Editing EPS files

[lmarshall]

I'm brand new to using Illustrator. The company I work for use to have all of their marketing materials made by a local marketing company but now they bought me the software and want me to do the work. The marketing company sent me the files that they created so that I can just make minor changes to the files when the files need updated. However, the files they sent to me were eps files not ai files. When I open these files in Illustrator everything has a path. I know this is a stupid question but, can I edit things such as text in an eps file or should I request the ai files from them?

Any help on this topic is very well appreciated!

 

[signal49]

Sounds like the fonts were converted to outlines. It doesn't matter if you have an ai file or eps file; the font info has been removed and turned into objects/paths so it can't be edited as text any more.

 

[lmarshall]

The local marketing company included a fonts folder when I got the CD from them containing everything. Will this help at all? Also when I try to edit anything everything's path is grouped together. Is there anyway to ungroup everything? There is one Layer then beneath it is Groups and beneath it is several paths to everything (shapes and text).

Does anyone have any advice on what I should do about this? Should I call the company and request the ai file? I was told that with this project we have copyrights to everything.

Thanks!

 

[globetrotter84]

You should call the company and request they send you files where the text has not been changed to outlines. They may have this, otherwise you will have to replace the outlines with textboxes using the appropriate font, size and spacing.

It is slightly unprofessional for the company you worked for not to send you files that are easily editable. However, in saying that, the reason the files are in this format is because it is easier to deal with printers without fonts.

Best of luck.

 

[Eggles]

>>It is slightly unprofessional for the company you worked for not to send you files that are easily editable. <<

It is even more unprofessional to expect someone without any training in AI to be able to undertake this sort of work anyway.

 

[globetrotter84]

agreed.