[reportlab-users] Curving Text

[Dinu Gherman]

Bernie Hunt:

> I’m working on a form that needs a logo watermarked in the  

> background. I’m doing ok with recreating all the pieces except the  

> test. The logo is circular and has text that flows around the edge  

> of the circle.

>

> How would you recommend addressing this curved text in Reportlab?

>


Hi Bernie,

a long time ago I wrote a module for doing exactly that, but only
using circles and no other curves and not strictly in a way that
would make typographers happy (meaning I placed single characters
along a circle. You can see some samples on my old site [1].

I'm willing to release this now, but since there is nothing like
a plugin mechanism for external RL components, I'm not sure how to
package that, such that it could be easily installed (not necessa-
rily easy_installed). In any ase I can send you the pre-release
code under GPL, if you really need it.

You might also want to try importing a SVG graphic using my
svglib [2], but be warned that text placement might not be its
strongest feature.

> Is there a way to import an image file to use as a background?

>

Yes, but RL will charge you a few thousend bucks for importing
a PDF background. I can do it as well with a seperate module, but
haven't finalised the code, and haven't decided on the license, yet.

Make your choice...

Dinu

[1] http://python.net/~gherman/UnreleasedStuff.html
[2] http://pypi.python.org/pypi/svglib