Hello there.

I'm trying to fix a problem described here. Is there a solution to this? I understand that it might be an SVG issue.

If I understand you correctly, the most important thing you are looking for is text alignment.

You can do this by using the 'Align + Distribute' dialog (Ctrl+Shift+A). It has options specifically for aligning text baselines (rightmost buttons row).

(but I think it is buggy .... ah, here it is: https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/167228 - so you can't choose which one will be the one everything else will align to, but they *will* all be aligned)

Hello, Moini. Thanks for the response.

This is funny. Despite the fact that I've used the Align and Distribute dialog a lot, I've never noticed that. Or maybe I didn't pay much attention to it.

Okay, that solved the text alignment problem, but what about the last one?

Also, if you're trying to leave a margin of a certain distance and different characters occupy a different area, it'll eventually break the margin if you change the text content, or if you add an aligned text that contains different characters.

When I'm trying to align a text object relative to a path (or any geometrical figure), the text alignment options do not seem to work. If I use normal alignment options, it'll eventually break the margin if I edit the text like this one. How can I align text with its normal kerning?

> When I'm trying to align a text object relative to a path (or any geometrical figure), the text alignment options do not seem to work.

- Right, in that case the text is seen as a mere object - text alignment only works if every object has a text anchor. Else you'd have to define what the 'text anchor' of the other object is - that's currently not possible, AFAIK. (Feature request maybe - if there isn't one?)

- For the thing with the margin: I'm not 100% sure I understand what you are trying to do...
Could you post a 'before', 'after', 'expected result' series? (and describe which buttons you clicked on?) Sorry!

Here you go. I'm using the normal alignment tools, nothing special. The problem is that it doesn't preserve the kerning area.

I guess there must be fonts that are made with your requirements. I'm not sure how to say it....where each character takes up the same amount of space. They might not be very "pretty", but there must be some out there. They might be called monospace fonts...but I could be wrong about that. Or maybe it's "fixed width"??

Like on Windows, I have a font called "monospace" and one called "Miriam fixed" which seem to have come with Windows (otherwise I'm not sure where they came from). The "i" and the "j" are almost as wide as the other characters. And when the "j" is the first letter in the line, it doesn't overlap.

I'm not very knowledgeable about text, but I think what you're describing (the problem) is just the way that font is made. I've seen fonts where the characters are offset by half the width of the character! Especially you can see that in those "wingding' or "dingbat" type of fonts.

Could I ask the situation where you need this type of behavior? Maybe we could suggest a solution, if we could see a bigger picture?

I think the problem here is that it *does* take into account the letter-specific kerning, even for the first letter. The anchor point of the text is not moved when you edit, but the distance from anchor to the first black part of the letter is different for each letter.
If you try this with a mono font, then all letters will start at the same position.

In this case, what you want is alignment not by text anchor, but by the bounding box you didn't want for the first case.

Inkscape can't foresee which option you want, unfortunately , but it is 'determined' to keep the text anchor position constant when editing a text (for obvious reasons, but there are known bugs here, too, I seem to remember). So you need to tell it that you want to use the bounding box in this case, and not the text anchor, by aligning anew after editing, using the normal alignment options which only take into account the bounding box. Aligning is a one-time action - you align, and then after that, Inkscape does not remember that you wanted something to be aligned.

By the way: for more comfort, you can also use guidelines or a grid and the text-anchor snapping option (for the first case, not for this one). Guidelines can even be created automatically.

Hope this helps - at least for understanding the why, if not with the actual problem. If you have some time, you could look through the feature requests for Inkscape on launchpad, and see if someone else had the same idea, and maybe make one, if there isn't yet.

(Hah, must have been esp!)

Moini wrote:If I understand you correctly, the most important http://www.casesam.co.uk/ thing you are looking for is text alignment.

You can do this by using the 'Align + Distribute' dialog (Ctrl+Shift+A). It has options http://www.ourcase.co.uk/ specifically for aligning text baselines (rightmost buttons row).

(but I think it is buggy .... ah, here it is: https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/167228 - so you can't choose which one will be the one everything else will align to, but they *will* all be aligned)

That's good answer.
It also help me.