In this Adobe Illustrator Essentials lesson, you'll learn how to create point and paragraph type, stylize text, type on a path, and customize text as shapes.
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Using the Text Tool, click anywhere on the artboard and start typing. Point type stays on a single line, unless you hit return to create line breaks.
Change the size of the text using the Selection Tool: click and drag from the bounding box to scale the text. Or, change the font size in the top toolbar or Character panel.
The Character panel has options for adjusting the text, including font, styling, kerning, leading, and more.
If you need special characters, find them under Window > Type > Glyphs.
Double click the text to start editing it.
Using the Text Tool, click and drag to draw out a bounding box, then start typing.
The bounding box determines where line breaks occur, although you can also add line breaks with the return key.
To resize the text box, use the Selection Tool and click and drag from the edge or corner of the bounding box.
To change the font size, use the dropdown menu in the top toolbar or in the Character panel.
One way to tell that text is Point Type, is when the text is selected, the circle on the left end of the bounding box is open. Double click this circle to convert it to Paragraph Type.
With Paragraph Type, when selected, the circle at the left end of the bounding box will be filled in. Double click this circle to convert it to Point Type.
When you switch from Paragraph Type to Point Type, it creates line breaks wherever the bounding box was previously putting them. So, you may need to double click into the text to delete some line breaks to get the text to function like Paragraph Type again.
For Paragraph Type, to fit the bounding box to the text, double click the square sticking off the bottom edge of the bounding box.
If you click and hold the Text Tool, there are a few other text tools to choose from. One is the Type on a Path Tool. With this tool, click on any path (this could be a shape), then start typing and your text will be wrapped around the path.
Note that the path itself won't be visible if you type on it. If you want the path to be visible, duplicate it first. You can do this quickly with keyboard shortcuts: ⌘/Ctrl C to copy the path, ⌘/Ctrl Shift V to paste in place.
When the text on a path layer is selected (but not in text editing mode), there's a line at the start of the path. Drag this line to adjust where the text starts on the path.
There's also a line at the end of the path. Drag this line along the path to adjust where the text ends on the path.
Note that if your path is a closed shape (like my screenshot), the lines for the start and end of the path will be right next to each other, but you can still adjust them.
To flip which side of the path the text is on, first make sure the text on path layer is selected (but not in text editing mode). Find the line that's perpendicular to the path and drag it in the opposite direction as the perpendicular line to flip the text to the other side of the path.
Double click on the text with the Selection Tool to edit the text. With the text on a path layer selected, you can change the font, font size, and any other styling in the Character Panel.
Use the Direct Selection Tool to click on points of the path and adjust them. You can also make transformations like scale or rotation to the entire layer by using the bounding box, or using tools like the Scale Tool, Rotation Tool, etc.
When you copy and paste text in Illustrator, the formatting of the text including the font, size, color, etc. are included. If you want to copy text and paste it in the format of the text you're replacing, use these keyboard shortcuts:
If you want to customize the actual shapes of letters, you can outline the text which converts the editable text to editable shapes. Select the text layer (but don't go into text editing mode) then use the keyboard shortcut: ⌘/Ctrl Shift O
Outlining text can also be necessary when sending a file to someone else, like for printing, if they don't have the font/s you used installed on their computer.
In the next video, you'll learn all about creating and transforming shapes using the Scale, Rotation, Reflect, and Shear tools.
