Text along path stops at first anchor point

Forum|Forum|2 years ago
September 13, 2023
4 replies
2782 views

I am trying to create text along a path but the text is stopping at the first anchor point (see image). I successfuly created the path (not a shape) and have been able to attach the text to the path, but can't get it beyond the first anchor point. When I am typing on the path I see the first anchor as a small circle with a cross in it - don't know if that's as it should be. Any thoughts about what I'm doing wrong? TIA

macOS

Correct answer Conrad_C

This question has come up before, but at first I couldn’t remember the solution. After a while, I finally figured it out again, as you see in the demo below. This is a difficult problem to solve, because the correct tool to use is not intuitive to discover, and also, I could not quickly find the answer in the Photoshop help files.

With a Type tool selected you can see that little circle with a cross, but as far as I know you can’t do anything about that crossed circle using a Type tool or the Move tool.

The solution:

You must select the Path Selection tool or Direct Selection tool, either one will work but almost no one would guess that those are the tools to use for this problem.

As you hover the Path Selection or Direct Selection tool near the path with the text on it, the pointer changes to be a text editing bar with a triangle pointing right, or a triangle pointing left. In your case you want to hover it until the triangle points left, and then drag to the right. As you drag, you’ll see that little crossed circle slide along the path. This extends that end point of the text. After a short delay Photoshop reveals more whole words, up to the point where you are holding or releasing the mouse button.

As you can see, this action also controls whether the text appears above or below the path, depending on if you drag up or down.

So, for your example, you want to hover until you see the “right end” pointer icon, then drag right, staying up so that you don’t flip the text down.

J

JL518

Participant

Thank you, thank you, thank you... I have searched for high & low to find the solution to this problem. Your video was most helpful!

Conrad_C

Correct answer

Community Expert

This question has come up before, but at first I couldn’t remember the solution. After a while, I finally figured it out again, as you see in the demo below. This is a difficult problem to solve, because the correct tool to use is not intuitive to discover, and also, I could not quickly find the answer in the Photoshop help files.

With a Type tool selected you can see that little circle with a cross, but as far as I know you can’t do anything about that crossed circle using a Type tool or the Move tool.

The solution:

You must select the Path Selection tool or Direct Selection tool, either one will work but almost no one would guess that those are the tools to use for this problem.

As you hover the Path Selection or Direct Selection tool near the path with the text on it, the pointer changes to be a text editing bar with a triangle pointing right, or a triangle pointing left. In your case you want to hover it until the triangle points left, and then drag to the right. As you drag, you’ll see that little crossed circle slide along the path. This extends that end point of the text. After a short delay Photoshop reveals more whole words, up to the point where you are holding or releasing the mouse button.

As you can see, this action also controls whether the text appears above or below the path, depending on if you drag up or down.

So, for your example, you want to hover until you see the “right end” pointer icon, then drag right, staying up so that you don’t flip the text down.

Kamto

Participant

This not necessarily a solution as you only have one anchor in this video, if you had more than one the x would not go past the first anchor point.

Conrad_C

Community Expert

No, your “only one anchor” explanation isn’t possible for two reasons:

The path clearly has two anchor points, you can’t have a path like that with only one anchor point.
If you are talking about where you can shift the position where the text starts and stops along the path, again, there is never just one. There are always two, a left and right extent. Those work exactly like the left and right edges of a text field or point text, because you can move the text further inward from those left and right extents by setting the Left Margin and Right Margin values in Paragraph options.

In the demo below, first you see the Direct Selection tool clearly select each of the two anchor points that define the path.

After that, you see the Direction Selection tool clearly dragging the two extents, first the right one and then the left one. You can see that the left extent is marked on the path by a x , and the right extent is marked by a (+). Those two extents were also visible in my earlier demo above.

To show that further, after setting paragraph alignment to Center, at the end you see the Direct Selection tool dragging both extents together (shifting all of the visible text along the path) by starting the drag from the center, when the pointer icon shows triangles pointing in both directions.