How do you fill a oddly shaped, closed path, with text ?

[mrharris2000@adobeforums.com]

Anyone know how to fill a shape or closed path with text ?

Thx
Mike

[Eric_Schwartz@adobeforums.com]

Just select the "Area Type Tool" and click on top of the shape's stroke. Make sure the path is a non-compound, non-masking path or you can't do it.

Once you see the flashing cursor, you can then type raw text, paste text from the clipboard, or place text from a file.

[mrharris2000@adobeforums.com]

Actully, what Im trying to do is to make the text take on the shape of the path that its inserted into..so for exammple, if i had a path shapes life a fish, i want to be able to type the word fish inside this fish shape, and have the word fish become the shape of a fish ???

yikes....

[Eric_Schwartz@adobeforums.com]

Not sure about older versions, but if you have CS, just select the text, choose Effect > Warp > Fish. Click the Preview checkbox to see your results as you play with the settings.

Use the "Appearance" palette to delete or change the effect later.

You may also experiment with Envelopes (search the Help for more details) if you want to do more custom effects. But depending on the version of Illustrator and what you want to do, sometimes the text has to be converted to outlines and treated as a shape before you can apply certain effects.

[Harron_K._Appleman@adobeforums.com]

Mr.,

Try the envelope distort tool (distort with top object).

I think this was introduced with IL 10, so if you have an earlier version, this will not help you.

=-= Harron =-=

[mrharris2000@adobeforums.com]

thanks so much for your help

[Chuck_McCollum@adobeforums.com]

Is there any way to do this with text in version 7.0 ?

Chuck McCollum

[Chuck_McCollum@adobeforums.com]

Is there any way to do this with text in version 7.0 ?
(Sorry for the repeat--I forgot to click the "email" box previoulsy)

Chuck McCollum

[Harron_K._Appleman@adobeforums.com]

Not very easily, Chuck.

I think you're looking at a laborious process that starts with converting the text to outlines, then editing the individual paths with IL's bezier tools.

=-= Harron =-=

[Chuck_McCollum@adobeforums.com]

That's a shame. Thanks.

Corel users you can do this quite easily, even in the older versions(I use version 8.0) and then export it as an *.ai file. That's what I'll have to do...

Chuck

[Timothy_Foolery®@adobeforums.com]

Yes, but with Corel only the PostScript fairies know what the output will be...

[Chuck_McCollum@adobeforums.com]

Good point! I have no problem if I convert the text to curves (outlines) first.

Thanks,

Chuck