Easy Guide to FontSlab for Gimp Part 2: Options that influence spacing

[Skinnyhouse]

Spacing-Logo.png (99.11 KiB) Viewed 4188 times

This is the second part of the new guide to FontSlab.

The FontSlab 0.12 plug-in is included in the Resources folder for Part 1 of the guide.

There is also a zipped Resources folder to accompany this guide which includes:

Argos_George_Canary_letters_only custom font file
loopy path path file

Resources.zip

(4.4 MiB) Downloaded 139 times

Unpack the resources folder and save it to your preferred location. The path file should be imported to the image (I used a new image size of 1000x800) you create for this project.

Fire up the Gimp and add a curving path to your image either by using the path tool or by importing the path file from the path tool dock.

Spacing between characters can have a dramatic effect on the appearance of your text. FontSlab has a number of options that can influence this. The first two examples show the effect of the changing size of the space character in text along a path.

The first example uses this default character spacing method.

01_default_by character.jpg (274.52 KiB) Viewed 4188 times

[Skinnyhouse]

This next example applies the step change (and also the space character size) value to whole words rather than to characters i.e. the space size changes more. You will need to increase the step size to see the effect. The advantage of this is to give weight to those words nearer the start of the path.

02_By_words.jpg (232.72 KiB) Viewed 4185 times

FontSlab also has an option to directly adjust the spacing between characters independently of any changes in the text size step. Here the spacing is increased between the characters along the path.

03_increase_spacing.jpg (228.88 KiB) Viewed 4185 times

The spacing between the characters can also be reduced. The example below uses a rather extreme value to illustrate the option.

04_Decrease_spacing.jpg (210.67 KiB) Viewed 4185 times

[Skinnyhouse]

Small, subtle changes can have a big effect on the over-all appearance of a line of text.

05_Plays.jpg (258.27 KiB) Viewed 4185 times

[mackenzieh]

This is what I get when I bring up font slab:


I have the scrollbar interface, but with this script, the scrollbar is non existent.

[PixLab]

This is what I get when I bring up font slab:
[ Image ]
I have the scrollbar interface, but with this script, the scrollbar is non existent.

There is a solution which "cut" straight in it.
Open the file Custom_Font_Slab-v0-12.py with a text editor like pluma, or the Windows notepad, but not with an office suite!
Then remove "To manipulate fonts along a path in Gimp " at line 4543 (keep the double quotes!), you should gain two more lines (options)


Then to simulate the click on "OK" do Alt+o (thanks to rich2005 viewtopic.php?f=8&t=19595&start=20#p268199 )

And if it's not enough / Or you can "comment" the functions you do not need by adding a # (also known as hashtag) in front for them to not appear in the windows > thus giving you access to the OK button (though you can do a Alt+o)
Example: (you can add a # in front of any starting by (PF_ in what you see in the screenshot below)

[mackenzieh]

This is what I get when I bring up font slab:
[ Image ]
I have the scrollbar interface, but with this script, the scrollbar is non existent.

There is a solution which "cut" straight in it.
Open the file Custom_Font_Slab-v0-12.py with a text editor like pluma, or the Windows notepad, but not with an office suite!
Then remove "To manipulate fonts along a path in Gimp " at line 4543 (keep the double quotes!), you should gain two more lines (options)
[ Image ]

Then to simulate the click on "OK" do Alt+o (thanks to rich2005 viewtopic.php?f=8&t=19595&start=20#p268199 )

And if it's not enough / Or you can "comment" the functions you do not need by adding a # (also known as hashtag) in front for them to not appear in the windows > thus giving you access to the OK button (though you can do a Alt+o)
Example: (you can add a # in front of any starting by (PF_ in what you see in the screenshot below)
[ Image ]

That seems complicated.

[Skinnyhouse]

I have a desktop machine - hence the size of the dialog.

This solution has worked on Gimp 2.10 and adds a scrollbar to all python plug-ins.

Link to Jazzon's solution for long dialogs