Adding text along a curved line

Steps:

1. Specify the active annotation target on the Draw toolbar.
2. Click the New Splined Text tool on the Draw toolbar.
3. Click the map display where you want to add vertices along which the text should be splined, that is, curved.
4. Double-click to end the line.
5. Type the text string.
6. Click Enter.

Tip:

Click the Edit Vertices button on the Draw toolbar to edit the vertices of splined text.

Tip:

When in data view, text added to the data frame is added to the <Default> annotation group by default. You can change this by setting the Active Annotation Target (available on the Drawing menu) before you add your text.

Tip:

When in layout view, ArcMap will, by default, add new text to the layout.

Learn more about adding text to the layout

Tip:

You can set the default symbol properties for new text by clicking Drawing on the Draw toolbar and clicking Default Symbol Properties.

Tip:

The Select Elements tool becomes active, by default, after you add new text. To have the New Text tool stay active so you can add more text, you need to change a setting using the ArcMap Advanced Settings utility. Find this in your ArcGIS installation directory in the Utilities folder.