Ruby 112

I'm new to Ruby and this is my first code golf. I drew upon memowe's perl implementation and tried to make a Ruby version of it. This is 112 characters and assumes you assign a string to x. Looking forward to seeing others.

l=x.length
h=l/4
w=(l-h*2)/2
puts x[0..w]
1.upto(h-1) {|i| puts x[-i]+' '*(w-1)+x[w+i]}
puts x[w+h..l-h].reverse

PostScript 50 binary, 113 ASCII

This uses graphical output. Hexdump of the program using binary tokens:

$ hexdump -C textRect_binary.ps 
00000000  74 5b 30 20 39 5b 74 92  62 34 92 36 92 38 92 10  |t[0 9[t.b4.6.8..|
00000010  32 92 19 5d 7b 92 2c 7b  32 92 19 7d 92 83 92 3e  |2..]{.,{2..}...>|
00000020  92 6e 7d 92 49 5d 39 20  39 92 6b 91 c7 39 92 8e  |.n}.I]9 9.k..9..|
00000030  92 c3                                             |..|
00000032

Download to try it. Using Ghostscript, the to-be-rendered text can be passed to the program as follows:

gs -st=helloworld textRect_binary.ps 

Graphical output looks like this:

The same code using ASCII tokens looks like this:

t[0 9[t length
4 div dup
ceiling
2 copy]{cvi{2 copy}repeat
exch neg}forall]9 9 moveto/Courier 9 selectfont
xyshow

The strategy is to use xyshow for defining where we move after showing each character before showing the next character. We're starting in the lower left corner, moving clockwise, i.e. first up, then right, then down then left. We're always moving 9 units, so first we have a relative movement of 0 9, then 9 0, then 0 -9, then -9 0. We can get from one pair of these numbers to the next with the sequence exch neg.

We need to build an array for xyshow that holds these pairs of numbers, one pair for each character. This means, if we have helloworld as example string, which has 10 characters, we want to go up twice, then right thrice, then down twice and left thrice. We get these values (two and three) by dividing the string length by 8, once rounding to the floor, once to the ceiling.

So, we copy 0 9 twice, then switch to the relative x/y coordinates using exch neg, copy those thrice and so on.

This commented code shows what happens on the stack:

t[0 9                % t [ 0 9
[t length            % t [ 0 9 [ length
4 div dup            % t [ 0 9 [ length/4 length/4
ceiling              % t [ 0 9 [ length/4=height width
2 copy]              % t [ 0 9 [height width height width]
{%forall             % t [ 0 9 ... x y height_or_width
  cvi                % t [ 0 9 ... x y height_or_width_integer
  {2 copy}           % t [ 0 9 ... x y height_or_width_integer {2 copy}
  repeat             % t [ 0 9 ... x y .. x y
  exch neg           % t [ 0 9 ... x y .. y -x
}forall]             % t [0 9 ... -9 0]
9 9 moveto/Courier 9 selectfont
xyshow

Perl (124 118 109+3=112)

This formerly was pretty straightforward. Counted all command line options as 1 character each.

-nlE
$w=(@s=split//)/2-($h=int@s/4);say@s[0..$w--];say$s[1-$_].$"x$w.$s[$w+$_]for+2..$h;say+reverse@s[@s/2..@s-$h]

Example:

$ perl -nlE '$w=(@s=split//)/2-($h=int@s/4);say@s[0..$w--];say$s[1-$_].$"x$w.$s[$w+$_]for+2..$h;say+reverse@s[@s/2..@s-$h]'
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
abcdefgh
z      i
y      j
x      k
w      l
v      m
utsrqpon

Mathematica 156 199 344

Edit : This is a major rewrite of earlier code. It works essentially the same, but now takes as input a string of length < 120 chars and automatically sizes the square.

It could still be golfed a bit but will not get down to the size of the earlier, and buggier, versions.

f@s_ := ({a, t, w, q} = {Automatic, Text, Quotient[StringLength@s, 2],
 Quotient[StringLength[s], 4] + 1};z = StringSplit[StringInsert[s <> ConstantArray[" ", 0],
 "*", {q, 2 q, 3 q}], "*"];
Graphics[{t[z[[1]], {0, q}],t[z[[2]], {q, 0}, a, {0, -1}],t[z[[3]], {0, -q}, a, {-1, 0}],
t[z[[4]], {-q, 0}, a, {0, 1}]},ImageSize -> 500,BaseStyle -> {FontFamily -> "Courier", 21},
PlotRange -> 34,ImagePadding -> 22])

Examples

f["Hello Code Golf World!"]
f["January, February, March,April, May, June, July"]
f["This text is normal, this goes downwards,this is upside-down, and this is upwards"]

Brainfuck - 194 187

+>,[>+[>+<-],]
>-->++<[->-[>+>>]>[+[-<+>]>+>>]<<<<<]>[-]>[-]>[<<+<<+>>>>-]<<<<
[[<]>+[>]<-]<[<]>-
[>.[-]<[>+<-]>-]>[>]
++++++++++.<.[-]
>[>+++>>+<<<-]>++>--[<.>-]<<<<[<]>.[-]>[>]>>>>.
<<<<<[.<]

Python 2.x: 137

I'm new to code golfing and quite sure this can be improved…

def s(t):c=len(t);w=1+c/4;h=(c-w-w)/2;u=w+h;n='\n';print t[:w]+n+n.join(map(((w-2)*' ').join,zip(t[:w+u-1:-1],t[w:u])))+n+t[w+u-1:u-1:-1]

Visual testing code:

from itertools import chain
from string import letters
for i in range(8,101,2):
    t = ''.join(chain(letters))[:i]
    print '%d: %s' % (i, t)
    s(t)
    print '-----'

Something of interest: This solution depends on integer math. If you just do the math symbolically, you'll find that h=(c-w-w)/2 => h=w-2, but if you substitute that result every other result will be missing two lower-left characters.

