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Hi in this video I want to go over
working with type in paths and objects
Basically just dealing with some of the different tools you see in
the type tool when you pop it out
So let's deal first with basic type. I'm just going to just zoom a little
bit here. Ok if you just click
and let go this is what is call point type.
And type out a line it will just keep going infinitely.
Well until you hit Illustrators limit.
You can see that that type is anchored to a particular point
you can change allignment on that and notice that
it doesn't move the point it moves the type location over
the point so this is handy if you ever need to put in a guide
just pressing command 'r' for rulers let's say you draw in a guide
now you can click on your point type and drag
it over and snap it right onto a guide and this is nice if obviously
you have more type that you want to insert.
We'll make this left alligned
(clicking)
And now we can use that point text and just snap
it right on to these guides there we go. So anyway
that the most basic is point type.
But let's get to the more
fun parts second kind of type with the same tool
you click and drag out a box now the type sits inside
You have a text field. Very similar to InDesign or Quark if you use that.
I have some sample text I'll just dump in
Illustrator does not have
a dummy type generator like InDesign does where you can
insert placement text. There is
a websit that you can visit.
If you google lorem ipsum
let's see if we can find it here.
You can just use that spelling and
let's come in
here and see if there's a lorem ipsum generator 3
is nice you open this up you can
choose what kind of type you want to have it
use you can have it just do standard you can tell it how many paragraphs
(clicking and saying um a lot)
We can put in random marks 1000 words, generate
It goes ahead and makes this latin text
which you can then copy and come over and
drop into Illustrator. So sometimes that's a little
nicer way to be able to get items
into Illustrator and have your type look a little more random rather than
just writing in junk text like I usually do.
The flow is a little different you get different line breaks
the paragraph sizes are different so that's one thing to do
Now while we are dealing with that we have this kinda nice
convienient and how can I tell
that there is more text than this box is displaying it's right down here.
In the lower right you will notice this red plus.
If I expand the text box, I had it generate 1000 words
so it's probably still going show it here
but I will just drag this out notice that there is still more type in here.
So text in a container can be
flowed to another container.
That's called threaded text if I click
with my black arrow. Sometimes it's a littlle
tricky yeah you have to move up over this so that you first select
the box with the black arrow. Notice how my cursor looks.
When I move over this little
plus my cursor is changed.
Click on it my cursor is changed again that just indicates
it has over flow that wants to link to something.
Since I haven't drawn another box Illustrator
will automatically make another box that's similar to the one
that I just had. So what is threaded text. Well threaded text just means
the story continues between these two boxes if I select type
the type goes between the two boxes. Think of
newspapers for example you have a story start on one page and it continues to another
they use threaded boxes for that all the time. They are working in
InDesign but the same methodology is true with Illustrator.
So threaded text is just simply
hooking up boxes together. Now we will come back
to this in a second. We'll do some text threading you can do that
with type on path as well so let's continue and we'll look at that.
Pop out our type tool
you will notice the second
type of tool. Let me just pop this out I'm going to tear it off
by selecting this guy. The second tool up here is the
area type tool. So what I'm going to do is just build a shape quickly
I'll use the pencil. I'm going to use
a trick here. While I have the pencil down I'm holding down
option and this will close the path
when I'm finished drawing with the pencil.
Hold option when drawing with the pencil to make a closed path.
You can do that with alt on the PC.
Ok so I have made this path. Now one thing that will happen
is remeber that we are preview mode
and it doen't have a fill or a stroke and I happen to click away
it does disappear. You can do a couple of things when you are working with
boxes like this. You can either work in outline mode
you can see it I'm just pressing command 'y'
or you can just keep it highlighted or you can just apply a different
fill and stroke in the meantime in any case.
I'm now going to go ahead and grab the area type tool.
This is kinda goofy and I don't know why Adobe is so picky about this
but if you click in the middle of a box
a shape I should say you will get an error. An error
message and it just says you have click on a non-compound
path. Illustrator is really picky that wether you are using arrow
type tool, or the just the type on the path tool. You click on the path
not in the fill area. Let me see if I can click ok.
