Participating Frequently

Question

Preserve corner radius on auto width text box

Forum|Forum|4 years ago
February 14, 2022
5 replies
939 views

I want to create a button like shape in Indesign, but it has to be flexible in width (auto width).

But I can't seem to make a shape that preserves the corner radius depending on the word written inside the shape.

If I make a rectangle with rounded corners the radius is not large enough - it gets too square compared to the button shape I want.

If I make a shape myself which has the correct corner radius it does not keep these corners when the box is being scaled.

Any solutions to this?

I am using Indesign 19.

Thank you.

This topic has been closed for replies.

L

Laubender

Community Expert

Another issue: With rounded corners intact ( not converted to paths ) your rounded corners will never follow exactly the shape of an arc of a circle. Not with InDesign 2019 and below. This bug was fixed with InDesign 2020.

If you decide to work with rounded corners converted to paths you should disable auto width of the frame and you should change the width of the frame by using the Direct Selection tool to select all path points either on the left or on the right of the text frame and then move the selected path points.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

T

tinakruseAuthor

Participating Frequently

As it is a template for an online system I have to use the auto width option, so your previous solution is probably the best way.

Thanks again.

L

Laubender

Community Expert

Hi Tina,

inspected your InDesign document.

There are two kind of shapes. The ones where the rounded corners actually were converted to the text frame's path and the ones where the rounded corners are not converted. In principle the ones where the rounded corners are not converted to paths are the ones you could safely use with auto width.

One solution for your issue with the shape of the rounded corners could be to construct the text frames perhaps ten times as big as you need them. And then scale the frame back to 10 % with the following InDesign preferences enabled:

General > Object Editing > When Scaling: Adjust Scaling Percentage

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

T

tinakruseAuthor

Participating Frequently

It could actually work like that - not a 100% but close.

L

Laubender

Community Expert

See my sample document that you can download from my Dropbox:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/duwhhsp02lrp5el/TextFrameScaledTo-10%25-2018.indd?dl=1

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

L

Laubender

Community Expert

Hi Tina,

with InDesign versions older than InDesign 2020 I can see a different shape with the same radius values, but I can see no issues with different shapes when the text grows larger. Could you attach a sample InDesign document where you see this?

Thanks,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

T

tinakruseAuthor

Participating Frequently

Hi Uwe,

The difference is if I use a text box with rounded corners or a shape which cannot have defined corners.

I can only define corners on a text box but the radius cannot get big enough. The shape is simply too square.

Please see attached Indesign 19 file where I tried a little bit of both.

buttons_ID19.zip

m1b

Community Expert

I'm no expert on this @tinakruse, but I had a quick play around and it works for me the way I think you want it to work. I made a text box with a very large radius on all corners, then resized it and they worked fine. Then I connected one edge of one with Liquid Layout and resized the page and that worked too. Is your situation different? Sorry if I'm not understanding—I haven't used this feature before.

- Mark

T

tinakruseAuthor

Participating Frequently

Thank you for your answer. I definitely looks right on your screen shots, but I can't get it to work here. The text box with very large corner radius just doesn't work. If I set the radius to 200 it still looks like this.

I don't know if you do it differently, I am not familiar with Liquid Layout at all. Maybe I would need a step by step to try it 🙂

m1b

Community Expert

Interesting. Well here's what I did:

1. draw text box

2. type "TEXT" in it

3. applied magenta colour to box, white to text

4. center text horizontally and vertically

5. go to menu Object > Corner Options...

6. select round corner profile

7. type large value (I used 40mm) in radius (all 4 corners are linked)

That's it. Nothing special.

- Mark

Willi Adelberger

Community Expert

Create an Object Style.

There is an option for corners.

Apply this object style to normal rectangles.

T

tinakruseAuthor

Participating Frequently

Thank you for your answer. But the corner options are still the same. I cannot get the fully rounded corners that I want.

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