Quick Tip: Convert Photoshop Text to Vector for Use in Illustrator

Quick Tip: Convert Photoshop Text to Vector for Use in Illustrator

on Sep 23rd 2010 with 60 comments
Tutorial Details
  • Difficulty: Beginner
  • Program: Adobe Photoshop CS4+
  • Estimated Completion Time: 3 Minutes
Download Source Files

Recently I found myself needing to convert some text created in Photoshop to a vector in Illustrator (without reformatting all the text). After some research via Google, Twitter, and asking around, no one seemed to have a sure-fire solution. I called a fellow designer and we bounced ideas off each other until we found a solution that worked in just a few simple steps.

Step 1

Open Photoshop file containing the text you’d like to be vectorized. It’s not necessary to have the text as the only layer in the file, just make sure the text layer is selected.

Converting Photoshop text to vector for use in Illustrator

Step 2

Create a Work Path from the text. Layer > Type > Create Work Path. You’ll see a change in the appearance of the text after creating the Work Path.

Converting Photoshop text to vector for use in Illustrator
Converting Photoshop text to vector for use in Illustrator

Step 3

While the Work Path is selected, go under File > Export > Paths to Illustrator and save the file.

Converting Photoshop text to vector for use in Illustrator

Step 4

Open the saved file in Illustrator, and change the color mode to RGB, it defaults to CMYK. (File > Document Color Mode > RGB Color)

Converting Photoshop text to vector for use in Illustrator

Step 5

Select path and fill with colour, it defaults to no fill and no stroke.

Converting Photoshop text to vector for use in Illustrator
Converting Photoshop text to vector for use in Illustrator

Conclusion

Although the text is not editable, it saves you from having to redo all the formatting within Illustrator!

Tags: Tips
 
Enjoyed this Post?

Subscribe to our RSS Feed, Follow us on Twitter or simply recommend us to friends and colleagues!

By

Rollover to read this author's bio or click through to see a full list of posts by this author.

I’m a freelance web designer from Toronto, apple aficionado, pretend fashion designer, and I think spreadsheets are awesome.  

Plus Premium
 
 
  • http://www.vektorgarten.de Monika Gause

    You could place (embed) the PSD-file with live text in Illustrator, convert layers to objects and the text keeps its formatting. Or you could copy and paste the paths from Photoshop to Illustrator.

    • Luis

      Cool!

      Monikas solution works nicely.Thanks!
      Just so you know, before you try Placing the file in Illustrator to no avail, In CS4 you don’t Place the file, you simply Open the file like you do with regular Illustrator files. Then make sure you select Convert Layers to Objects.

      Thanks again!

    • Jena

      Love this tip! Monika’s I prefer! thanks

  • http://www.kisanbhat.com Kisan

    That was a short and crisp quick tip.
    There are so many commands which I have not used.
    Time to start working on all the commands

  • http://pica-ae.deviantart.com pica-ae

    why not just start in illustrator? :P

    well, to be fair: converting text into vector shapes in ps can be helpful, when you hand the file to someone else who may not have the font and has to scale the text :)
    at least it wont get pixelled then

    • http://www.elimcmakin.com Eli McMakin

      If you go through design school, you will run into the problem of converting raster into vector. This is a good tip and one which I wish I knew when going through design school.

      Of course, there are multiple ways to accomplish this task.

      • Haruspex

        Except that this tip doesn’t convert anything at all. The text is already vector.

  • http://adrianchiran.com Adrian

    Nice tip! thanks :)

  • http://www.vektorgarten.de Monika Gause

    To solve the initial problem, you could just place the PSD-file in Illustrator, embed it and convert layers to objects. Text keeps its formatting. You could also just copy the paths from Photoshop to Illustrator, which would be faster than first exporting them.

  • mark

    Couldn’t you just highlight the text inside of Photoshop, copy it and paste it into Illustrator. I just tried it multiple times with formatted text and the text pasted in live and retained the formatting. I even tried it with the source files and it worked. I was thinking that maybe Photoshop single click and click and drag text boxes would react differently but I got the same result. All I did was double click on the text layer, copy, and paste in an Illustrator doc. Maybe I’m misunderstanding the initial problem.

    • Litvi

      Even easier. Just drag and drop from the Ps window into the Ai window. Formatting & all are retained.

  • http://marioxiao.com Mario Xiao

    Very useful tips! Thank you for sharing

  • http://cajudesigner.blogspot.com Caju

    Or….. you can simply type it directly on Illustrator…tada!