And now that I'm in over a path and I click
now I can go ahead and put in text
You will notice that if I just press command 'v' that type flows in.
Ok common question that comes up. I have noticed that
when I pasted this I lost my fill and stroke
for my shape can I put that back "yes" it's very straight forward
You just move over the shape edge. I'm using my white arrow
right so remember white arrow is for selecting parts of things.
I click on the text itself it selects the text shape.
Along with the text notice the color here. I can pick a different
color just for the sake of it. But that's different
than if I take my white and move over the path and if I
come in and give the path a color
obviously that's not going to help us see the text.
There you go now you can see that the path is a different shape from the text
and they can easily be altered and changed.
You can do strokes as well
so there you go that's how you put type in
of a path and you change the background
color of the path. By default Illustrator will always convert a path
fill and stroke if you convert it to a trype object.
If another point you are working with type objects
once you convert it to a type object unless you press undo
but let's say you save the file close it down for the night and open it up the next day and go I love
that path I really want to use it for something else it's now a type path.
And that gives it some limitations. You can color it and I guess
get rid of all the type and still color it and do those things but you
can't use it as part of a compound path.
You can't use it as a clipping mask so there are some limitations to
be aware of it you want to use type that way.
If you want to use a path and you're not sure you might use it
for other things make a copy of it and use the copy with your type then you've got
the original you can put it on a hidden layer. So
thats type inside an object let's do type on a path.
I will just get out the pencil again.
Draw a nice path. Get the type on the path tool.
Come in and click
on the edge of the path and type flows along
the path edge. Now when I do that
put in a couple of spaces. Now if I come back with my white arrow.
Notice that there's some
objects here that show up on the path. This guy is your
left indent and you can see the cursor changes slightly
If I slide this over I can change where that indent is
if I move over this guy over on the right side that's the right indent.
I can click and drag that and if I drag it too much notice it over flows
the type again. And then finally
you have a path controller.
I wish I had a more official name for you but you'll notice
as I drag this along the type swings along one side. If I need
to get it to the other side of the path just drag it to the opposite side
Type is upside down on that path. So those are your
three controls once you have type on a path to manipulate
the type. You can type on a
closed path too so if I drag out
an ellipse.
Come in and click on the edge
here's type on a closed path.
(typing)
And notice since it's left aligned it's
the indent if we come back with white arrow
is right at the top and then the right indent is on the other end
or other side of the path. Many people freak out if I choose to do
centered type and I clicked on the top and I choose center
it pops down to the bottom. Well again just think in terms
of this being a left indent and a right indent well then obviously
you are going to have it center in between those indents.
You can always click and drag this guy around
and move it around and this will happen
occasionally too. Notice how it is kinda goofing around on me.
And it redid the indent
and all that stuff. I often recommend before you start
moving type on a closed path like this open up these indents a bit
and if I make this wider usually I will have better
luck dragging it around on the path. Let's see if I can bring it around
and get some better luck and notice in that case it works better
my only explanation for this is that there is some heavy math going on
cause as this is being driven around the outer edge
and every once in a while in programming you will have what
is called a rounding error. Since these two guys are right up next to each other my guess is
there is a slight rounding error as the calculations are being made.
Every once in a while you will get an overlap where the left
indent is on the right of the right indent
I have seen it happening since CS3 or so. So that's my guess.
Type on a path you have these controls notice again I'm working with
the white arrow and be aware of how the cursor changes.
With the white arrow and you are not getting a change make sure
that you see the cursor. So you get this kind of upside down t
when you have this control.
That's funny now it jumped to the other side.
You have the different indent values.
The left and the right side and again I can change these.
And then you have those little
squares too. Boy it wants to snap there
So when you are working with these contols just goof around with
them and get comfortable. These little blocks are for
linking text into this path as well. So
for example let's go ahead and I'll
highlight this type and get rid of it.
And let's take some of that threaded type that was up here.
