Almost every metal sign that sells has arched text on it. The family name curving over the top of a monogram. EST. 2019 bending under a logo. THE JOHNSON FAMILY wrapped around a circle. Straight horizontal text looks like a label. Arched text looks like a sign somebody designed.

It takes about two minutes in Inkscape once you know which of the three methods to reach for. Most people find one of them, discover it does not do quite what they want, and give up. So here are all three, what each is actually for, and the cleanup that has to happen before the file goes anywhere near a torch.

This is the one you will use ninety percent of the time. The text follows a curve you draw, and it stays live text so you can keep editing the words and swapping fonts.

1. Draw the curve. The easiest arch is a circle or an ellipse. Draw one with the ellipse tool at roughly the diameter you want the text to wrap around. It does not have to be pretty and you are going to delete it later.

2. Type your text. Separate object, normal text tool, pick your font and rough size.

3. Select both. Click the text, shift-click the ellipse.

4. Text then Put on Path. The text jumps onto the curve.

5. Now adjust. Select just the ellipse with the node tool and resize it — the text re-flows along it live. Bigger ellipse, flatter arch. Smaller ellipse, tighter arch. Drag the ellipse and the text moves along with it.

To slide the text around the circle so it sits centred at the top, select the text and use the spacebar-drag or just add leading spaces. Adjusting the start position is genuinely fiddly in Inkscape; the practical trick is to centre-align the text before you put it on the path, then rotate the ellipse rather than moving the text.

6. Delete the guide shape. Select the ellipse and hit Delete. The text keeps its arch. If the text disappears too, you had the text selected as well — undo and try again clicking only the ellipse.

Text then Flow into Frame pours text into a shape and reflows it to fit. It is good for paragraphs inside a shape, and it is bad for arching, because it wraps lines rather than curving letters.

Mentioned here mostly so you stop trying it. If you have been using Flow into Frame and wondering why your arch will not arch, that is why.

Text on Path bends the baseline. Every letter stays upright relative to the curve, which is what you want for a name arching over a monogram.

Sometimes you want the whole word to bend as a single object — a banner effect where the letters themselves distort. For that, convert the text to paths first with Shift+Ctrl+C, then Path then Path Effects, add Bend, and drag the bend path. The whole word warps like a rubber sheet.

Use Bend sparingly. Distorted letterforms look great on a banner and look cheap on a family name.

Here is the thing that stops everybody. You arch a name over the top of a circle. Then you want a date arching under the bottom of the same circle. You put it on the same circle and it comes out upside down and inside the circle.

The fix: use a second, separate circle for the bottom text, and flip it.

Draw a new ellipse. Select it and press V to flip it vertically. Put the bottom text on that. Now the baseline runs the other way and the text sits upright, curving the correct direction under the design.

That is the whole trick and it is why so many people give up on arched text.

Arched text needs more letter spacing than straight text. When you bend a baseline, the tops of the letters spread apart and the bottoms crowd together. On a tight arch the bottoms of adjacent letters can actually touch, and on a plasma cut, touching letters merge into one blob of steel.

Open Text and Font, and raise the letter spacing until there is visible daylight between every pair of letters at the bottom of the stroke. Look at the bottom of the arch specifically, not the top.

Rule of thumb: if you can see the gap on screen at 100 percent zoom, the torch will cut it. If you are squinting, widen it.

Everything so far still leaves you with live text on a live path. Your CAM software cannot use that. Before you export:

1. Object to Path. Shift+Ctrl+C on the text. It becomes outlines. Once you do this you cannot edit the words any more, so save a copy of the editable version first. I keep every design as two files: name-edit.svg and name-cut.svg.

2. Ungroup, twice. Object then Ungroup.

3. Delete the guide curves. They will export as cut lines if you leave them, and the torch will cut a big circle right through your design.

4. Bridge the letters. Every counter — the middle of an O, A, D, R — needs a bridge or it falls out. Arched text does not change this.

5. Connect the letters to something. Arched block letters floating in space are separate parts. Either they touch a border, or they touch each other, or you are welding them to a backer. Cursive scripts usually connect on their own, which is one more reason they sell so well.

6. Check the size in inches before you export the DXF.

If you take nothing else from this: the combination that moves the most metal is a split monogram with the family name arched over the top and EST. plus the year under the bottom. It is on ten thousand porches. It sells because it is personal, it is instantly readable from the street, and it costs you a square foot of steel.

Draw that layout once, save it as a template, and you can turn a customer's name into a finished cut file in about four minutes.


[Watch: CNC Plasma - How to Arch Text Like a Pro](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vamd3hS6tJA)

The [free split monogram kit](https://www.tinmanmetalworks.com/blog/free-cnc-plasma-cut-files) includes layouts with the arched name and the EST line already positioned, so you can drop a customer's name in and cut. It is the fastest way to start selling personalised signs without drawing the layout from nothing every time.

If you want the full design process rather than a template, the [Tin Man Metal Works masterclass](https://www.tinmanmetalworks.com/start-today) covers arching, bridging, toolpathing and what to charge, in the order you actually need them.

Draw an ellipse, type your text, select both, Text then Put on Path, resize the ellipse to control the arch, delete the ellipse. For text under the design, use a second ellipse flipped vertically with V. Add letter spacing until the bottoms of the letters clear each other. Then Object to Path, ungroup, delete the guides, bridge the counters, and check the size before export.