Fitting text to a curve

[Cynthia Moore]

I'm looking for a graphics program to replace (or augment) Visio, which I originally started with to do flowcharts and have kept using it because I understood it. But there is a lot that it can't do. The thing that just came up is fitting text to a curve, such as a circle or an ellipse.

  Can Inkscape do this?
  Are all of the fonts that I have installed in Word available to Inkscape?

Thanks

[brynn]

Welcome!

Yes, Inkscape can put text on any kind of curve.  Here's the manual info on that:  http://tavmjong.free.fr/INKSCAPE/MANUAL/html/Text-Path.html

I'm not sure if all the fonts that you see in Word are available in Inkscape.  Inkscape requires that fonts are installed on the operating system, to be available.  I'm just not sure if Word has the same requirement, or if Word can use fonts that aren't installed (apparently some programs can, and on some operating systems).  There's currently a bit of a bug with Windows 10 and fonts, which we can help, if you run into it.  But you didn't mention your operating system. 

Although I guess Word is a clue    If you have some installed fonts that you don't see in Inkscape, let us know, and we'll explain.

Inkscape is free and open source.  It installs fairly quickly and easily.  (On Windows, the first start might take a few minutes.  As far as I understand, the delay is caused by caching the fonts for the first time.  But just give it a few minutes.)  So you can open it up and have a look at the font list.  Then just uninstall if you don't like what you see.  You could even get the 7z package, and it wouldn't even be technically installed.

Inkscape has sort of a flowchart tool called the Connector tool.  But it seems to be a little buggy to me, and I would avoid it.  You can use the regular path tools (Pen/Bezier or Pencil/Freehand) instead.  (Although that's just me, and you might not have the same experience.)

[flamingolady]

So far, from what I see, Inkscape uses the same fonts as Word - that's because they are all loaded into a font file on your pc, which nearly every prg uses by default.  You may need to use a pgm that can see hidden files in order to see all of the fonts that have been installed, I learned that one the hard way - Inkscape doesn't automtically delete files that you delete overall, and over time it adds up, esp when loading Inkscape...

I would suggest drawing the connectors and such for your flow charts and keeping them in a separate file, then just duplicate as needed into each drawing.  Gives you lots more freedom.  I also don't like flowing text into a text box, I just find it easier to write the text and drag it in separately.

[Moini]

flamingolady, can you explain that more about Inkscape not deleting files that it creates? What files?

And... Inkscape does not use the same font index that Word uses. Which is what makes it difficult for Inkscape to deal with an unexpected change in font folder structure on Windows 10 - and which is why startup takes so long the first time, as Inkscape is building the font list before it can start.

[flamingolady]

Moini.  Sorry, I can't remember enough to be very useful, basically, back when I was creating my own font, somehow I realized that I could not delete some fonts from Inkscape (not just mine).  I ended up installing another pgm (such as Commander or SE Explorer) which allowed me to view and delete many, many fonts.   If you've ever seen the grayed out fonts in Inkscape, I think those are some of the ones that need to be deleted this way.

[Moini]

Yes. Inkscape as a drawing program does not deal with deleting font files - but that's not unexpected. It's your Windows that makes it difficult to remove fonts.