Using Custom Font Tools to Create Gimp Learn Banners Part 1

[skinnyhouse]

GimpTurkey (formerly GimpDersleriNasılyapılır) sort of asked in a pm about using the tools to create the text part of a banner. To be honest, because of the small height of the banner image size, I hadn’t even considered doing this before...

...but if I was going to make a banner this is how I think I would set about using custom font tools for creating the text elements.

Scenario 1: Create a static banner as a jpg or png file

Before beginning:

Set up some horizontal guides:

Left hand guide at 190 pixels
Right hand guide at 930 pixels

Horizontal Guides.JPG # (25.23 KiB) Viewed 485 times (Thumbnail | Recognize | Sq Tile)

Set up some vertical guides:

Main text guide at 56 pixels
Small text guide at 93 pixels

Vertical Guides.JPG # (29.89 KiB) Viewed 485 times (Thumbnail | Recognize | Sq Tile)

Turn off the existing layer visibility and make sure that ‘Snap to Guides’ has been checked on the View menu.

Blank Image with Guides.JPG # (36.17 KiB) Viewed 485 times (Thumbnail | Recognize | Sq Tile)

Please remember that I am only dealing with the text here – assume that you have already created a wonderful background that will replace the plain blue of my example.


Click on the path tool (Key press B) and create a straight line path by clicking at the intersection of the horizontal and vertical guides for the main text (the centre line).

Straight Path.JPG # (24.25 KiB) Viewed 485 times (Thumbnail | Recognize | Sq Tile)

Repeat the process to create another straight line path to be used for the smaller sized text.

Small Straight Path.JPG # (22.39 KiB) Viewed 485 times (Thumbnail | Recognize | Sq Tile)

The Main Text

Make sure that the path for the main line of text is set as the active path – i.e. click on that path in the path dock to highlight it.

Main path active.JPG # (13.55 KiB) Viewed 485 times (Thumbnail | Recognize | Sq Tile)

Call up Custom Font Paragrapher, currently version number 0.09, from:

Filters>>Custom Font Tools>>Custom Font Paragrapher v0.09


Choose the custom font to use and set the other options to these settings (as below) before clocking on ‘OK’ in the dialog box.

Parahrapher_dialog_MainText.jpg # (59.05 KiB) Viewed 485 times (Thumbnail | Recognize | Sq Tile)

My result:

Main Text.JPG # (32.94 KiB) Viewed 485 times (Thumbnail | Recognize | Sq Tile)

As you can see Paragrapher has added some (transparent) border space to the image. Normally this would be an acceptable assumption to make for a paragraph of text.

With your wonderful background layer visible use:

Image>>Crop to Content

to remove this unwanted transparent border space.

Main Text Cropped.JPG # (23.95 KiB) Viewed 485 times (Thumbnail | Recognize | Sq Tile)

Click on the text and use the left/right arrow keys to move the layer to your desired position. This is probably easier than trying to use the align tool since the centre of the image is not quite the same as the space between the GimpLearn logo and the search box as the image below shows.

Main Text Space Available.JPG # (29.2 KiB) Viewed 485 times (Thumbnail | Recognize | Sq Tile)

Points to bear in mind:

The amount of space above and below the characters varies from font to font so you may have to adjust the size of the font slightly.
If you use lower case for your text, the descenders may well drop down into the space that you may want to use for a line of smaller sized text.



The Smaller Text

Click in the path dock, on the path that you created to accommodate the smaller sized text in order to make that the active path.

Small text path active.JPG # (13.01 KiB) Viewed 485 times (Thumbnail | Recognize | Sq Tile)

Call up the filter dialog again with:

Filters>>Custom Font Tools>>Custom Font Paragrapher v0.09

or use (Ctrl + F)

Enter the new text, set the font size to 40 and click on ‘OK’ (unless of course you want to use another custom font).

My outcome:

Secondary Text.JPG # (33.13 KiB) Viewed 485 times (Thumbnail | Recognize | Sq Tile)

As before remove the unwanted transparent area with:

Image>>Crop to Content

Secondary Text Cropped.JPG # (31.44 KiB) Viewed 485 times (Thumbnail | Recognize | Sq Tile)

Select a layer in the Layer Dock and use the arrow keys to move it into another position if required as I did below.

Layers in Position.JPG # (28.35 KiB) Viewed 485 times (Thumbnail | Recognize | Sq Tile)

Of course the path that the letters sit on does not have to be straight; it can be any shape. The height of the banner does however make it difficult to use really curved paths with large text.

Export the banner file in whichever format suits your requirements.


See Part 2 for animated banners and Custom Font Tools

[Issabella]

I want to thank your nice work in this tutorial, really useful and helpful, too.
I used your tool; paragrapher v0.04 as I couldn't find your version V0.09. But I had no problem as the parameters are alright, too
Thank you so much Skinnyhouse.

[skinnyhouse]

You're very welcome Issa - nice banner too:

(Paragrapher 0.09 is in Custom Font Tools Release 13.)