cs2 outline for cut path

[spudcity]

I have a line of text that has a stroke with 10 weight. When I add the stroke, the letters run together. When I add the cut line, the cutlines also overlap (of course). By screwing around on my own I was able to get them to blend (don't remember how), but I lost the stroke color and was only left with the cut paths and the fill color when I brought it into Versaworks. How do I get the cut path and text to work together?

I realize that there have been several similar posts on this, but they don't seem to work for me. CS2 does not have a weld feature.

Also, is there any way to change the spacing between letters?

 

[Rick]

Try "object"> "expand" to vector the stroke, copy and paste, ungroup, then go to pathfinder

To Weld... go to "window">"pathfinder"...ooops, don;t forget to hit "expand" after you unite (weld)

 

[GK]

In Illustrator its not called weld, there are several pathfinder tools that you will have at your disposal, you want to look for Add or Merge in this case. Here is a nice little tutorial to bookmark that explains them in detail.

 

[spudcity]

ok, that works pretty close to what I am looking for. however now the letters are connected, what I am looking for is to just put a cut path around the outside of the letters that are connected without actually making them blend together like the star and box in the tutorial. so, the star would stay orange and the box would stay grey and the cut path would go around the outside of both. As you can see with the AAA logo the yellow blends together when they are expanded. The AAA on the left is what I want it to look like

as you can see on the smaller text the letters are touching. I want to get the cut path around them and was hoping there was a faster way than using the pen tool.

 

[Mainframe]

Create outlines of your text
select all-copy
select all--object-hide selection
edit-past in front
select all-object-path-outline stroke
select all-pathfinder-merge
view-outline mode
direct select tool (has a + sign)
now select the outer most line of the text
hold the shift key while you do this
when you get them all selected stroke with
cutpath 0.25-object hide
select all and delete what is left
object show all
there is your outline cut path
if you ever want to cut the inside of the “A”
you also have to select it when you are using the direct select tool
This is one way to do this-hope it helps