Adobe Illustrator CS4 - Manual (Page 300)

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Chapter 10: Type
Among the most powerful aspects of Adobe Illustrator are its type features. You can add a single line of type to your
artwork, create columns and rows of text, flow text into a shape or along a path, and work with letterforms as graphic
objects. The fonts you choose and the settings you select in Illustrator for leading, kerning, and spacing before and after
paragraphs are examples of decisions you can make about the appearance of the text in your artwork.
You can create type by using one of three methods: Point type begins where you click and expands in a horizontal or
vertical line as you enter characters. Area type (also called paragraph type) uses the boundaries of an object to control
the flow of characters. Type on a path flows along the edge of an open or closed path.
Importing text
You can import text into your artwork from a file that was created in another application. Illustrator supports the
following formats for importing text:
• Microsoft® Word for Windows 97, 98, 2000, 2002, 2003, and 2007
• Microsoft Word for Mac OS X, 2004, and 2008
• RTF (Rich Text Format)
• Plain text (ASCII) with ANSI, Unicode, Shift JIS, GB2312, Chinese Big 5, Cyrillic, GB18030, Greek, Turkish, Baltic,
and Central European encoding
One advantage of importing text from a file, rather than copying and pasting it, is that imported text retains its
character and paragraph formatting. For example, text from an RTF file retains its font and style specifications in
Illustrator. You can also set encoding and formatting options when importing text from a plain text file.
Important: When importing text from Microsoft Word and RTF files, make sure that the fonts used in the file are
available on your system. Missing fonts and font styles—including fonts that have the same name but different formats
(Type 1, TrueType, or CID)—may cause unexpected results. On Japanese systems, differences in character sets may
prevent text that was entered in Windows from appearing on-screen in Mac OS.
Import text into a new file
1 Choose File > Open.
2 Select the text file you want to open, and click Open.
Import text into an existing file
1 Choose File > Place. Select the text file you want to import, and click Place.
2 If you are placing a plain text (.txt) file, do the following, and then click OK:
• Specify the character set and platform that were used to create the file.
• Select an Extra Carriage Returns option to determine how Illustrator processes extra carriage returns in the file.
• Select the Extra Spaces option if you want Illustrator to replace strings of spaces in the file with tabs. Enter the
number of spaces to be replaced by a tab.