Originally posted in Launchpad:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gimp/+bug/242277

Yesterday I tried to translate a comic to my language, and I found out that doing it with the GIMP was less easy than I had expected. I had to choose the right letter size for the text to fit inside the bubble, but not look too small. I had to manage line breaks and put extra spaces at the beginning of certain lines. All in all, it was more complex than it should.

Is there a way that GIMP could handle this itself? Speech bubbles have a very clean and definite area, so taking into account this area and the text input, couldn't GIMP calculate the best text size and layout to fit the bubble?

I was thinking something like this:

-You double-click the "Text" tool to get its options. There you find a "speech bubble" checkbox, that you check.
-Then, your cursor acts as a mix between the text tool and the magic wand. You click somewhere inside the bubble and GIMP recognises the whole area as a speech bubble.
-You type the text, and GIMP arranges it to fit the area.

Maybe there could be a couple extra options, to occupate only 70 percent of the area (in case you want to make text look smaller, for example) or even set a specific font size, and let GIMP only take care of the layout.

I don't know if it really makes sense or can be done at all, but it's something that could come in handy to many people.