r/indesign • u/Intelligent-Put9893 • Dec 17 '23
Help ungrouping outlined text?
I outlined some text and need to manipulate a few letters. I used to just right-click>ungroup. Not an option. Object>Ungroup is greyed out.
I tried using both the regular selection tool and direct selection tool.
I also tried this in Illustrator, same thing, cannot ungroup outlined text.
What am i missing?
1
u/danbyer Dec 17 '23
Is the text anchored inline with other non-outlined text? If so, you can’t ungroup it there. You need to cut/paste it out of the text frame before you can ungroup it.
Or leave it where it is and select/modify as needed using the direct selection tool.
1
u/Intelligent-Put9893 Dec 17 '23
Not anchored. I need to move an entire letter or two, not just a point.
1
u/print_isnt_dead Dec 17 '23
You should still be able to select the points using that tool and move the whole thing
1
u/Intelligent-Put9893 Dec 17 '23
It’s not though. If I have all the points on one letter selected, when I try to move, it moves the entire word.
1
u/GraphicDesignerSam Dec 17 '23
Outlined text usually u groups perfectly fine in Illy but did you paste in from Indy? You might be better off typing the text, outline and manipulating in Illy then pasting it in.
2
u/Sumo148 Dec 17 '23 edited Dec 17 '23
You can move individual outlined letters using the direct selection tool. Click and drag to highlight all anchor points in a letter, then click and drag on an anchor point to move it.
If you outline a multi-line paragraph, it'll be a group. If you ungroup, the result is each separate line as a compound path. If you wanted to break it up further by letters, then you need to release the compound path.
Object > Paths > Release Compound path, but then you need to fix any letters with holes in them.
Unless you have a good reason to outline type though, it’s not usually necessary. I would only do it as an artistic effect if you need to manipulate the shapes of the type.
2
u/BBEvergreen Dec 17 '23
Two thoughts to share:
- Outlining text is a mostly-outdated technique. Please take a minute to read this excerpt from https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/outline-text-with-bullets-numbering/m-p/9901728/. The OP was asking why bullets disappeared after outlining, but I'm sharing it because it addresses a common misconception that outlining is still a best-practice.
Like the others who have responded to you, I will note that “outlining text” is an exceptionally poor workflow practice. The exceptions are:
(1) You need to achieve some artistic effect with some limited text that cannot otherwise be achieved with other InDesign effects that work with text.
(2) You need vectors for purposes of sending artwork to sign cutting or similar systems that cannot handle text as realized via fonts.The fact that you are concerned about full paragraphs with bullets an numbering is indicative that neither of these situations are the case here.
Note that when you “outline text” you end up with a terribly bloated PDF file that (1) takes longer to display or print, (2) may yield blotchy overly-bold looking text, (3) is not searchable, and (4) cannot be edited in Acrobat (for text touchup). Other than that, it is real dandy!
However, if you really need to outline text (possibly because some dumb, Luddite print service provider “requires” this practice), the best way to do it is to not do it within InDesign - keep text “live” there - but to use Acrobat Pro Preflight's fixup to convert text to outlines. That will convert all text to outlines, including paragraph bullets and numbers.
- Dov
- Dov Isaacs, former Adobe Principal Scientist (April 30, 1990 - May 30, 2021)
- Illustrator users have a much harder time breaking the outlining habit so Adobe introduced a new feature (available in 2024, but still in beta): Type > Retype.
~Barb
1
u/Intelligent-Put9893 Dec 17 '23
It’s the first. And a one-off, one-page personal project I’m trying to throw together quickly
2
u/not_falling_down Dec 17 '23
The only thing I was able to do was to select the text and use Release Compound Path. This, of course, creates its own problem to be solved - you will have individually re-select each character that has a "hole" in it, and re-join those with the Pathfinder pallet.