Hi!

I currently have a fairly rigid, square text that I am trying to give a slight curvature on the top and the bottom. I want the top to curve down and the bottom up, so I'm shrinking it a bit in the middle. However I'm having a bit of trouble maintaining the squareness of the letters when I do this. It squashes and warps the individual characters when I move the top and bottom lines. Is there anyway to keep the vertical lines in my text, vertical? I would like it to stay professional and not look like a cartoon which is kinda what is happening.

Hhmmm....well this isn't exactly the same thing, but you could use the same techniques as in this tutorial: ), to have smooth symmetrical curves. Then I would convert text to path (Path menu > Object to Path). The using node editing, I would snap certain nodes to the smooth curves. Depending on the text, perhaps a grid could be used, to help keep vertical lines.

OH! Have you tried using the Tweak tool? It might take a bit of a learning curve, as it's a rather complex tool. But with the right skill, might work pretty well. At first, you'll probably have similar problems as with Env. Deform. Here's an example. You can see some places have become slightly curved. That's because I made several "tweaks". But with the right settings, maybe could be dones with one tweak on top and one below the text??

Interesting - thanks for the reply. I actually gave your suggestion a shot...before you posted it! It worked quite well, much better than what the envelope deformation did. There's always a way! Haven't tried the tweak tool, ever. Will look into it.

~suv has a very nice postin which the differences and advantages of the envelope extension and the envelope path effect are explained. I think it's very relevant to the OP's original question and really has the answer.

So you're suggesting using the Envelope extension on each letter separately? Yes very creative

Not me! It was `suv's idea... I find neither to be satisfactory. The single letter method still leaves flat bottoms that have to be edited later, and the path effect has rather unpredictable effects.
I unfortunately have a fondness for the lattice deformation path effect that showed up briefly so I've kept a copy of the Inkscape version around that Uwe Scholer compiled with that experimental but discarded feature. It's a little harder to use but does the right thing! As long as you're experimenting why not try the rubber stretch extension?

The big advantage of the path effects is that you can use them on a clone of the original text and then edit the text later. Although it's a little roundabout.

Yes, I understood it was ~suv's idea. Very creative!

Hhm, I'll have to look into the Rubber Stretch extension. I've never used it before, and a quick experiment rendered a long Traceback message. So I'll have to read up on the instructions.