How to invert font color relative to background?

[wimvandijck]

Hi gurus,

I have an object which is basically a sunburst, in black and white. On top of that I want some text to be displayed, but where the background is black, I want the text to be white, and vice versa. How should I go about doing this?

Please be gentle, it's a learning experience

I've been searching for a couple of hours to no avail. Is this that complicated to do?

Kindest regards,

Wim

[Jacob Bugge · Accepted solution]

Wim,

You may outline the Type, tick Use Even - Odd Fill Rule, select everything, and Object>Compound Path>Make (white becomes transparent).

[wimvandijck]

Hey Jacob,

thanks for your answer.

Alas, I can't outline the text... The "create outlines" is greyed out. When I click on "Use Even-Odd Fill Rule", it immediately jumps back to "Use Non-Zero Winding Fill Rule" and I can't create a Compound Path because (I presume) the text is still tekt and not a path?

[wimvandijck]

ok.

sorry

I didn't have the Select tool selected

I can outline the font, Use the Even-Odd Fill Rule, but when I make the Compound Path, what happens is the inverse of what I want.

The text stays black over the black part, and becomes transparent over the white part...

(so it basically becomes invisible... )

[Jacob Bugge]

Wim,

Edited out, crossposting.

Pondering.

[wimvandijck]

Jacob,

The text has a lot of anchor points, and the Layers panel says it's a compound path.

[Jacob Bugge]

Wim,

It should say that, so that is not the issue.

Still pondering, a quarter till midnight here; I believe it is the same with you.

[wimvandijck]

yes, it is the same here

Here's a screenshot (hope it's ok to post that)

So what I want is, (of course the text would be lower, I put it higher up for clarity), that the letters show as white over the black rays, and stay black over the white part.

[Jacob Bugge]

Wim,

Can you post one with the rays also selected?

[wimvandijck]

The rays are a group.

Also it's on a different layer.

There are separate triangles. (there's another piece of text there, that I want to give the same treatment)

[wimvandijck]

Also, the rays are in a different layer than the text, not sure if that is relevant?

[wimvandijck]

Ah, yes, that was it!

I put the text in the same layer, did Make Compound Path again, and I got what I want...

Many thanks!!

I've been struggling with this for hours!

[Jacob Bugge]

You are welcome, Wim.

The groups being in separate layers should not cause it, but there must be something changed for the better.

We made it today.

[Alexander Oros]

I'm so confused on this. You said "you may outline the type, tick Use Even - Odd Fill Rule,..." but where can i find this? I've been struggling to look for this in adobe D:

[Larry G. Schneider]

It's in the Attributes panel. 

[Alexander Oros]

Thanks for this, but if it's not any trouble could you direct me to that panel? I'm completely 100% new to this software and need some help with navigating to that attributes panel. 

[Alexander Oros]

Nevermind, I actually found the attributes panel but when I click the Even-Odd fill rule it clicks back. Something is wrong where the software doesn't like what I'm doing and I can't enable the rule.

[Monika Gause]

Please show the contents of the layer in the layer panel.

[Alexander Oros]