mun. Written by AI models to a written standard. Exam keys checked blind by a second model: 3,665 of 3,666 agreed. Academic review invited.","review":{"status":"Draft, open for academic review"},"cite":"Addaly (2026) 'Type on a curve, and why it splays', in Vectors, Logos and Things That Get Printed. Edited by M. Mun. Addaly. Available at: https://addaly.com/learn/vector-and-print/type-on-a-path (Accessed: 13 October 2026).","licence":{"name":"CC BY-NC-SA 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/"},"reader":{"schema":1,"title":"Type on a curve, and why it splays","courseTitle":"Vectors, Logos and Things That Get Printed","module":{"index":3,"slug":"type-as-shape","title":"Type, which is also vector"},"answer":null,"keyIdea":"Type on a path is positioned by arc length along the baseline while the glyph is rigid, so letters splay on the outside of a curve and crowd on the inside: fixed by a larger radius, more tracking, and a second reversed circle for the bottom of a badge.","hero":{"kind":"plate","image":null,"alt":null,"caption":null},"blocks":[{"t":"h2","id":"what-the-software-is-actually-doing","runs":[{"text":"What the software is actually doing"}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Type on a path is positioned by "},{"text":"arc length along the baseline","b":true},{"text":". The engine walks the path, placing each glyph’s origin at the distance the previous glyph’s advance width demands, and rotates the glyph to the path’s tangent at that point."}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Every problem with curved type follows from one fact: "},{"text":"the glyph has height, and the baseline does not.","b":true}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"On a circle of radius r, the baseline has circumference 2πr. The top of a capital, at cap height h above the baseline, sits on a circle of circumference 2π(r+h). Those two circles have different lengths, but the letter is rigid. So:"}]},{"t":"ul","items":[[{"text":"Text on the outside of a curve","b":true},{"text":" splays: the tops of the letters are pulled apart, the bottoms crowd together."}],[{"text":"Text on the inside","b":true},{"text":" does the reverse: the tops jam, the bottoms fan out."}]]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"The tighter the radius relative to the cap height, the worse it is. This is not a bug and no setting fixes it."}]},{"t":"h2","id":"the-four-things-that-do-help","runs":[{"text":"The four things that do help"}]},{"t":"ol","start":1,"items":[[{"text":"Increase the radius.","b":true},{"text":" The ratio that matters is cap height to radius. At r = 20× cap height the splay is barely visible; at r = 3× it is unusable."}],[{"text":"Add tracking.","b":true},{"text":" Splay is most obvious when letters nearly touch at the bottom. Open the whole line by 30 to 80 thousandths of an em and the crowding disappears; the top-heavy look remains but stops mattering."}],[{"text":"Choose the face.","b":true},{"text":" A typeface with short capitals relative to its width (a wide, low grotesque) splays less than a tall condensed one, because h is smaller relative to the advance width."}],[{"text":"Outline and adjust individually.","b":true},{"text":" For a badge that must be right, convert to curves and rotate each letter about its own optical centre. Twenty minutes, and it is the reason good circular badges look good."}]]},{"t":"h2","id":"baseline-shift-which-is-the-control-people-miss","runs":[{"text":"Baseline shift, which is the control people miss"}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Type sits "},{"text":"on","i":true},{"text":" the path by default. "},{"text":"Baseline shift","b":true},{"text":" moves it up or down relative to the path without changing the path."}]},{"t":"ul","items":[[{"text":"Illustrator: Character panel, the "},{"text":"A↕","code":true},{"text":" field, or "},{"text":"Alt+Shift+Up/Down","b":true},{"text":"."}],[{"text":"Inkscape: Text and Font dialog, or select the characters and use the vertical-shift field on the text toolbar."}],[{"text":"CorelDRAW: the "},{"text":"Distance from path","i":true},{"text":" field on the property bar when text is fitted to a path."}]]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Use it to lift text off a circle so the letters’ descenders clear it, or to push text inside a ring."}]},{"t":"h2","id":"the-bottom-of-a-circular-badge","runs":[{"text":"The bottom of a circular badge"}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"The classic problem: text on the bottom half of a circle reads upside down."}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"The fix is not to flip the text. It is to "},{"text":"draw a second circle, in the opposite direction","b":true},{"text":", and set the bottom text on that one."}]},{"t":"ol","start":1,"items":[[{"text":"Draw circle A, clockwise. Put the top text on it."}],[{"text":"Duplicate it, reverse its direction (Inkscape: "},{"text":"Shift+R","b":true},{"text":"; Illustrator: Attributes ▸ Reverse Path Direction), and make it slightly smaller so the two lines of text sit at the same visual distance from the centre, because the bottom text will hang below its baseline while the top text sits above."}],[{"text":"Put the bottom text on circle B and set it to align centred at the 6 o’clock position."}]]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Hide both circles by setting their stroke and fill to none. They stay in the file and the text stays live."}]},{"t":"h2","id":"moving-text-along-the-path","runs":[{"text":"Moving text along the path"}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Every implementation gives you a bracket or handle you drag to move the start point, and dragging it across the path flips the text to the other side. That flip is the source of most “my text suddenly went inside the circle” confusion. In Illustrator the handle is the small perpendicular bar at the start of the text; double-clicking it opens Type on a Path Options, which has "},{"text":"Align to path: Ascender / Descender / Centre / Baseline","b":true},{"text":" and an "},{"text":"Effect","i":true},{"text":" dropdown with Rainbow, Skew, 3D Ribbon, Stair Step and Gravity. Rainbow is the default and the only one you usually want."}]},{"t":"h2","id":"what-to-do-before-sending-it-anywhere","runs":[{"text":"What to do before sending it anywhere"}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Convert to curves, and check the shape of every letter afterwards. Some text engines apply the rotation at render time in a way that does not survive export cleanly, and CorelDRAW in particular has historically produced slightly different spacing on curved text between the on-screen view and the PDF. Outline it, look at it, then send it."}]}],"check":{"question":[{"text":"A designer sets a shop name around the top of a 30 mm-radius circular badge in a tall condensed face at 8 mm cap height. The letters fan apart badly at the top and nearly touch at the bottom. Which change addresses the mechanism most directly?"}],"options":[{"text":[{"text":"Switch to a wider face with a lower cap height and add tracking, so the ratio of cap height to radius falls."}],"correct":true,"tempting":null},{"text":[{"text":"Apply baseline shift to lift the text further from the path, which restores even spacing between the letters."}],"correct":false,"tempting":[{"text":"Baseline shift moves the whole line radially; it changes the effective radius slightly but does not alter that the glyph is rigid across its height."}]},{"text":[{"text":"Set the type on a path drawn as a polygon with many sides rather than a true circle, so each letter sits on a straight segment."}],"correct":false,"tempting":[{"text":"A many-sided polygon is geometrically almost identical to the circle, so the arc-length difference between baseline and cap line is unchanged."}]},{"text":[{"text":"Change the Type on a Path effect from Rainbow to Skew, which keeps the letters vertical and removes the fan."}],"correct":false,"tempting":[{"text":"Skew keeps glyphs upright and shears them instead, which distorts the letterforms rather than fixing the spacing."}]}],"order":[3,2,0,1],"why":null},"prev":{"slug":"paragraphs-measure-and-rag","title":"Setting a paragraph somebody can read","minutes":9},"next":{"slug":"complex-scripts","title":"Devanagari, Arabic, and the scripts that break","minutes":10}}}