    • http://isis-m.deviantart.com Isis

      I had the same brilliant idea, haha!
      People doesn’t think easy sometimes…

      =)

  • http://creativedonline.com loswl

    Quick and useful, I likes a lot! :)

  • earthrokk

    I will one up your tip. To place editable text from photoshop to illustrator with almost all elements identical, just set up your file with the text in place and at target resolution for output. Next, ensure that no layer styles are on the desired text. Save a copy of the file on the desktop or somewhere safe. Drag that Photoshop file to Illustrator and choose the editable option from the popup window.

    Not only do you get editable text, if you set your files at the target output settings, your new copy should just fall into place. This is a common keyline technique I use to convert photoshop layouts to illustrator keylines for press.

    Hope this helps!

  • http://www.peewee1002.co.uk Peter Sawyer

    Very close to the technique I use to get special designed text into Cinema 4D.

  • http://www.novastyle.org Jillian

    this one is usueful i learned this recently and it has really helped me… especially since I enjoy working with both programs

  • http://myscatteredmarbles.blogspot.com Scattered Marbles

    I usually just save it as a PNG then bring it up in illustrator and trace then expand it which has worked great for me

  • http://www.shaneparkerphoto.com Shane Parker

    This is a very odd tip. The quickest/easiest way to do this is to simply copy/paste directly from PS to AI and then do whatever you want with the text in AI. There’s no need to convert to paths and do all the export/import stuff. Unless I’m missing something, this is a long way around and a very useless tip.

    • http://swastiksolutions.in Hiren Khambhayta

      Yah Shane Parker, I agree with you. All this is outdated tricks.

      • http://www.kbarlowdesign.com kathryn barlow

        I’d received a ton of Photoshop files from a client that had a lot of specially kerned/sized text and I needed to convert them to vector for use in Flash. It would have taken hours to copy and paste all the text and redo it all in Illustrator, this made it a lot faster to simply use the paths.

      • neil

        I agree with kathryn… you and Shane are missing something… all the formatting.

      • http://polyendo.com Kevin

        pwned.

  • http://www.designioustimes.com Doink

    This is a really neat trick! I saw some comments bashing the article, so I’m gonna create a particular case out of this:

    If you want to import this text and maintain its exact size, what then? You’ll just remove that trial-and-error resizing in illustrator and just place it wherever you want it to be. Simple as that.

    Also keep in mind that in Photoshop, types are customizable, such as adjusting the distance between the letters, height, width, thickness etc. An example would be a type logo, such as FedEx. You can actually recreate that by preserving the type format.

    I like this tip, i didn’t know Photoshop can do that. :)

    • http://www.graphicbeacon.com graphicbeacon

      although other suggestions have been put across already, I still am glad that i found this out because i never knew this was possible.

  • Bram

    Just a fancy way of copying paths over to illustrator. Not sure what the problem is or was?

    • neil

      Not a problem, just an explanation of a procedure. In other words, a tutorial.

  • http://www.cruzine.com oliver

    NIce photoshop tip. Also used way that i save text to png in photoshop and then trace bitmap in illustrator :) But this tip is better, thanks :)

    Out and Out explication of Refine Edging in CS5 – http://www.cruzine.com/2010/06/30/refine-edge-adobe-photoshop-cs5/

  • http://www.dzinepress.com Dzinepress

    useful tips you sharing. thanks

  • http://www.psd-dude.com PsdDude

    nice tip thanks!

  • Forbs

    Thanks a lot for this quick tip!

  • http://www.nakulanand.com/ Web Designer Gurgaon

    Nice tip thank u very much

  • http://www.17ps8.com peter

    useful tip

  • Shay Mehan

    Yes this is the way it had to be done in versions CS3 and older now you can copy and paste as everyone else has commented. However, I had forgotten how to do it this way and I am glad you reminded me. There was a reason I needed this technique a few weeks ago and didnt have it. Thanks for the post!
    Shay-just a self taught info hungry designer

  • http://www.wix.com/marktiu2006/designer MarkTiu

    thank for this tutorial. helps me a lot.,.,.,.,

  • goof

    nice idea…
    you could also import it in inkscape (opensource) and use the bitmap > vector action to vectorize it.
    by the way inkscape is a great tool.

  • neil

    Good tip. Not sure why those who do it differently or don’t do it feel the need to chime in with such negativity.

    The fault is with Adobe Suite. You’d think by now Adobe would let the two programs play better together. The longer they twiddle their thumbs, the easier it is for a better program that does all their tricks in one tidy package to slide in and take over. I welcome the better program. Please.

  • http://www.villaoptik.ch Winkelfehlsichtigkeit

    Sweet trick. However, I will see if the quality of the end result is better then just importing it directly and making a live trace of it in illustrator.

  • http://www.psdstyle.net Chuckles

    Great tip. Easy? Yes. But that’s not the point. It’s useful and can go a long way in working with both programs.

