GIMP Tutorial: Wrap Text Around A Circle 

I love the simplicity of Gimp! It's unbeaten! Only 237 steps to create text around a circle.

Gimp really needs to make an easier way to do this. This is beyond complicated, but thanks for the tutorial. You made this super easy to follow.

I go so long between needing to wrap text that I follow this video every time. Thank you for making it. And so succinctly too, without a lot of rambling or preamble.

For the ones who text are upside down. You have to "flip" path. When you have the Flip tool selected make sure you select "Path" (next to "Transform’) in the tool options. Otherwise, the text will not flip. You can find flip under transform tools.

It would be great that Gimp team would came up with and easier and faster way to do something so common like this. It always amazed me that they haven't came up with a specific tool for this or a feature on the text tool. Other free and far inferior softwares can do this easier. Very good tutorial Nick!

Awesome tutorial! But since this is a strangely complicated procedure, I typed out the steps for anyone who needs it (I know I do!): - Create new doc (ideally square as this will create a perfect axis around which you can rotate your text) 1. File > New 2. Fill with: Background Color - Add vertical and horizontal guides (if you want the circle to be perfectly centered on the canvas) 1. Image > Guides > New Guide (by Percent) > Direction: Vertical, Position: 50% 2. Image > Guides > New Guide (by Percent) > Direction: Horizontal, Position: 50% 3. View > Snap to Guides - Create circular path 1. Open Ellipse Select Tool 2. Click on center of guides, drag outward and hold Ctrl and Shift to center the circle and assure it's perfectly centered and circular 3. Select > To Path (this turns your circle into a path 4. Select > None (to deselect the circle) 5. Head over to your right-side toolbar and click the icon for the paths tab where you will see the new circular path you created 6. Click the eyeball to make the path visible, then go back to the layers tab - Create text and snap to circular path 1. Open text tool and create your text off to the side of the circle on the canvas 2. Select your text layer > Right click it > Text along Path (this will snap a copy of your text to the circle) 3. ***If you want your text along the top of the circle instead of the bottom, do this*** a. Open Flip tool > Transform: Click Path icon > click on the red circle on your canvas (you won't see anything happen but internally it reverses the direction of the path) b. Click back to the layer icon so it doesn't default to Path the next time you go to use it 4. Click the eyeball to turn off visibility of your text layer (since now you're just manipulating the text that's along the path instead) 5. At the bottom of the layers toolbar click the icon for new layer > Fill with: Transparency 6. Go back to the paths tab > You will see a new path you created and the title of the path will be your text > Right click it > Path to selection - Fill the text with color 1. Pick your color in the color selector 2. Edit > Fill with FG Color 3. Select > None 4. Delete the path as it is no longer needed: Either right click on it and delete or click the X icon at the very bottom of the layers toolbar - Rotate the text and place where desired along path 1. Open the Rotate tool > Grab the text and rotate along circle to desired placement > Hit Enter to finalize rotation 2. Adjust layer back to size of canvas: Layer (menu) > Layer to Image Size 3. If desired, go back to Paths icon in righthand toolbar and click the eyeball next to the circle path to turn off visibility of it (or delete if you want) - ***If you want there to be an actual permanent circle as part of the design, follow these final steps*** 1. Select the background layer > Right click it > Add Alpha Channel > Press Delete on keyboard to get rid of the background (now you have a transparency checkerboard background) 2. Open Ellipse Select Tool 3. Click on center of guides, drag outward and hold Ctrl and Shift to center the circle and assure it's perfectly centered and circular 4. Edit > Fill with BG color (so it's not the same color as your text which is using the FG color) 5. Select > None

Why does this have to be so difficult!!! I've been using gimp for 10 years, decided to come check if they came out with a simpler way to curve text yet....you know, because it's 2020 and it shouldn't take 10 minutes to wrap your text in a circle....but no. Still living in the dark ages over here. None the less, thanks for the new tutorial!

FYI: what was left out of this tutorial is how to set the rotation tool in case it doesn't rotate around the circle the way you want it to. The rotate tool has a center point; place center cross hair of the rotation tool in the center of the rotation that will determine whether the text will rotate smoothly around the circle. You can also remove all the grid lines inside the rotation tool by the adjusting the number of lines, If you don't want to see grid lines reduce the number of lines to 1. I hope it helps you it took me a bit to figure it out.

