Type on circular path - can't grab start and end point...driving me absolutely CRAZY!

[lorilinstruth]

I've watched a bunch of tutorials and can't  for the life of me figure out how to change the start and end point of a type layer on a path. I've tried the "select path" tool, the "direct selection" tool and followed tutorials to the letter. It just doesn't work.

The only helper icon I see when I mouse over the path is the one with two black arrows. When that's active, I can see the x and o that mark the start and end of the path (which one is start and which is end, btw?) but I can't grab them! When I try clicking on the path, my text jumps around in weird ways and I can't figure out what's happening. Can someone point to a help article or tutorial that works for the latest stable build? ( Windows 25.12.0 20240903.r.806 055f5e9 x64).

Or is there a setting I am missing? This has been driving me absolutely insane...it looks so simple in the tutorials but just isn't working at all for me.

Many thanks in advance, and sorry for the rant!

Lori

[Title edited by moderator]

[Conrad_C]

The demo below might help. (I just posted this here the other day in another thread, after having to re-learn how to do it because this is not easy to remember.) The main points are that the Path Selection or Direct Selection tool must be used, and you can drag any time the pointer appears as a text bar with a triangle…there is no need to actually grab anything, and it wouldn’t make any difference anyway because as long as the pointer looks right, dragging is enough and will move that little end marker circle with the cross in it. (In other words, in the demo, there was no need for me to position the pointer close to the path, I could have simply started dragging because the pointer looked right.)

This demo was done to answer the other person’s question about revealing more text, but if your goal is to move the starting point instead, then you would hover until the pointer shows a text I-bar with the triangle pointing right (instead of left), then drag. That would shift the starting point instead.

Also, if you drag toward the other side of the path, the text will flip over to the other side of the path, so if you don’t want that to happen, keep your drag to one side of the path.

[lorilinstruth]

Thanks! I haven't tried on an open path like that, but on a circle I never get the single black arrow cursor. Only the one with two arrows at once and a line in the middle. What I'm seeing in this video is impossible to do. Any demos available with circular paths? Seriously, I've looked at so many already and just can't get those single black arrows to appear no matter what I do. 

[Lumigraphics]

Choose the Path Selection tool, and put it right over the text. When the cursor changes to a text bar with double arrows, click and drag. That will rotate the entire text along the circular path. If you move to either end of the text, you'll get the single arrow to adjust only one endpoint.

[Conrad_C]

I can get the pointer icon to change, but…it’s weird, because when I click, the end point actually jumps from where it was to a new position that has nothing to do with where I clicked. With a little practice, it becomes possible to control it. But the way it acts is so odd that it might be a bug.

One thing I noticed is the look of the little circle on the path that indicates the end point. If some text is hidden (overset), there’s a plus sign in the circle. When all text is visible, it’s an empty circle.

[Lumigraphics]

Its kind of a goofy UI that seems prone to difficulty.