  • Carlyle Webb

    For some reason, the top layer of text (BUT I WANTED TO BE) is not coming over to Illustrator. Each time I try only the lower text (VECTOR) appears. Can someone please explain what I’m doing wrong? Do the layers need to be merged first?

    • http://www.narendrakeshkar.com Narendra Keshkar

      Check the overall method carefully, be sure that you’ve made the selection of top layer and then created path to export to illustrator. It sounds some selection error. Also make sure you’ve switched the selection mode to layer rather than group.

  • Ryan

    Why not just do everything in Illustrator? Type the text, then convert it to paths (Type–>Create Outlines). I don’t get the benefit of this. Seriously if someone can tell me I would like to know

    • http://www.narendrakeshkar.com Narendra Keshkar

      When you create an artwork needing a lot of use of type then it’s easy to type it on photoshop rather than each time type on illustrator and paste on photoshop. It consumes more time as well consume more resources of pc. Also while designing in photoshop you need to change size, shape of type many times then it is easy to change it in photoshop rather than importing from illustrator. That’s why you need to work on type in photoshop.

      Now sometimes you need to rasterize type and resize it again and again which lowers its quality and hence you need to replace it with high quality text with same properties. In this case you can just export text path on illustrator and import it to photoshop and can get high resolution version of text of same properties. It’s quite time consuming to go to illustrator and reproduce text of same property whose exact value you don’t know because you’ve rasterized it before.

      • typejunkie

        @Ryan, this type of thing would be used if you’re being given a bunch of files where the artwork has already been done in photoshop

  • http://www.narendrakeshkar.com Narendra Keshkar

    Already know this method but yes of course this method is very effective then any other way.

  • Henno

    I wonder, that no one mentioned the loss of quality.
    If you bought a well made font, the original paths are positioned carefully.
    When you go for simple text, it might be ok to use this techniqe, but when it comes to logotypes I would never let photoshop guess the path.
    It is like sketching the logo in some way.

  • http://www.paolalozano.com.mx Paola Lozano

    Thanks, I’ll recommend this post on my blog

  • geco

    You can do this with any artwork if you have good resolution, using magic tool.

  • Chandra

    Type some thing in photoshp (it works for wrap effects for text like bulge, flag etc in photoshop) Save in to photoshop eps format (settings: Preview: Tiff 8bits/pixel Encoding: Binary) and check the box include vector data then place in illustrator. While placing the photoshop eps file, don’t use link option or embed the file in links Palette sub menu. All text & text wrap shaps convert in to vector format. Of course we need to do some work later in illustrator to re shape the text. it works in older versions like illustrator 8. Sorry for the english :
    –))

  • Chandra

    Sorry I forgot one thing. The above info for old version photoshop

  • Julian Alvarez

    I like this I believe this will work for my issue! So now if I take this vector after i import into illustrator, can I then save it as an eps. Format and import it into coral draw, and manipulate it from coral if I need to add corrections or see a different color on the font? Also what if I customize a font in photoshop, say I am erasing some of the text to give it a grungy look, in order to do that I need to rasterize that layer, how can I then create that into a vector?

    The reason I ask this, is because I have been stuck with the issue of creating a t-shirt print design in photoshop(because I like photoshop, it allows me to manipulate the text, photos, and use paint brushes). I can separate colors and whatnot In photoshop CS5, but my friends main computer that prints the film(or whatever he uses to put on screens) uses coral draw, so when I give the files of what I do, it doesnt allow him to manipulate it like a vector. If you could help me out with some suggestions that would be appreciated! Thanks for the help so far with the text!

  • shah faisal

    nice dude bt can you pls tell me why it’s not working?? when i do rasterize the text layer

  • http://www.photoshopytutoriales.com Walter

    I can not see the images, It is only me or any one else?

  • Larry

    Sorry if this was already covered, but when I use this method on say, a letter A, and do a fill in illustrator, it also fills in the open space in the A as well. How do I resolve this?

  • http://www.buzzinn.net user

    just what I was searching for… thank you! ;)

  • Jackson

    Hi All,

    Sorry for this slightly off subject query, I received a jpeg file of ancient Sanskrit text as an image file and need to make it into a vector file to then be cut as a stencil. Can I copy the jpeg file in Photoshop and then paste it into Illustrator and simple save it as a Illustrator EPS? I assume it can’t be that easy. Any suggestions on workflow would be greatly appreciated.

    Thanks,
    Jackson

  • http://www.alexgarvin.deviantart.com _garvin

    This was a lifesaver for me. I learned this in school, but wasn’t sure if it would help with the task i’m trying to complete. It definitely did!

  • http://juanpablolaco.blogspot.com Juampi

    Gracias! Thank you!!!

  • http://psdreview.com/ Mian Haider

    Vector have more advantages and combined with photoshop is always the best bet. Thanks a lot for this guide.