This channel is bar-none the best for Gimp tutorials. I have learned so much here. You make it all so easy to understand. Thanks for these videos!

Thank you so much for this tutorial. I watched several others trying to explain the same thing and their directions weren't clear at all. Great job!

Thank you, this is a great tutorial, clear and direct. I even learned some new tricks that I wasn't looking for which I have struggled without in the past. 1 billion thumbs up to you. Above and beyond. You are a great man.

Simple, effective, and super well explained. Thanks man, really appreciate the effort and mastery to output such good content!

Brilliant tutorial! This is the best explanation I've found yet about text wrap. Kudos!

Great tutorial! Thanks.This is the clearest video I've seen in a long time. Good balance of instruction, demo and explanation.

Just wanted to say how grateful we are to you making this video! It helped us complete a school project for my daughter on google slides! Thank you for this!

Man what a tutorial! You are a great and patient teacher. Thank you Nick.

You are still holding up as the best explanation and method of creating text to path in 2023. You are timeless Bro! Godd job, and thanks.

Your style of teaching makes it easy to understand, Nick. I appreciate the lesson. This helped me. Thank you!

This was perfect and wasnt filled with 15 minutes of fluff. Gj man you're amazing

Hi NICK,thank you for all your excellent tutorials,with my best regards.

Absolute GOAT! This helped me with an assignment for my image editing class and the result was so good.

This may be one of the best GIMP tuts I ever watched....thank you so much for your efforts!

Thanks a lot for sharing, I really appreciate it. I did my very first picture editing with text on it and it turned out to be great with your help. I have no experience whatsoever doing such stuff and that goes to show what a great tutorial you've managed to make ♥♥

Thank you so much, this is all the steps I needed for my project, and without any filler dialogue about a billion other things you can do with GIMP

You are my idol!!

This was incredibly helpful and thorough! Thank you very much!

Thank you SO much for this! Just created my business logo from this tutorial and it exceeded my expectations. Looks totally professional and your instructions were very easy to follow. :-)

Thank you so much for this tutorial. I read in different forums "just add the circle to the path" but had no idea what to do.

Your videos have helped me go from nobody to proficient in a matter of months. Thank you for creating these easy to follow tutorials and providing information for even the most simplistic of beginners to become good at graphic editing

Direct to point, thank you Nick!

Dude I’ve been watchin at least one video of yours a day with this shelter in place goin on and my skill set has increased drastically, thank you!

Thank you for your efforts to help the community, It really helped me with my project.

Thank you for this video. The first editing series of videos I watched that really helped. Keep it up

Thanks for your help in designing my friends logo. Very helpful and well explained.

I love you from the bottom of my heart for what you do. Thank you!!

Thanks for the Video Nick!🙌

Nicely done - audio was clear and step-by-step instructions were well done and flued in your selection of tools and steps to complete this video presentation. - maybe just a little bit slower would be great but that's just me, actually I followed along just fine but felt a bit rushed when doing it with my own Gimp program as I followed you do it. Hope to see more of your work in the near future. Thanks again.

Thank you so much. Really clear, and easy to follow.

Thanks for taking the time to prepare this and share with the community. Helped me tremendously! Thumbs up from Biker's Garage 101

Amazing tutorial! Thanks Nick!

The beginning of 2022 and still find this tutorial very value, very useful. Thank you

This was incredibly helpful and easy to follow. Thanks!

Tx Nick! I enjoy watching your tutorials and reproducing the tricks. They are a great way to slowly get some more advanced Inkscape & GIMP skills. Anyone can do it. Have some warm christmas days & a jolly 2019!

This one! Easy to follow. If you hit a snag, pause/reverse and see where he clicks on the various icons. Then just follow along. Thank you three times infinity!

I've been using Gimp for well over a decade and never knew this was possible... Thank you!

The detailed step by step instructions were very helpful for my first time doing this. It becomes a quick and easy process after doing it a few times.

Great tutorial! I also appreciate you telling us to change the tool option back to layer for the next time we use that tool. Thank you.

Very well done! Kudos to you sir!

Exactly what I needed! Thanks Nick.

You have such a great tutorial here. Very easy to understand, and very helpful. Thank You.

