I'm doing a T-shirt in a Star Wars theme. The reverse is to have a long list of group member names in the movie credit style (narrow at the top, wider at the bottom). I can get the text to flow into the shape I want, but I'm wondering if there is an easy way to have the font size gradually increase from top to bottom, and if not, if you have any suggestions before I start manually piecing 100+ names line by line.
My apologies if this is a repost- I did it once, refreshed, and my account doesn't show any posts.
Thanks!
T

Welcome to InkscapeForum!

Hhmmm....interesting problem I don't clearly recall the Star Wars credits, but I do recall that they are smaller at the top and larger at the bottom. There may be a quick and easy way to do this.....I'll have to do some experimenting. For some reason, I'm thinking the text is sort like 3D, or extruded..... Is that the case, or is it just flat 2D? And it will all be the same font right?

Over a hundred names, seriously? Will there be one name on each line? I'm thinking it's going to be hard to get over a hundred lines of print on a t-shirt. I'm also a little concerned, with that many names, that after a certain point, they'll be so small so as not to be readable after the screenprinting process. Even with 2 names per line, over 50 lines of text will be a lot to fit on a shirt....unless it's like a nightgown type of t-shirt, lol.

There may be more than one way to approach this. And the way you're going is certainly one. But there might be a faster way, I'm thinking like with the Envelope Deformation LPE (path effect). OH, or you know what will work better is the Perspective extension.....oh yes, that should work! Because the way you're going, each line of text will be the same width at the top of the text as at the bottom. But with perspective, each line of text will be slightly smaller at the top and slightly larger at the bottom. Extensions menu > Modify Path > Perspective Here's instructions for that, and it's not necessarily intuitive how to use it. So be sure to read them

You won't need to flow the text into a shape. Just the list of names, all the same size. And the extension will shape them. But before you apply the extension, you have to convert the text to path (Path menu > Object to Path). It won't work on text.

Let us know how it goes

Brynn, thank you so much for generously sharing your knowledge.
I had to giggle about your nightgown reference. Actually you'd be surprised how many names you can screen print on a T-shirt, even a child's. I've done them in a spiral, in the shape of a Superman emblem, as a rectangle, etc., and done upwards of a hundred at a time. It doesn't have to be legible from a great distance, only at close-range so that each person can identify their own name.
I tried what you suggested with mixed results. The text turned 90 degrees for some unknown reason, then when I flipped it the perspective is all askew, like it's coming from over on the left toward the bottom right instead of center top to center bottom. Does that make sense?

you mean like this http://gizmodo.com/assets/resources/200 ... e%2030.png
i tend to agree with Brynn...that so many lines will mean the ones at the top will be too small and bottom lines will be too wide/large. unless of course you make the perspective angle much shallower..but then that would wreck the "star wars credits" effect.

YES! You are the man (woman?)!!! Now, how'd you do it?
Thanks for the welcome, btw, Brynn. I've used this forum many times to solve problems but never posted. Y'all are amazing.
T

VICTORY!
So, to summarize, it is a two step process. First, you take the text and flow it into the narrow to wide shape. When the shape is made, it's important that you start at the bottom left in order to get the text to go the right direction in the end. Second, you use the perspective extension to get the skewed look.
Woo hoo! Problem solved. Thanks so much, y'all!

i'm not the man....well, i'm a man..but i'm not THE man...because that was just googling for images of "star wars credits".
Unless of course you're actually referring to Brynn in your post...in which case...I am THE man.
Cheers and good luck.

Hhmm, well maybe screenprinting has much improved since the last I had anything to do with it, so that smaller print can be read easily now?
For the record, you should not need to flow the text into the shape. But doing so should not really cause a problem. I'm glad you got it to work As I said, the instructions are very particular, but once you get them all right, it works great!

I just typed out ten random names in font size 14 in a txt document, then copied them 9 times for a total of 100. It barely took up half the 8.5x11 page. Trust me; you can get aLOT of names on a shirt an dhave them be legible. My printer even does outlined letters or shadowed letters at that size.
Chris, I admit your status as "the man" dropped a bit when I learned it was someone else's work but I'm still so very thankful y'all helped me solve this. I was so dreading doing it piecemeal. FWIW, I found that I did in fact need to flow it first in order to get the overall shape. The perspective works in any shape, but if you don't shape it first, it's just a big rectangle.
Thanks again-
T

i'm glad my "the man" status dropped a bit. it's difficult keeping up appearances in this unisex electronic frontier. from now on i shall use "he man" instead of "the man". Good that someone with more inksape force helped you out. So to summarize.

contrived humour aside, does the result look enough like the star wars credits (the best feature of the film by far)? I can do Chewbakka impressions in text (without resorting to utf-8), interested? Sorry, can't stop today for some reason, must be something i ate.