need step by step instructions for shaping text to a custom shape.. NOT placing text within a shape

Bob:
Maybe the inkscape forums site is a better place for this kind of questions.
The Answers tracker is intended to asking questions and getting answers, not step by step tutorials.

Your reply simply pointed me to the Launchpad Forum.. WHICH IS WHERE I
PLACED THE QUESTION IN THE FIRST PLACE. Allow me to re-phrase the
question... I am asking how to do something.... not... step by step. Your
help will be much appreciated.

Bob

----- Original Message -----
From: "Guillermo Espertino (Gez)" <email address hidden>
To: <email address hidden>
Sent: Monday, May 11, 2009 7:09 PM
Subject: Re: [Question #70441]: need step by step instructions for
shapingtext to a custom shape.. NOT placing text within a shape

Your question #70441 on Inkscape changed:
https://answers.launchpad.net/inkscape/+question/70441

    Status: Open => Answered

Guillermo Espertino (Gez) proposed the following answer:
Bob:
Maybe the inkscape forums site is a better place for this kind of questions.
The Answers tracker is intended to asking questions and getting answers, not
step by step tutorials.

--
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Bob:
You wrote "I really need step-by-step instructions" :-)
And my suggestion (sorry, I forgot the URL) was this site: http://www.inkscapeforum.com/

Anyway:
What you want to do is an envelope distort. And a complex one.
For that filter you'll need the development version of Inkscape (you can get a recent nightly build for windows at Inkscape.org), because the Envelope Distort LPE in Inkscape 0.46, as far as I can remember, was a tad broken.
Well, once you have inkscape 0.46+devel running, do the following steps:

- Create the text
- Convert it into paths
- Ungroup (the text converted into paths will end up as a group of the individual characters)
- Join the paths using the union operation.
- go to paths > Path Effect Editor
- select the text
- Apply a "Envelope Distort" effect.
- Select the "edit on canvas" icon for each side, and edit the curve as you wish (you can also pre-define the curves and copy and paste them on each side).

HTH

Gez.

Thanks much for getting back to me. Unfortunately, the Development Versions
all seem to be Win32.... I'm running Vista on a 64 bit Machine???? Is there
a 64 bit version available? If so, where? I'm open to anything that works.

Regards,

Bob

----- Original Message -----
From: "Guillermo Espertino (Gez)" <email address hidden>
To: <email address hidden>
Sent: Wednesday, May 13, 2009 10:32 AM
Subject: Re: [Question #70441]: need step by step instructions for
shapingtextto a custom shape.. NOT placing text within a shape

Your question #70441 on Inkscape changed:
https://answers.launchpad.net/inkscape/+question/70441

    Status: Open => Answered

Guillermo Espertino (Gez) proposed the following answer:
Bob:
You wrote "I really need step-by-step instructions" :-)
And my suggestion (sorry, I forgot the URL) was this site:
http://www.inkscapeforum.com/

Anyway:
What you want to do is an envelope distort. And a complex one.
For that filter you'll need the development version of Inkscape (you can get
a recent nightly build for windows at Inkscape.org), because the Envelope
Distort LPE in Inkscape 0.46, as far as I can remember, was a tad broken.
Well, once you have inkscape 0.46+devel running, do the following steps:

- Create the text
- Convert it into paths
- Ungroup (the text converted into paths will end up as a group of the
individual characters)
- Join the paths using the union operation.
- go to paths > Path Effect Editor
- select the text
- Apply a "Envelope Distort" effect.
- Select the "edit on canvas" icon for each side, and edit the curve as you
wish (you can also pre-define the curves and copy and paste them on each
side).

HTH

Gez.

--
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check this episode from screencasters, he uses an external plug-in for Inkscape to do the envelope distort, so you don't need to use a development version of Inkscape.

http://screencasters.heathenx.org/episode-088/

Thanks for the heads up... but I can not seem to get this "plugin"
installed...

I went to the page address you supplied which included the copy below....
"I used a fairly new extension from Gerrit Karius (aka G33K) called Bezier
Envelope. If you want to follow along or use the Bezier Envelope for
whatever future purpose then be sure to download it here. Thanks Gerrit. "

I clicked on the link and downloaded... bezier_envelope.tar.gz

When I attempt to open this file, I can not open it or extract it??? I then
attempted to open it in the INKSPACE sub directory... it could not identify
with INKSCAPE... Obviously I'm brain-dead when it comes to tech things...
Any help you can provide will be greatly appreciated.

Best,

Bob Thiel

----- Original Message -----
From: "RIco" <email address hidden>
To: <email address hidden>
Sent: Friday, May 15, 2009 4:48 PM
Subject: Re: [Question #70441]: need step by step instructions
forshapingtextto a custom shape.. NOT placing text within a shape

Your question #70441 on Inkscape changed:
https://answers.launchpad.net/inkscape/+question/70441

    Status: Open => Answered

RIco proposed the following answer:
check this episode from screencasters, he uses an external plug-in for
Inkscape to do the envelope distort, so you don't need to use a
development version of Inkscape.

http://screencasters.heathenx.org/episode-088/

--
If this answers your question, please go to the following page to let us
know that it is solved:
https://answers.launchpad.net/inkscape/+question/70441/+confirm?answer_id=4

If you still need help, you can reply to this email or go to the
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https://answers.launchpad.net/inkscape/+question/70441

You received this question notification because you are a direct
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if you can't extract the file you're probably missing some soft to do it on your computer, i don't have windows but i think winrar will do the trick, you can get it here (yes there is 64bit version for you):

http://www.rarlab.com/download.htm

the extracted file goes here:
C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Application Data\Inkscape\extensions

(if the extensions folder doesn't exist, then create it)

to use it, just follow the instructions on the screencast.

hope this helps.