8 replies to this topic

[Mike Breiding]

Tearing my hair out here.

When typing on a path (stream segment) the text flows in the wrong direction, then the stream segment the text is on disappears and the text remains.

Can two segments be crossed (straddled) with text? For instance where a stream forks.

On the line for roads I get the message: "You must click on a non-compound, non-masking path to create text along a path."

I am used to AVAlabel in AV 3.2 for spline labelling.

Thanks,
-Mike

[Hans van der Maarel]

Mike,

Some answers:

- The path disappears. This is 'normal' (as in: the way Illustrator works, but it can be pretty inconvenient). Just make a copy of the path, paste it in front of the original (Paste In Front, CTRL-F on Windows) and label that.

- The text flows the wrong way. This is determined by the direction of the path. As far as I know there is no native Illustrator way to flip it, but MAPublisher has a Flip Path option.

Can you explain what you mean with straddling text?

[Mike Breiding]

Greetings Hans,

If I cannot control the text flow, then I will have to scrap the idea of using IA and go back to AV 3.2. I don't know about anyone else, but I have always labelled streams with the text flowing down stream. IA wants to flow it upstream.

The attachment shows what I mean by "straddling". In IA the segment beyond the fork was selected for labelling. When the text reach the branch in the stream it stopped.

This is moot if I cannot label in the direction I need to. This limitation is crippling!

Thanks,
-Mike

Mike,

Some answers:

- The path disappears. This is 'normal' (as in: the way Illustrator works, but it can be pretty inconvenient). Just make a copy of the path, paste it in front of the original (Paste In Front, CTRL-F on Windows) and label that.

- The text flows the wrong way. This is determined by the direction of the path. As far as I know there is no native Illustrator way to flip it, but MAPublisher has a Flip Path option.

Can you explain what you mean with straddling text?

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Attached Files

•  stream_label.png   2.06K   60 downloads

[Martin Gamache]

Mike,

As Hans explains the line dissapears when type is attached to it.

If you want to straddle you are best to draw a new line where you want it and attach text to that. I find that GIS vectors are often too noisy for labelling anyways, I like to have nice smooth lines for attaching text to so I often use the pencil tool with the appropriate smoothness settings and draw a parallel line to attach my label to. That way I dont mess around with my feature lines or have to duplicate and offset those. If you insist on labelling feature lines you will probably need to join them first by selecting the two end points and joining.

As for changing the direction of a line it is easy to do, just use the pen and click once on the endpoint in the direction you want it to flow, that should do it.

(How i miss the simplicity of Freehand for all these operations)


mg

[Mike Breiding]

Hi Martin,
I will give your sugestions a shot and see what happens.

Thanks,
-Mike

Mike,

As Hans explains the line dissapears when type is attached to it.

If you want to straddle you are best to draw a new line where you want it and attach text to that. I find that GIS vectors are often too noisy for labelling anyways, I like to have nice smooth lines for attaching text to so I often you the pencil tool with the appropriate smoothness settings and draw a parralel line to attach my label to. That way I dont mess around with my feature lines or have to duplicate and offset those.  If you insist on labelling feature lines you will probably need to join them first by selecting the two end points and joining. 

As for changing the direction of a line it is easy to do, just use the pen and click once on the endpoint in the direction you want it to flow, that should do it.

(How i miss the simplicity of Freehand for all these operations)


mg

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[Nick Springer]

Martin is right - you can either do that or grab the middle text handles (those lines that stick up perpendicular to your path) and drag it around until the text snaps to the side you want.

[Mike Breiding]

I was able to get the text flow to change using the pen, but when it reaches a junction it then turned back up stream. I will not flow in a continuous path downstream.

This is a problem with grabbing the middle handle as well since it flips the text on to the opposite branch of the stream. Not easy for me to relate this so it makes any sense.

So , it looks like I am going to use the pencil to draw parallel paths for my labels and use them.

Any tips on estimating how long to draw the pencil lines so they are long enough for the labels.
Any suggestions on managing the labels? Should each label be a seperate layer or should all stream labels be in one stream labels layer?

Also, can the kerning be set prior to cursor placement instead of placing the cursor on the path, and then choosing the kerning value.

My head hurts...

-Mike

Martin is right - you can either do that or grab the middle text handles (those lines that stick up perpendicular to your path) and drag it around until the text snaps to the side you want.

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[Hans van der Maarel]

Any suggestions on managing the labels? Should each label be a seperate layer or should all stream labels be in one stream labels layer?

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I would recommend keeping all stream labels in one stream labels layer. One layer per label will really complicate matters.

[Mike Breiding]

Thanks, I will take your advise.
-Mike

Any suggestions on managing the labels? Should each label be a seperate layer or should all stream labels be in one stream labels layer?

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I would recommend keeping all stream labels in one stream labels layer. One layer per label will really complicate matters.

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