How to make Text to Path in Figma

Welcome to another great tutorial brought to you by me. In this post we'll talk about two things, because there seems to be a bit of confusion about the title:

first some people seem to try to convert a text layer to follow the outline of a specific shape, so they search for text to path
then there's the second group of people who simply want to convert a text layer to a vector path so that they can edit points on the letters and make adjustments

Need not to worry, I've made video tutorials for both because I'm a great person.

How to Convert a Text Layer to a Vector Path in Figma?

Simply select your text layer, then right click. After that click on Outline Stroke. Or simply use the Ctrl + Shift + O shortkeys. And that's all. You now have a vectored layer which you can edit with the pen tool.

Now let's talk about the second option:

How to Make a Text Layer Follow a Path in Figma?

Now this one is a bit more tricky because at the moment there's no way to do it without using 3rd party plugins.

A plugin I used in the guide above is simply called To Path.

And it's straightforward to use:

You select both your text and your shape
Run the Plugin
Simply click on the Link button

Once it's followed you can start making minor adjustments to offsets and alignments but do keep in mind that most of the features are buggy and I recommend you convert your text after you're done with making changes to it.
Trying to replace text after it's on the actual path will move it around and break everything.

If you look at the reviews, they're mixed and mostly say the same thing:

So, yeah - does it work? Yeah, some of the times and as long as you don't mess around with the settings.

Are there any alternative plugins? Not that I know of but you are free to look them up. I'm sure that in time developer will create something similar or maybe this tool will get fixed properly.

To summarize

If you're looking to make text to path you either want the text to be a vector layer or to make it follow a certain shape. For the first one you simply select the layer and press Ctrl + Shift + O.

The second and more complicated guide - you have to use a broken plugin that works half the time.
You're welcome.

🧑 andrei b.

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