When you apply a Gradient Fill to text, nothing seems to happen. It’s still black text, yet in the Swatches palette, the Color palette, and the Tools palette, the Fill is showing as a Gradient. Is this a bug? No! ‘You can’t fill editable text with a Gradient in Illustrator. You have to outline the text (making it un-editable) before filling it with a Gradient.” I’ve heard this statement of fact over and over again, even from experts.” Guess what, IT’S NOT TRUE.
Type some bold, san serif text and make it big (72 points or more). Click on a Gradient Swatch and it won’t apply, even though it shows the Fill as a Gradient in various palettes. Now the secret! Select the type with the Selection tool. And go to the Effect menu > Path > Outline Object, which applies the EFFECT of Outlined Text without actually outlining the text. Now Fill this ‘live” text with a Gradient. It works! And, if you need to, you can still edit the text because it’s not really Outlined.
Tip provided by Jeff Witchel, Certified Adobe® Training Provider.
Author: jeff witchel
Jeff Witchel graduated from Pratt Institute in 1973 with a B.F.A. (Cum Laude) in Advertising Design and Visual Communications. He has been an award-winning advertising art director, writer, designer, illustrator, and TV producer ever since.
Before starting his own advertising agency in New Jersey, Jeff built his career at top New York ad agencies such as Young & Rubicam, Grey Advertising, and Wells, Rich, Greene. Over the years, he has created award-winning work for many clients including AT&T, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Jell-O Pudding, The Plaza Hotel, and Pfizer. His many prestigious awards include N.Y. Art Directors Club Gold Award, One Show Gold Award, N.J. Art Directors Club Award, multiple Andy Awards, Graphis Annual, numerous readership awards, plus an Emmy Award nomination.
Jeff is a self-taught computer artist with over 19 years of experience. His initial introduction to the computer was with PageMaker, but he switched to Quark 1.0 when it was first introduced in 1987. Having arrived on the desktop publishing scene so early, Jeff became the “go to” guy for answers when others started getting into computer graphics.
As an Adobe Certified Expert, he’s provided online support for Adobe and is now an Adobe Certified Training Provider for both Adobe Illustrator CS2 and Adobe InDesign CS2. Jeff is one of just a handful of Adobe Certified Instructors in the New York metropolitan area. He also is a Quark Certified Expert in QuarkXPress 6 as well as a master of Adobe Photoshop and related applications. He counts among his training clients ad agencies, design studios, magazines, illustrators, and photographers in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland.
