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signmike

"Welding" a font? Pathfinder doesn't work for this.

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I'm using font "Ready to Ride" and want to do an outline of the lettering....but because some of the letters overlap with the font, it's just laying outline over everything. How do I fix it to just outline certain letters? Do I have to break apart the word/wording by letter?

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I would do a solid "white" fill with a color stroke first. Use the "arrange" tool and put some letters behind and some in front to achieve the look you want and then from there can expand and make just an outline. If you are using Illustrator CC you can live edit the text without having to expand first...however it's probably easier to work with the expanded objects as opposed to text. Hope this helps.

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You want the letters to just be an outline or outline and fill? If you post an eps I can help you out.

 

Should be able to just weld with the pathfinder tool and will connect the lettering.

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What version of AI are you using? Some versions have special quirks. 

 

You are trying to apply a white outline and the lapped letters are showing the white. Best way is to turn them to outlines (Type>Create Outlines, there is also a quick key solution shown wto the side when using this pull down) then select them all if they aren't still all selected and use the "Union" button over in the Pathfinder toolbox. After that you can apply either a stoke outline (which won't show up when you cut.) or do a path offset.(Object>Path>Offset Path)

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If you are doing this with loose text (not touching) sometimes you will need to make the group a compound path (Object>Compound Path>Make) to achieve the results you are looking for. Not in every instance is this necessary but if you try a union or a minus front operation and all of a sudden most of the work disappears leaving only one letter then you'll know it needed it. I also prefer the compound path version of offset paths because it welds all the offset paths together behind the original text if they didn't touch but the offset does. If you miss this and go to cut then you background color may get chopped up where the paths intersect. You'll learn these things one way or the other. I recommend taking a look in wire frame mode before cutting. 

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What version of AI are you using? Some versions have special quirks. 

 

You are trying to apply a white outline and the lapped letters are showing the white. Best way is to turn them to outlines (Type>Create Outlines, there is also a quick key solution shown wto the side when using this pull down) then select them all if they aren't still all selected and use the "Union" button over in the Pathfinder toolbox. After that you can apply either a stoke outline (which won't show up when you cut.) or do a path offset.(Object>Path>Offset Path)

 

Using Illustrator CC.   I was trying to do a black outline but the lapped letters were REALLY showing it. This option worked!!!

 

If you are doing this with loose text (not touching) sometimes you will need to make the group a compound path (Object>Compound Path>Make) to achieve the results you are looking for. Not in every instance is this necessary but if you try a union or a minus front operation and all of a sudden most of the work disappears leaving only one letter then you'll know it needed it. I also prefer the compound path version of offset paths because it welds all the offset paths together behind the original text if they didn't touch but the offset does. If you miss this and go to cut then you background color may get chopped up where the paths intersect. You'll learn these things one way or the other. I recommend taking a look in wire frame mode before cutting. 

 

Compound path wasn't available to use, but I will keep it in mind in future instances!

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I am still back in CS5 so some things will be a little different. Compound path should be there somewhere. Ctrl+8 or Comm+8 on mac is the shortcut. (after selecting)

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I am still back in CS5 so some things will be a little different. Compound path should be there somewhere. Ctrl+8 or Comm+8 on mac is the shortcut. (after selecting)

 

Yeah it was under the objects menu but it was greyed out (unable to use/apply to the text in question).

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Hm I wonder of that is related to the upgraded font tools. I know there is a lot more you can do with live text in the CC than in the older versions. (I'm a bit jealous to tell the truth but not enough to start paying a monthly fee).  Just be sure to take a good look in wire frame before you try and cut that. If you can't turn it into a compound shape it is probably still live (editable) text which will likely not cut. Hopefully once you get it where you like it you can expand it out and have all your elements in the right places and proper for cutting. 

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I'm so far from understanding a good portion of what you say that it's not funny :)

 

Still learning and still a newbie to Illustrator so the help is much appreciated!

 

I also figured out that free transfrom can't be done without making an outline out of the text (tried to do star-wars type slant via free transform)

Other thing I couldn't figure out how to do was 'tilt' the text on the horizontal axis (like, tilt upward or downward, not rotate or shift...)

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Are you talking "shear" like an italicized look or more 3D? 

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