Break Paragraph/Sentence/Word Apart to Separate Editable Type Pieces
Phil Jaeger
I'm wondering if this is possible in Illustrator.
I have a paragraph with 8 lines. I need to break up the paragraph into 8 separate type (not paths/curves)editable lines.
Also, I have a line with 12 words. I need to break up the line into 12 separate type editable words.
Thanks for your help,
Phil
BobHill
Bob
Teri Pettit
If you need to do this automatically to pre-existing type objects, and you need to preserve your line placement exactly (which is a little hard to do by retyping each line), you can do it by going through AI 88 format, since text blocks and kerning were not supported until AI 3.
It will, however require access to a copy of Illustrator 7 or earlier to do it, because saving back to Illustrator 88 format was dropped in AI 8.
Everywhere you need to create separate type objects in the middle of a line, add a miniscule amount of kerning, like 1 or -1. (Kerning is expressed in units which are 1/1000's of a space width, so a kerning of 1 or -1 will not move the text perceptibly.) Alternatively, you can change the color of the words, because AI 88 also supported only one paint style per text object. Recoloring will exactly preserve the spacing, but will require restoring the original text color after the conversion. So personally I would go with the miniscule kerning. It is not necessary to do anything at the ends of lines; they will get broken into separate objects automatically.
Save a copy of the file back to Illustrator 7 or earlier format. (At least as early as the version of Illustrator you are going to open the file with.)
Open the file in that earlier version of Illustrator.
Save back to Illustrator 88 format.
Open the AI 88 file in your current version of Illustrator.
If there were other objects in the file besides the text that got converted too severely by saving back to AI 88 (e.g., all layers will be lost), then select just your text objects, copy them, and paste them into the original document in place of the original text. (Paste in Front or Paste in Back to preserve the position on the page.)
Phil Jaeger
The ideas are incredible workarounds. Thank you for taking your time to explain them.
Actually, Coreldraw already has the ability to breakup paragraphs to (editable) lines, lines to words & words to letters. I'm most likely going to just stay with Coreldraw for this feature.
Phil
BobHill
Bob
col...@metalunlimited.com
j...@traderev.com
Pixel Pixel
> there were a few functional features in CorelDRAW that will be forever missed. this was one of them. why adobe doesn't include these types of obvious features is beyond me... priorities i guess...
Chiedozie Okafor
This may not be the case. But if by any chance you are copying the lines of text from from another software like Microsoft Excel, for example, you may just select and copy the lines of text you wish to break, open up illustrator and just paste.
When you look inside the layer panel. You will see it all separated.
Again, you may not be copying from another software but just incase you are, then try the above step.
I needed the same help and that's how I solved it.
Miriam Hürzeler
I had the same problem and found an easy solution: Just save a copy of the Illustrator Document as SVG and the lines will be automatically separated. Then just open the SVG in Illustrator and paste your text objects back into the original or save the SVG back to Illustrator. Magic!
MiTV Mediapundit
> Hi Everybody,
>
> I had the same problem and found an easy solution: Just save a copy of the Illustrator Document as SVG and the lines will be automatically separated. Then just open the SVG in Illustrator and paste your text objects back into the original or save the SVG back to Illustrator. Magic!
Kushal Joshi
> Hi Everybody,
>
> I had the same problem and found an easy solution: Just save a copy of the Illustrator Document as SVG and the lines will be automatically separated. Then just open the SVG in Illustrator and paste your text objects back into the original or save the SVG back to Illustrator. Magic!
Nabila Afif
> Hi Everybody,
>
> I had the same problem and found an easy solution: Just save a copy of the Illustrator Document as SVG and the lines will be automatically separated. Then just open the SVG in Illustrator and paste your text objects back into the original or save the SVG back to Illustrator. Magic!
Rob S
Just to say that we are in 2021 (December) and still have no way to do what you want in Illustrator.
CorelDraw just does it like magic, it's super helpful.
Anyway, I'm still looking...
Rob S
Christopher Welte
> Hi Everybody,
>
> I had the same problem and found an easy solution: Just save a copy of the Illustrator Document as SVG and the lines will be automatically separated. Then just open the SVG in Illustrator and paste your text objects back into the original or save the SVG back to Illustrator. Magic!
Jannike Ferreira
Wish AI would look at some of their functionality - honestly. I also miss document colour palette on CDR!!!
Joana Cavadas
> Hi Everybody,
>
> I had the same problem and found an easy solution: Just save a copy of the Illustrator Document as SVG and the lines will be automatically separated. Then just open the SVG in Illustrator and paste your text objects back into the original or save the SVG back to Illustrator. Magic!
