Adobe Illustrator CS

Positioning text on a path—especially a curved path—can be difficult because the spacing can look irregular. However, you can adjust these and other settings by selecting the Path Type object and choosing Type > Type on a Path > Type on a Path Options. The following settings are available in the Type on a Path Options dialog:

Effect. The Effect setting controls the orientation of the text relative to the path. Prior to Illustrator CS, all Type on Path objects used the Rainbow setting, which rotated each character to be tangent to the path. Illustrator now allows you to also choose from Skew, 3D Ribbon, Stair Step, and Gravity.

Align to Path. The Align to Path setting determines which part of the text actually lines up with and touches the path. You can choose from Baseline (the default), Ascender, Descender, and Center.

Spacing. You can use the Spacing setting to help get consistent spacing between characters on curved paths (the setting doesn’t do much on straight paths). Where paths make sharp curves, the spacing between characters could appear at odd angles or with inconsistent spacing. Specifying a higher spacing value brings characters closer to each other and corrects the spacing issues.

Flip. The Flip setting allows you to control the side of the path on which the text appears.

If you want to apply an appearance to the path itself on a Path Type object, click just the path with the Direct Selection tool (it might be easier to do this while you are in the Outline view mode). You can then apply attributes to the path as you would normally. To offset text from the path itself, use the Baseline Shift setting, although if you’re working with wavy or curved paths, using one of the Align To Path settings offers better results because it takes advantage of the Spacing setting.