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Combine text paths in Illustrator

Participant ,
Jan 29, 2025 Jan 29, 2025

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Many maps I download from ArcGIS have all text labels as individual letters of text instances grouped together to make a word. If i change the font size or scale it can ruin the formatting.

 

I am aware you can copy the text group, click the type tool, make a new text object and paste the text and it will all flow properly together. I also have several scripts downloaded from the web that are supposed to combine the text into one object, but none are working.

 

Is there an easy /automatic fix for this, that will fix every group of text on my map (many hundreds of text labels) into easily editable united text instances?

edit: i addded "text paths.eps". When i tried to add an AI file it gave the error: "The attachment's text paths.ai content type (application/postscript) does not match its file extension and has been removed."  Hopefully eps works

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Feature request , How-to , Performance , Scripting , Third party plugins , Type

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Adobe
Community Expert ,
Jan 29, 2025 Jan 29, 2025

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Can you share a sample map (Illustrator file)?

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Participant ,
Jan 29, 2025 Jan 29, 2025

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Thanks, i was able to upload an eps file

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Enthusiast ,
Jan 29, 2025 Jan 29, 2025

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As far as I can see from your EPS, if this is indeed the case, the texts in it are not made up of individual letters, but are a "Type on Path" object. In this case, you should mass detach the editable text from the vector path. There is an old script by Nathaniel Vaughn KELSO "Detatch Text from Path", I modified it a bit for your case

SergeyOsokin_0-1738207936052.png

 

// Based on Detatch Text from Path by Nathaniel Vaughn KELSO
(function () {
  if (!documents.length) return;

  var sel = app.selection;
  if (!sel.length || sel.typename === "TextRange") return;

  for (i = sel.length - 1; i >= 0; i--)
    if (sel[i].typename === "TextFrame" && sel[i].kind === TextType.PATHTEXT) {
      var currTF = sel[i];
      var newTF = currTF.parent.textFrames.add();

      for (j = 0; j < currTF.lines.length; j++) {
        var frame = currTF.lines[j];
        if (j > 0) newTF.paragraphs.add("");
        frame.duplicate(newTF);
      }

      currTF = currTF.createOutline();
      newTF.top = currTF.top;
      newTF.left = currTF.left;

      currTF.remove();
      newTF.selected = true;
    }
})();

 

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