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Ellie VdB
Participant
May 20, 2025
Answered

Gradients on fonts in illustrator

  • May 20, 2025
  • 2 replies
  • 873 views

Why is creating gradients on editable fonts so hard? Why is it different then adding a gradient color to a shape? There is no good reason to make it this complicated. It is everything but intuitive or handy to use. It should work exactly the same as with shapes to optimize workflow. All the extra steps via the appearance panel, just make it inconvenient and annoying. Its also not possible to manually adjust the angle of a gradient on the stroke of an editable type. Even when you change it to outlines, its still not possible to use the gradient tool to adjust the angle easily. why why why is this so counter-intuitive ? 

Correct answer Bobby Henderson

I would suggest making a feature request at the Illustrator User Voice forum:
https://illustrator.uservoice.com/

 

Developers read the bug reports and feature requests at that forum more often than the Adobe Community Forums. BTW, I agree it's cumbersome to have to use various steps in the Appearance panel to apply fills to live type objects. Some neat things can be done to objects using the Appearance panel. But users should have the option to simply select live letters and apply a fill to them directly with one click.

2 replies

Brad @ Roaring Mouse
Community Expert
Brad @ Roaring MouseCommunity Expert
Community Expert
May 20, 2025

"Why is creating gradients on editable fonts so hard? "

"It should work exactly the same as with shapes"

It can't. Fonts in vector files are rendered at the output device, so there are no shapes to apply the gradient to yet.

Yes, there are ways to add gradients to editable text using the Appearance panel (a simple google search will show you many videos demonstrating various ways), but they work in an entirely different way out of necessity, by adding an "effect" overlay that will be rendered at the output device AFTER the fonts are rendered in the output device. These can only be applied to the entire text object, and not individual letters. One has to convert text to outlines to treat them like other vector shapes.

 

    Kurt Gold
    Community Expert
    Kurt GoldCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    May 20, 2025

    The request is probably just about making the gradient colouring process easier (or more obvious). No matter what technical conditions there are.

     

    InDesign can handle that for entire text objects pretty well. It can also handle individual characters, but only a section of the entire gradient swatch will then be displayed and it's fault-prone when converting the type objects to paths. So, basically gradient fills for type objects are not better in InDesign, but easier to apply.

      B
      Community Expert
      Bobby HendersonCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
      Community Expert
      May 20, 2025

      I would suggest making a feature request at the Illustrator User Voice forum:
      https://illustrator.uservoice.com/

       

      Developers read the bug reports and feature requests at that forum more often than the Adobe Community Forums. BTW, I agree it's cumbersome to have to use various steps in the Appearance panel to apply fills to live type objects. Some neat things can be done to objects using the Appearance panel. But users should have the option to simply select live letters and apply a fill to them directly with one click.

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      Ellie VdBAuthor
      Participant
      May 20, 2025

      Thanks, that's helpfull 

       

      And i agree with you, keep it simple for the basics, the adjustments can perfectly appear in the appearance panel too for extra manipulation or layering of effects. but the basics should be fast and easy imho. Now i have to find a youtube video every time i want to do a gradient on type because i forgot how to do it again... SO annoying and time consuming.

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