Animating text moving around a circle

[Spinland]

Like the subject says. This seems like it should be simple but it's busting my chops. Some issues I'm having:

1. If the text has a colored outline the circle takes on that color and won't let me turn off the circle without losing the text's outline too.

2. I can't do the drag-the-red-square trick to make the text flow along the curve, unless I do it backwards dragging the first square. Dragging the end square just lengthens the text bar.

3. I can't make the whole group rotate about the circle's center, the text is just one big word and since the group is unbalanced the whole thing wobbles around an offset axis.

The effect I want is for the single word to rotate clockwise about the circle's center as the axis, without the circle being visible. Am I overlooking some clever trick to make this straightforward?

Thanks in advance!

[Spinland]

Okay, I whined too soon. Here's what I just figured out:

Convert the whole mess to editable shapes. Now you can select just the circle and have its rotation center display where you want it again. Put some guidelines there to mark the spot. Select the text group, put in rotate mode, now manually move the rotation center to where the guidelines cross. Viola.

[Gare]

Glad you were able to figure that one out, Spinner!

If anyone wants to rotate an object off its center as for example, part of a Flash animation, you put the shape inside a circle, put its bottom edge meeting the bottom edge of the circle.

Make the circle have no outline and no fill, and then soft group the circle and your shape. Name the soft group using the tag button.

You might want to go to wireframe display quality to then rotate the soft group, but from there on in, you use the Animation panel to copy each successive frame, rotate the cricel, rock and roll.

My Best,

Gare