Circular text

To create text along a circle:

  1. Select Construct tab > Curves panel > Other Methods > Text to display the Engraving Text dialog.
  2. Enter the text you want to create in the Text field.
  3. Optionally enter a curve name in the Name field, or leave the default name.
  4. For the Path type, select Circular.
  5. Enter the location of the Center of the circle as X, Y, and Z coordinates or click the Pick point button and pick it with the mouse. This point is used along with the Justification setting to position the text.
  6. Enter the Radius of the circle.
  7. To rotate the text counter-clockwise around the Center point, enter an Angle between 0 and 360.
  8. To create text on the bottom quadrants of the circle, enter the appropriate angle and click Reverse.
  9. Select the Justification as Left, Center, or Right. These positions use the point you enter as the left end, center, or right end of the text.
  10. Enter the Alignment. The alignment is a translation factor for X and Y for the entire text string. Use these fields to tweak the location of the string.
  11. Enter the Scaling amount to control scaling of the text. A value of between 0 and 1 shrinks the text. Values greater than 1 expand the text. You can have different values in the fields to stretch text for special effects. A negative value reflects the text, useful for making molds. If you set the font to be 72 points, this number reflects the size in inches of the font in the given direction.
  12. Enter the Spacing. The spacing is the size of the gap between the letters. It is uniform across the entire text string.
  13. Click Font to change the font settings. The Font dialog is displayed, which you can use to change the text font to a Windows font on your system.
    14. Tip: For simple engraving, you can use the Machine Tool Sans Serif with a Size of 72 points, and control the size of the text with the Scaling options in the Engraving Text dialog.
  14. Click OK.
Parent topic: Text