5

a longtime listener, first time caller here.

I am wanting to set some text into a Meander aka Greek Key (image below), i.e. so that instead of the usual horizontal lines of text, the text moves horizontally (left to right), then vertically (top to bottom), then horizontally again (right to left), etc.

Any help would be appreciated! Thanks.

Meander/Greek key on a stove in the Dimitrie Sturdza House from Bucharest (Romania) - Wiki

Aiden D Ansari
  • 51
  • How long is the text that you want to display? A short sentence, a long sentence, a paragraph? Or indeed the same text repeated as in the answer below? – Marijn Mar 17 '22 at 12:13

1 Answers1

5

You do not mention your tool, so I give you a version with the tools that I use, ConTeXt and MetaFun. I think the code is more or less self-explanatory (updated with a more modern syntax).

\setupbodyfont[pagella,8pt]

\starttext
\startMPpage[offset=5pt]
path meanderpiece ;


meanderpiece := (0.25,0.75)--(0.75,0.75)--(0.75,0.25)--(0.5,0.25)--(0.5,0.5)--(0.25,0.5)--(0.25,0)--(1,0)--(1,0.75)--(1.25,0.75);


meanderpiece := meanderpiece for i=1 upto 3 : -- (meanderpiece xshifted i) endfor ;


draw lmt_followtext [
  text = "\dorecurse{10}{This is some funny text running on a meander.}",
  path = meanderpiece xsized 20cm,
  spread        = true,
% trace         = true,
% reverse       = true,
% autoscaleup   = "yes",
% autoscaledown = "yes",
] ;
\stopMPpage
\stoptext

Compile with context. The result I get, that probably can be tuned to look better, is:

Text along a meander

mickep
  • 8,685
  • thanks so @mickep! that's really helpful. I am using TexWorks. I didn't manage to make it work yet (copy and paste didn't work haha) but it gives me the idea of how to go about it – Aiden D Ansari Mar 18 '22 at 11:48