Type on a Path grayed out in CS3

Question

I am new to Illustrator, following Help to run type around a circle. It tells me to select the type object and then select "Type on a Path," however, that option is mysteriously grayed out. What might I be doing wrong. Please help!
thanks!

Answer 1

Back up a few topics to the one titled "Entering Text." Read the subtopic, "Enter Text Along A Path."
In the Help area to which you are referring, where the instructions say to "select the type object," it means for you to select not just an *ordinary* type object, but a path that already has text attached to it (what I call a pathType object, but which Illustrator calls a "Type on Path object"). In other words, it assumes you have already typed text along a path and is telling you to select that kind of text object.
If you select that type...uh...KIND of object, you will then find the Type On A Path menu selectable, and you'll be able to get to the orientation options.
Start this way:
1. Ellipse Tool: Draw an Ellipse.
2. Type on a Path Tool: Click the edge of the ellipse and type characters.
3. Type menu: Type On A Path...
Don't worry. It's not you.
Illustrator has so-called "Point Type objects" and so-called "Area Type objects". But what one might expect to be referred to as "Path Type ojbects" are called "Type on Path objects". The Appearance Palette doesn't help. It labels all three as simply "Type".
AI's Javascript refers to them as "areaText", "pointText", and "pathText". But no one would know that, unless messing with Javascript.
The Document Info Palette--uh, no, that's a PANEL now--refers to them as "Point Type objects", "Area Type objects", and "Type on Path objects". But who would think to look there? And it only does that if you select Objects from its little hidden flyout menu. And who would think to do that?
There are, of course, not three, but SIX type tools. The regular one, the...uh..."Type Tool", can be used to create "Area Type objects" and "Type on Path objects" as well as "Point Type objects". So you don't really have to use the separate "Area Type Tool" and "Type on a Path Tool". If you click the edge of a closed path with the "Type Tool", you will create an "Area Type object"...unless you press Alt, in which case you will create a "Type on Path object". But if the path is open, clicking its edge with the "Type Tool" will create a "Type on Path object"...unless of course you press Alt, in which case it will create an "Area Type object".
Confused yet? No?
Then perhaps it's time to take a look at the cleverly-named Effect>Distort & Transform>Transform command. Or the Pathfinder menu commands which are not to be confused with the identically-named Pathfinder Panel buttons which don't do exactly the same things, or the Shape Modes which also reside in the Pathfinder Panel.
You'll also find three cutting tools, none of which work right, and a Page Tool that does not manipulate pages. Illustrator doesn't have any pages; it has an Artboard. The Page Tool doesn't move the Artboard, either; it moves the printing tiles.
Before quitting for the evening, be sure to kneel beside your computer, press your palms together and, solemnly rotating to face the twelve signs of the zodiac, recite these twelve words twelve times out-loud in a slow rythmic monotone: "Strokes and Fills are not Attributes but Appearances but Appearances have Attributes."
Welcome to Illustrator. ;-)
JET