- [Instructor] Another often overlooked use for
art brushes is text along a path.
And you may recall text on a path
from the end of chapter eight of the fundamentals course.
We're seeing a couple of examples right here
and it works just great if you want to keep your text
editable and you want to set it along
a nice, smooth path outline.
But what if you're looking for a more distinctive effect
where the text distorts or bows,
as we're seeing right here,
and you want it to auto-fit the path?
And this is a huge issue.
Art brushes always automatically fit their path outlines,
where text along a path does not.
And so, what I'm going to do in this movie
is show you how we might approach this project
if all we had to work with was text along a path outline
and then in the next movie, we'll see how much smoother
things go if you first convert your text to an art brush.
If you're working along with me, twirl open the
path type layer at the top of the layers panel
and then scroll to the bottom of it and you will find
two items that are, in fact, the text along the path
that you're currently seeing on screen.
Go ahead and turn both of those off
and then turn the four hidden items on.
And they represent two lines of path text,
along with a couple of path outlines
that currently have no fill or stroke.
The easiest way to see those path outlines
is to go to the view menu and choose the outline mode
or you can just press control Y, or command Y on the Mac.
Now notice that we have a couple of path outlines that
have cusp points at their center.
Down here at the bottom of the artwork
and up here at the top.
We're going to start at the bottom so I'll go ahead
and select this type and I'll press control C,
or command C on the Mac, to copy it.
And then, I'll switch to the type tool,
which I can get by pressing the T key.
Now I want to center my type on a path,
so I might figure I need to click
in the center of the path outline like so,
in which case, these days, I end up with some
place holder text, which I'll replace just by pressing
control V, or command V on a Mac.
And I can see that I already have a problem.
The word curiously is too far over to the right
and I've got some overflow text,
as indicated by this little plus sign.
We'll go ahead an press the escape key
in order to escape out of the text entry mode,
and then I'll grab this edge right here
and drag it to the beginning of the path,
and I'll grab this edge and drag it to the end, like so.
And then, just so we can really see what's going on,
I'll press control Y, or command Y on the Mac,
to switch back to the preview mode.
And you can see that we've got a tragic problem right here.
If I click off the text, we've got a big kerning problem,
which we could possibly solve,
but we also have the letters going
in very different directions,
and that's because this point right here is a cusp point,
as opposed to a smooth point.
Now let's see how things work out at the top of the artwork.
I'll just go ahead and press control Y,
or command Y, again in order to switch to the outline mode.
I'll select this text using the black arrow tool
and I'll press control C,
or command C on the Mac, to copy it.
Now, I'll grab my type tool once again
and, this time I've learned my lesson,
so I'll just go ahead and click at the beginning
of the path outline and press control V,
or command V on the Mac, in order to paste that text.
And then I'll press the escape key.
And this edge right here still isn't where it wants to be,
so I'll just go ahead and drag it over a little bit.
Now, the text needs to appear below the path outline,
and so, I'll go up to the type menu,
choose type on a path, and choose type on a path options.
And then, I'll turn on the preview check box
and switch align to path from baseline to ascender,
in order to produce this effect right here.
The text is dipping down below the path outline,
still not really where it wants to be.
So, I'll just go ahead and click okay.
And then, I'll bring up my character panel,
which I can get by pressing control T here on the PC
or command T on the Mac,
and the best way to deal with this problem
is to adjust the baseline shift value.
And I just happen to know it needs to be 6.5 points
in order for everything to work.
And now I'll press control Y, or command Y on the Mac,
to switch back to the preview mode
and I'll zoom in and click off the path outline
and we have, yet another, predictable problem.
And the funny thing about both of these lines of text,
that I hadn't noticed to just now,
is I still have overflow text.
Notice these little red plus signs.
So, what I need to do is select one text object
and then shift click on the other one like so,
bring back my character panel,
and then I'll click in the horizontal scale value here,
and I'll just press the down arrow key
until everything, more or less, fits,
which happens at about 90%.
Not the end of the world
but it definitely takes some extra work.
And if anything, we have bigger problems than ever.
Notice the word for right there.
It's a total mess.
Now, you might think another way to work
would be to select a line of text, like so,
and then go up to the effect menu,
choose warp, and choose arc, for example,
which, if you loaded D keys,
I've given you a shortcut of control shift alt W,
or command shift alt W on the Mac,
the W being for warp.
And you can see that text arc, like so,
and if we want to get it out of the way
of the other text a little bit,
I can reduce the bend value.
And if you don't like that warping option,
you can switch to arch instead,
which will set the characters upright.
But, all that really is is another way
of creating text on a path.
We're not getting any distortion,
we're not getting auto-fitting,
and we don't have a lot of flexibility
in terms of our path shape.
So, here's a better way to work.
I'm just going to cancel out of here
and with this text selected,
I'll bring up the brushes panel,
and then, I'll drag and drop this text
into the brushes panel.
At which point, Illustrator will ask me
what kind of brush I want to create,
the answer is art brush,
and then I'll click okay.
At which point, I'll see that I have a problem.
The text has to first be converted to outlines.
So, this is the downside.
You can't work with editable text.
So, I'll click okay to accept that information,
and then I'll shift click on the other point text
down here, and then I'll convert all this text
to outlines by going to up to the type menu
and choosing the create outlines command.
After all, we already have editable text
in the form of our point type.
I'll shift click on the bottom text to deselect it.
Both lines of text are independent groups,
which will work just fine,
so I'll grab this guy,
drag him and drop him into the brushes panel,
select art brush, click okay.
And now, I'll name this thing different strokes
because that's how the text reads.
I don't need to do anything else, by the way.
I don't even have to change the colorization method
because we're looking for white type.
So I'll click okay.
And now, I'll grab this bottom text
and I'll drag it and drop it into place.
Select art brush, click okay, and I'll call this guy
curiously handcrafted, and again, nothing else
I need to do, so I'll just click okay.
Now, if you take a close look here,
you'll notice that the text appears squished
against the light gray background.
That's because it's auto-fitting.
If I were to expand the width of the panel,
you would see that text expand as well,
and that's what's going to happen,
regardless of the path outline.
And I'll show you exactly how that works
in the very next movie.