I’ve long been an advocate of wrapping (or “flowing†or “multi-lineâ€) text in SVG. This is basic functionality, and people have been asking for it since SVG started.
I’m also an advocate for moving features out of SVG and into CSS, like gradients, animation, compositing, filters, and so on; the benefits of a single code base for HTML and SVG applications, and ease of learning and maintenance, are obvious.
So, I was excited when the CSS WG took up work to allow wrapping text to arbitrary shapes, like circles or stars, not just boxes. This will enable a whole new magazine-style layout that will benefit web sites and ebooks alike. But I was disappointed when I found out that this work had some recent setbacks and delays.
So, I’m calling for a simple solution now, while we wait for the more complete solution later. And the nice thing is, my solution also relies on CSS!