Perl + Regexes: 104 (101+3)

(counting code + switches)

Here is a solution using nice Regexes, and a bit of Perl:

perl -plE'$w=($l=length)/2-($h=int$l/4);s/..{$w}\K.*/"\n".reverse$&/e;$"x=--$w;s/.\K(.*)(.)$/$"$2\n$1/while--$h'

This will only operate correctly on one input line.

Inspired by memowe, but essentially without any arrays.

PostScript (106)

This is inspired by dude's Mathematica solution.

0{= =
4 add dup
t length mod 4
lt{-90 rotate}if}0[0 3 -3 0 9 9]concat
0 moveto/Courier 5 selectfont
t kshow

With Ghostscript call this like

gs -st=hello! boxtext.ps

It produces output like.

It uses kshow to show the glyphs one by one. After enough glyphs for one side have been shown, everything is rotated by -90 degrees before continuing with the remaining glyphs.

To know when enough glyphs have been shown on the side, we increment a counter by 4 each time a glyph is shown. If the counter value modulo the string length is less than 4, then we know we have to rotate:

char  counter  mod 6  compared to 4
 h       4       4          =
 e       8       2          <   => rotate
 l      12       0          <   => rotate
 l      16       4          =
 o      20       2          <   => rotate
 !      24       0          <   => rotate

Commented and un-golfed source code:

0                      % n
{%kshow                % n char1 char2
  = =                  % n
  4 add dup            % n' n'
  t length mod         % n' (n' mod t_length)
  4 lt                 % n' bool
  {-90 rotate}if       % n'
}                      % n kshowProc
% First 0 for moveto. We add it here to take 
% advantage of the surrounding self delimiting tokens.
0                      % n kshowProc 0
% We change the graphics state so that the drawn
% text is at a nice size and not off screen.
[0 3 -3 0 9 9]concat   % n kshowProc 0
0                      % n kshowProc 0 0
moveto                 % n kshowProc
/Courier 5 selectfont  % n kshowProc
t                      % n kshowProc text
kshow                  % n

Scala (135)

The following snippet assumes that x contains the string to format, and should be pasted in the scala REPL:

val (h,w)=((x.size+3)/4,println(_:Any));val s=x.grouped(h)toSeq;w(s(0));for((l,r)<-s(1)zip(s(3)reverse))w(r+" "*(h-2)+l);w(s(2)reverse)

If you don't have scala installed, you can quickly check it using this online Scala interpreter: http://www.simplyscala.com/. Just paste the following text end press evaluate:

val x="HelloWorld"
val (h,w)=((x.size+3)/4,println(_:Any));val s=x.grouped(h)toSeq;w(s(0));for((l,r)<-s(1)zip(s(3)reverse))w(r+" "*(h-2)+l);w(s(2)reverse)

Python 3(120)

s=input()
n=len(s)
h=n//4
q=(n+2)//4-1
p=print
p(s[:q+2])
for i in range(1,h):p(s[n-i]+' '*q+s[q+1+i])
p(s[n-h:q+h:-1])

Test

input:

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

output:

abcdefghijklmn
z            o
y            p
x            q
w            r
v            s
u            t
t            u
s            v
r            w
q            x
p            y
o            z
nmlkjihgfedcba

PHP (149)

The text to print should be in a variable named $x.

@$s=substr;echo$s($x,-$w=($l=strlen($x)/2)-$h=$i=$l-2>>1).'
';while($i--)echo$x[$l+$i].str_repeat(' ',$w-2).$x[$h-$i-1].'
';echo$s(strrev($x),$l,$w);

K, 84

{-1'(*r;((|r 3),\:(w-2)#" "),'r 1;|(r:(0,+\(w;h;w;h:_(l-2*w:-_-(1+(l:#x)%4))%2))_x)2);}

.

k){-1'(*r;((|r 3),\:(w-2)#" "),'r 1;|(r:(0,+\(w;h;w;h:_(l-2*w:-_-(1+(l:#x)%4))%2))_x)2);}"HelloWorld"
Hell
d  o
lroW

k){-1'(*r;((|r 3),\:(w-2)#" "),'r 1;|(r:(0,+\(w;h;w;h:_(l-2*w:-_-(1+(l:#x)%4))%2))_x)2);}"Hellooooooooooooooo Worlddddd!"
Hellooooo
!       o
d       o
d       o
d       o
d       o
d       o
lroW oooo

Python2.7 (99)

t=''.join(raw_input().split())
u=len(t)/2-1
print t[:u]+"\n"+t[-1]+" "*(u-2)+t[u]+"\n"+t[-2:u:-1]

Edit: It apparently violates the rule of encompassing maximum area inside.

JAVA - 320

public class A{
public static void main(String[] a){
String s=a[0];
int l=s.length(),h=l/2,f=h-1,i=0;       
for(i=0;i<f;i++)
System.out.print(s.charAt(i));
System.out.print("\n"+s.charAt(l-1));
for(i=0;i<f-2;i++)
System.out.print(" ");
System.out.println(s.charAt(h-1));
for(i=l-2;i>h-1;i--)
System.out.print(s.charAt(i));}}

Note : - Input is taken from command line

Input : - HelloWorld

Output : -

Hell
d  o
lroW

Input : - abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

Output : -

abcdefghijkl
z          m
yxwvutsrqpon