Placing Text on a Circular Path

Placing text on a circular path is a very easy task in Fireworks 8.

Start a new document 350 X 350 on a transparent background.

Select the ellipse tool:

Set the fill to none and stroke to size of 1 and choose a light gray color on the properties palette. The color does not matter on the stroke. We are just using it as a guide:

Draw out the ellipse on the canvas. If you want a perfect circle hold down the shift key while you drag out your circle. You should have a circle that looks similar to the picture below:

With the ellipse still selected (it appears outlined in blue as shown above), click the knife tool and while holding down the Shift key drag over the two center nodes of the circle.

Click on the Selection Tool and click on the top part of the circle and separate the top circle from the bottom of the circle.

Click on the Text Tool and click on the canvas to type out the text you want to appear on the top of the ellipse. Set the font and size to your liking. I typed Fun With.

Select both the text and the top half of the ellipse by holding down the Shift key. They both should be blue as shown below:

Select Text > Attach to Path:

Your Text should now appear on the top of the ellipse. Make sure center alignment is selected from the properties palette. Also on the properties palette is the horizontal alignment which will stretch your text wider on the top of the ellipse. I set my alignment up to 167%.

Now we are going to repeat the steps by typing out text some text. Next you will choose the text and the bottom of the ellipse while holding down the shift key. Attach the text to path and play around the alignment options available on the properties palette. You should have something that resembles the picture below:

Notice the text is backward. No problem. Simply select Text > Reverse Direction:

Your text should appear reversed as shown below:

Notice the text appears above the circle instead of under it. I can use the subselection tool

to move the text out just a little bit so that is appears to line up with the top text:

Now we want to get rid of the ellipse itself. Click on the top of the ellipse and Text > Convert to Path:

Convert the bottom Text to Paths following the same steps. Now you can still edit the text once you have converted it to path by using the subselection tool. You can stretch out your letters or even reshape the path. Below is an example of using the subselection tool to stretch out certain letters:

Now the text has a more interesting look.