I regularly post Fusion 360 tutorials and projects to my youtube channel.
Well, 2020 brought with it at least one good thing - Text on Path. The October 2020 Fusion 360 update brings us a much needed feature to the text tool.
No more resorting to tedious workarounds and having to work with different software in order to simply get your text to follow the shape of an arc or spline curve.
This is a much welcomed update and combined with the recent Emboss tool update, takes the text functionality with Fusion 360 to a whole new level.
Let’s dive in to see how this works.
(If you prefer the video version to this tutorial, scroll down).
First you want to make sure you have the current version of Fusion 360. Take a look at the upper right hand side of your screen and you should see a little clock between the wrench and the question mark. If you see a number by the clock, it means you have an update waiting to be installed. Simply restart Fusion 360 and it will automatically update. If you don’t see a number by the clock and you are connected to the internet, that means you are all up to date.
Start by creating a sketch and then select the Text tool from the Create menu.
The new text dialog box will pop up. Notice that we now have two options - Text and Text on Path.
In order to use the Text on Path feature we’ll first need to create the path.
Create a circle by going to Sketch - Circle - Center Diameter Circle.
Select the Text tool under the Create Menu.
Click on the circle to select it and then choose Text on Path from the text dialog box.
You should now see this dialog box.
Type your text inside the Text field in the dialog box. The text will follow the path of the circle.
The Placement option will toggle between having the text inside the circle or outside the circle.
Fit to Path will extend the text so that it fits the entire length of your path.
Flip allows you to flip the text either vertical or horizontally. This is great for when you need to create a mold.
Alignment allows you to either left, center, or right align on the path.
Click ok when done.
You can now amend the size of the circle and the text will conform to it.
Watch the video below to see a step by step of this guide and other features of the new text tool.
My big aha! moment with Fusion 360 happened when I finally understood how to use Constraints. Get my free Fusion 360 Constraint Cheat Sheet and see what I mean.
