Expert: LizaL - 1/21/2006

Question
Ok, what I am trying to do is type out a text. Lets say,"Ruffian Row". What I want to do is angle it differently. So its at about a 45 degree angle. I need to do this for a map I am making, I am labeling important streets, but all the roads are going SW to NE instead of hozional/vertical. I have searched around, but I cant find how to do this Other then using the image rotate, but then it moves the whole image and not just the text I am trying to do. I figured I can make another blank image, and then try to rotate that. Then move it over to the map image, but it seems to me there has to be a easier way to do this. Thanks for any help you can provide, I really appreciate it.

Answer
Hi Kevin,

Do I have this right... You want to rotate just the text, at about a 45-degree angle? Or maybe put it at a custom angle? Sounds to me like you should use the Free Transform command.

First type your text. Then make sure your text layer is selected in the Layers palette. Now go to the Edit pulldown menu and select Free Transform. You should see a little bounding box go around your text. Now if you pass your cursor over the text (and the bounding box), you'll see that your cursor will change to a curved double arrow when it gets to a corner of the box -- or passes over one of the points along the box's boundary. Click and hold your mouse, and you can rotate your text all around -- you don't have to adhere to any particular amount of rotation. Once you get it where you want it, hit Enter and it'll stay there.

With this command you can also stretch and/or shrink your text. Hence the name Free Transform!

Like this:
http://www.little-works.com/all_experts/freetransform.mov

I hope this is what you were looking for, but if not, please don't hesitate to post back.

Lisa