I wonder if I can do
with my white arrow.
See when you use the white arrow it wants to select the path edge it won't let you choose the
threaded type. I'm going to click on this and then click
on the edge and then it finds the path
notice that when it finds the path it wants to go
change switches to a link cause I've already converted this
to type path. I'm going to just click in there.
And it flows that type down onto the path. You can see
that little symbol and its threading into this box
through the path and obviously over flowing
And you can actually apply type
you can thead type between paths and then back to closed shapes again.
We'll go ahead and get rid of this text
Let's choose this box again.
Make sure my cursor
changes. Notice how it changes when I'm over the box
click and move over this box and now it's going to
link into this box. Now since this
is already it's chain.
It's saying you want to link it to this type path so I do and it flows in
So you can obviously make some pretty confusing
type changes. So if I come through here watch what happens if I
edit out this line notice how everything shifts
between these two boxes as well. So this is threaded type.
The other way
you can work with threaded type is you can just make
a box
paste in some text. Make another box
Select both of them.
And then go under type down to
threaded text and choose create. When you do that
it will automatically thread between the boxes. Ok so
now we have covered type on path, type inside of a shape.
Point type. Type tool just dragging out
you will notice there are other variations here there is type if you want to do stacked
type so I could choose this and then automatically
start making stacked type.
You know just typographically I have to say
this is a bad. Stacked type is a bad idea it just stinks.
It is hard to read and letter forms
are created to be next to each other so it's just
difficult thing to stack type. Now some fonts work better
than others so if you gonna have to do that. If the design calls
for it. Usually what I recommend is just rotate the type.
Make type
on a side and then
go ahead and rotate that guy around.
(pause)
This type is going to be more used to reading but
you have to do it then pick a font that looks good. Pick a font that has some
weight to it where the type will actually
sit on top of each other ok. If we look at something like
Impact that type is more likely to do it. But
also your letter choices have to be pretty good. Notice that
there are a lot of verticals here and when we have like the 't'
or 'i' they just don't stand up very well
it seems unsturdy. So that's my crack against it.
You can have vertical type that's on a path.
You can have area vertical
type and you can also have vertical type on a path.
There are other options too. You will notice
when I have the path tool here selected
sorry the type on the path. If I come down under the type menu.
There are some options for that and you know you can play around with these.
So for instance stairstep, this won't look good at all but you can
see how the type aligns on here.
I wanted to do one last thing.
That was to show you again some of the neat
hidden features of using
let's say a blend. If I
get out our pencil tool and I just draw
a path and then let's make another path.
And I select both
of these strokes I'll just go under object
down to blend make it. And then object
blend options and instead
of smooth color let choose
specified steps. Let's just do 3. 3 steps.
and you know so far so good. It just seems like
a standard design and if I alter one of these paths on the ends
the blend in the middle updates. OK
Well what happens if I want to put some
type on a path and I want the path to kinda flow in this
increasing wavy form. Well this is a great use for a blend
What you do is you start with the whole blend. I have the entire blend selected
right now. Notice that both ends are selected I'm just going to choose
object and expand
the object. So it's not longer going to be a blend anymore it's just going to be
flat paths. So now I have 5
paths the paths in the middle have been updated and
they are grouped together and I could select them individually
if I wanted to now. Ok so who cares.
The next step I'm going to get out type on path.
Click on this first path and let's do left aligned.
Paste it in.
I'm going to just slowly thread this text.
I'm going to come down. Next path click
come down click and I'm just slowly
taking this over.
It is interesting that the
it is showing over flow there must have been some extra returns thats what's going on.
So let's see
if I click down here.
I'll just press the delete key a bit and notice that my type comes
back in. So that can be
a neat thing to use when you are working with type on paths
remember that you can use the blend tool. Obviously it gets into readability
issues at some point but I'm just trying to show you some options so
hopefully in this demo I've kinda gone through
different ways that you can lay down type in Illustrator.
I'm also going to do a demo on paragraph formatting too.
Let me know if you have any questions. Thanks END