There is absolutely no way I could have worked this out on my own - thank you!

Thanks for all of your concise tutorials. I'll have to write down these steps because I won't remember them until I do them a dozen times. I'll watch the Inkscape Wrapping text clip.

Really really nice easy and original and useful tutorial! Well done mate!

Really great tuto. Congrats for this great job!

I appreciate your tutorials very much and hope to see all of them on youtube.

Perfect tutorial! Not too much, not too little. Thank you so much.

Thanks Nick. Awesome Tutorial!

I absolutely love your videos. They are so easy to follow! Would love to see YOU do one on how to take a flat image created flag design and turn it into a waving flag design as if it was flowing in a gentle breeze.

Thank you for this -- best guide I've found.

VERY HELPFUL! clear explanation, Thank You

Very nice video. Thank you Nick!

this helped me a lot and motivated me to complete my first self made image with gimp, thx :)

I learned more from this than any other Gimp tutorial ever. Thanks.

That was super helpful! Thank you!

Nick, thank you for this tutorial. You make things so much easier and I appreciate that you narrate instead of blasting "techno-music" in the back ground:) I do see a lot of negative comments about the software and I am sure that there is something out there better for this specific function, but this is free and can do so many things. I come to see videos like this because in addition to being complicated, the documentation is not that great. So for what it is worth, thank you for putting this and other videos out there. I come back to this tutorial over and over because time between doing projects are spaced out and there are so many times I try and say, "WHY ISN'T THIS WORKING!!??". Queue "Logos by Nick". Again, thank you!

cant thank you enough ...excellent explanation...my first time use of the software never had anything to do with graphics ( paint) to crop a pic that's all...and now I made my own logo design ...Thank you bro...

Great tutorial - thanks! I was using Fixed rather than Dynamic setting when I made my text which caused issues with the selections aligning to the outside rather than center of the Selection. Just a note in case anyone else runs into the same.

OMG!!!!!! You are a saint! It seriously seemed so complicated. I was looking at photo apps. What I could find for easy wrap text you had to pay to save as a PNG file. I finally caved in and gave your video a try. Was a lot of pausing and switching to my GIMP program but it actually wasn't that complicated. I was done before I knew! I stopped on your video because others were using the path tools to to warp and create a circle. Your video just flat out used the circle tool. Thank you!

Excellent tutorial. Thank you.

Amazing tutorial! Thank you, mate!

Awesome thank you Nick.

Nice! Thank you Nick.

This tutorial is Fantastic!

Great tutorial. I realized that I need a better understanding of GIMP so I'm going to subscribe and check out some more of your tutorials. I use GIMP for converting images to black and white to transfer on to metal for etching. I have learned some really basic things through trial and error, but don't understand paths and layers well because I rarely need them. However, I am going to create some medallions with text wrapped around them so I guess I better learn some more basics. Thanks for sharing. I really like how you explain things and get right to the point.

Nice, very helpful. I didn't even know GIMP could do this.

I learned to play with gimp from your tutorials. Thank you. Now I recommend it to everyone who wants to learn

Wow... I agree @MDR this is beyond complicated tho you explained it with a lot of patience and detail, Nick.

Absolute genius. Cheers for this. Really helped me with a small project.

love the way you epxlain the instructions.

This is so good man. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much for your sharing, it really helps me right now :)

Thanks for the Tutorials. They helped me making my own Logo.

Nick, thank you so very much.

O melhor tutorial!!! Parabéns! Tanks.

Thank you so much One little thing, at 7:39 time frame, after "add alpha Channel and then pressDelete on your keyboard" what worked for me on MAC was pressing enter. Thanks again. Great Help

Excellent video. The best one out there. Thank you!

this lesson is very important. thanks.

This is an excellent tutorial! Thank you!

Excellent job!! Thanks!

Excellent tutorial!!

Very helpful. Great explanation. Thanks!!!

Super useful, man! Thanks a million! Keep up the good work!

Thank for your precise instruction.

I always go back to this video to figure out wrapping text again. xD Thank you!

Just what I needed. Thanks!

Great tutorial, thanks!

excellent explanation👍👍

Great tutorial. Thank you.

Thanks for the video. I've found it very useful indeed!

great tutorial - thanks!!!