Illustrator – Page 2 – Wisdom And Wonder

Chapter 88. Converting Type To Outlines 6:28

When you convert text to outline you lose control of it as a font but gain more features
Envelope Distort
- V
- Select Text
- Option-Shift-Command-W
- Preview On
Now that you converted the text to an outline and modified it with envelope distort you can’t modify it as text but you can modify it using the envelope distort tool itself
- Object → Envelope Distort → Edit Contents
- Envelope Release shows you the mask because it separates the path and the Text
- Say you can’t print to a four color press so you select the object and Expand it. Now as press can handle it. Is this an issue for keycaps?
  - Now it is no longer text, can’t fix any of it.
Type → Create Outlines : Turns anything into an outline
You can do a lot of things on text without converting it to an outline
- But if you are going to press you gotta convert it to outline

Doing two things
- Put text on circle
- How in AI do you put two different kinds of text going in two directions on the same physical path?
One way is to use two circle, simple
Split the circle, add text, center it, click on the handle and center it for real
Pull up on the handle to put the text on the opposite side of the path
Great demo of baseline shifting

When an Object is selected and you click something with the Eye Dropper tool you will change the strong of the selected object
Many tools show their options you double click them
- You can configure it to copy or not and apply or not both Character Style and Paragraph Style
Command turns the pointer into Selection Tool so you can use it to select stuff and then release it to return to the selected tool. This is helpful for using the Eye Dropper tool.
Option-Eye-Dropper change’s it’s behavior
- No-Option-Eye-Dropper is PULL IN from object
- Option-Eye-Dropper is PUSH OUT to object
  - In other words you don’t have to select something to perform that modification
  - T-Over-Eyedropper
    - Can reproduce this with text

DRY
Perhaps
- Can I automate the insertion of all the character pretty close to where they should be on their own layers
- Apply a character style to everything on that layers Have all of the work done automatically?
Create a paragraph style based on the formatting that you performed on a paragraph
- Same for characters
- Extracting types from selected text
- Develop styles that mean something to you
Do I configure text via style or via the entire layer?
- Put in KQS
Can Load (Import) Character styles from another document
- Perhaps create a document just to store all of those Styles for use by other files?
Can change styles globally
- As you would expect

Always show options
- Access in a panel the more thing and you see everything
- Do this for all Typography stuff
Suitcase lets you only show fonts that you are working with per app
- Helpful because in my keycaps I only use a few
- $120USD
- RightFont seems to do the same thing for $50USD
- Emailed both to see if they have the right tool for what I want
What style should I use for the keycaps?
- Is Bold easier to read?
Leading is the amount of the space between lines of text
New reading size for fonts is 11
Kearning is the space between individual letters V/A<-
Tracking is the spae between whole words <-VA->
T: Vertical scale
T: Horizontal scale
Baseline shift: raise up the word higher or lower
- Super and subscript?
- There is a setting for that
Rotate character
- Thinking of rotating the Ekeman faces
- Thinking of rotating the Emacs meta keys to make them clearly something new
Small bold and everything
Paragraph settings
- Just have to be in the paragraph to change its attributes
Styles let you automate all of the customization that you made in one paragraph so you can do the same thing to another

Type Tool vs Area Text Tool
- Former is always rectangle or square
- Latter lets you convert an area into a writable area
Option-Actions operates from center, keep forgetting
When you convert a Path to be a Area Text Tool it becomes invisible because it is just a place to hold Text
Shift-Click selects multiple objects
Align is always relative to something
Shape Builder Tool
- Select multiple objects
- Click this tool
- Draw a line through objects that you want to join
Paste In Place
Demo simple way to put text into a shape by using a copy of the shape

Text
- Ain’t boring
- Can do anything to Text
Use the Typography workspace
AI falls into the category of Typesetter
- Like LaTeX?
Use InDesign (ID) for writing
Point text ignores the right margin
- You gotta hit Enter to get a new line
If a Text object has focus and you want to insert text somewhere else
- Command-Click then release and the cursor changes to a box so you can insert a Text
Drag a giant Text area
- Soft-returns happen automatically in here
- This is Container Text
Twist Text
- Container; text remains vertical and fills bounds
- Point: text rotates
Ditto for resizing box
Double-click the bar-thing to switch between Point and Container text

Looking at more maker tools Scissors and Knife
- Under the Eraser
Both work on a selected Object
Hold while either is selected hold down Command to get the Selection tool
Knife creates closed dynamic shapes
Scissors cuts a path that opens it up
Hold Shift when dragging Anchors to go straight
Scissors lets you chop apart ellipses into halve parts
Option-Drag objects creates a duplicate
Below the left bar color thing are
- Set path and stroke to black and white
- White box with red slash through it is “nothing”
Fun lesson!