Using A Bezier Envelope In Inkscape

There is an awesome screencast by heathenx that shows you how to create wrap text around a globe.
Inkscape version : 0.48.1

Its not as good as the one in the tutorial, probably because the banner does not have the 3D effect. Well, I didnt follow the tutorial exactly either for making the banner. But still, the globe is pretty good.

I did learn a few things in the making of this world

1. Extensions are installed in inkscape by keeping the .inx or the .py files in the Inkscape\share\extentions directory. And you need to restart Inkscape for the extension to become available. This tutorial makes use of a cool bezier envelope extension, which once installed can be accessed via Extensions->Generate from path->Bezier Envelope.
2. I tried to act smart and create a square, make it a path and then use the bezier envelope on it, but it didnt work. As mentioned in the screencast, only when I used the bezier tool to make the bezier path, using 4 nodes, in a clockwise direction, I got the text to wrap around the banner.
3. You can easily set the stroke width by right clicking on the number that appears in the left bottom corner, right beside the block that says stroke.
4. You can create margins lines by simply dragging the mouse cursor from the side and top margins.
5. When you convert text to path, and there are several characters in the text, then you the conversion results in a group of paths, not one path. You can observe that in the Inkscape status bar. So, once you have converted your text to a path, it can be useful if you ungroup the resultant text and then do a union to get the single path that you were intending to get.
6. There is a lot of good stuff under the Extensions->Render menu.

Signing Off
Ryan