Text along path upside down in GIMP

Quick Fix: Why Your Text Along Path Is Upside Down In GIMP

Quick Fix: Why Your Text Along Path Is Upside Down In GIMP 850 500 Nick Saporito

When trying to flow text along a path in GIMP, a common problem you may encounter is that your text along path is upside down. In this post I’ll be explaining why this happens.

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Text Along Path is Upside Down in GIMP

The reason why your text along path is upside down in GIMP is because of the direction of the path. You can use the Flip tool to reverse the direction of the path, which will also flip the orientation of your text.

If text that you placed along a path is being displayed upside down, the text is technically not upside down; it’s just following the direction of the path based on how it was created. If you want your text to flow along the opposite side of the path, you can use the Flip tool to reverse the direction of the path. This will theoretically make upside down text appear right side up.

A good example of this would be a circle. As I demonstrated in a tutorial I made about wrapping text around a circle, you can choose to wrap your text around the inside or outside of your circle by using the Flip tool to dictate the direction of the path.

Skip to the 5:29 point of the following video to see how this works…

As you will see, the text along path is upside down at first, but changes once you reverse the path’s direction by flipping it with the Flip tool.

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Reverse Path Direction

To change the direction that your text follows along a path, follow the steps below…

Upside down text

Text along path in GIMP, appearing upside down

1.) Make the Path Visible

Click on the Paths tab (located next to the Layers tab,) then click the eyeball next to the path that you’d like to flow your text along. The path should now be visible on the canvas in the form of a red line.

Visible path

2.) Grab the Flip Tool

Grab the Flip tool by clicking on the icon associated with it in the toolbox or by pressing Shift + F on your keyboard. In the tool settings area, look for “Transform:” and set it to Paths (the icon furthest to the right.)

Flip tool settings

3.) Flip the Path

With the Flip tool selected, click on the path to reverse its direction. It’ll work the same whether it’s set to vertically or horizontally.

Now go ahead and see if your text along path is upside down still.

Please note that you’ll have to flow the text along path after you’ve reversed the direction of the path. It will not work on text you’ve already created.

Text with a corrected orientation

If you’ve followed the steps correctly, your text should’ve followed the direction of the path change and no longer be upside down.

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Nick Saporito


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