How do you convert image to "outline" 1

[JGRECBETS]

Hey,

Im getting the inside of my office lettered, and the sign company needs my logo converted to "outline" in adobe illustrator eps format. Does anyone know what they mean by converted to outline?

 

[Foamcow]

Any text must be converted to outlines rather than being text as such.

Select your text, then under the Type menu, select "Create Outlines".

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[blueark]

To select all the text in the document, go to Select > Object > Text Objects. You can also just do Select > All. Either way, Text > Create Outlines will still work.

Afterwards, go to Type > Find Font. If the top portion of the dialog box (Fonts in Document) is blank, then you're done. Otherwise, you've missed a few text objects. There are two main reasons for this:

1: Create Outlines only works on selected objects, and you can't select objects that are locked. Try Object > Unlock All (if it's grayed out, don't worry about it). Also, open the Layers palette (Window > Layers) and make sure that none of the layers are locked.

2: There may be some "empty" text objects. This happens if someone clicks somewhere with the text tool, but doesn't type anything. Although there's nothing there, the software your sign company is using might still register it as a font. Go to Select > Object > Stray Points, then delete.

 

[JGRECBETS]

ok thanks guys. It let me use that option for letters, but not for the logo. IS this ok? Im assuming the logo wouldnt need to be outlined. They just told me they want it vectorized. First of all, what does that mean, and secondly, how do i do it? thanks

 

[blueark]

Usually that's ok, because it's the fonts that often cause problems, especially if the people you're sending it to don't have the same fonts as you. Converting them to outlines guarantees that they'll print the same.

As for the logo, is it a scan, screen grab, photo or saved from a web page? If so, then it's a raster graphic. Although they can be placed in Illustrator, they can't be manipulated in the same way as shapes drawn using Illustrator's tools. Shapes drawn in this way are called vector graphics. Although it's easy to convert a vector graphic to raster, it's not so easy to do the other way around. Most printers will still be able to print the raster images, but sometimes it's not suitable. I'd imagine that the machinery used in many sign writing companies would require vector art.

There are third party tools that can do this conversion for you (Streamline, Sillouette, etc), but the results usually need a bit of work. Personally, I haven't used any of these programs in years, prefering to use Illustrator's drawing tools to manually trace over the image. Once it's done, just hide or delete the raster image underneath.