How to Convert a Text to a Path in MS Expression Blend 2

I want to show you a little trick that a lot of people are not aware of that can really help some of your designs out. I am going to go into my text commands and choose a text block. Now, I am picking text block explicitly because this is the only control that these works with. I am going to choose it, I am going to go ahead and drag it out and I will type some text.

Now with my selection tool, I am going to go with the object menu, go to path and just like I could with the rectangle, I have to convert to path operation. When I choose that on the text, you will notice that my label gets much more smaller and my text now has an outline on it. I am going to use the zoom tool to zoom in so you can see a little bit easier what I am doing here. With the direct selection tool, you will see that I actually got individual points now and I can modify the geometry of each individual letter to do whatever I want. And as these are traditional paths, I could just easily use the pen tool and make whatever modifications I want.

However, just like the divide operation took several paths and created a compound path, the convert to path command here, also creates a compound path So, if I need to pull the letters apart individually, I can do it in one of two ways. I can either go ahead and select each of the points by holding down control and move the letter around individually or I could go up to my object menu, do a path, and release the compound path. However, watch what happens to the E, the O’s, and the D when I do this. When I release the compound path, the inner circle and the outer circle of the O’s as well as the inner portions of the E and the D become separate paths and then become disconnected. So if I were to move those around, the inside and the outside will get separated and it would not look right. If you find yourself in this situation, it is very easily fixed by just selecting both of the pieces with the marquee select or any other selection type you want. Go to your object menu and under path, reestablish or recreate the compound path.

So, just do a make compound path and now the O is back. If it helps, the control eight will also do this operation. So you can just select the control eight and put them back together. So now, each one of my letters will move ahead the way I want and each one is in its own individual path. This is particularly useful if say you want your text to animate in but you do not want to animate as one piece, you can have each letter animate its own way in.


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