Expand Background Fill of Text Box

[ryanko]

Hey all, 
I'm having some trouble expanding (converting to shape) the background fill of an area type textbox. 

My text color is white within a black block. I used the direct selection tool to pick a corner of the area type. This allows you to change the background with the area to a color (black). Looks good, but I need to ouline fonts. When I expand the area type into shapes, it drops the black background color leaving me with only the white text. You'd think it's convert the black area to a black shape, and then have white type shapes on top, but it's just gone.

Any ideas how to preserve the black? I know you can have a black shape and text on separate layers, but that's more work for what I need to do. Thanks for any help! 

[tromboniator]

The area type textbox only exists as part of a type object. As soon as the object is converted to paths it is no longer a type object, and the textbox ceases to exist. Two options that I can think of are, first, as you suggest, to draw a rectangle and set it behind the (former) type or, second, to go to the Appearance panel, add a fill to the grouped letter shapes, move the new fill behind the Contents, and apply Effect > Convert to Shape > Rectangle, and set the parameters.

Peter