Fit text into a box

[bepees]

Hello Community.
I am searching for a way to automatically fit text into a static box in illustrator. ( I run the latest illustrator CC version)
In other words... if i type a name into a box it should automatically resize the text to fit within the box walls either based on height or length.
I have seen a few ways to resize the box to fit around the text but not the other way around.

Maybe there is a plugin or a script that can do this but i have not found any so far. If anyone know how to do it i would be tremendously grateful
if they would share this secret

Best regards
Bepees

 

[Adam Vreeke]

There is no way that I know of to do it automatically by height. For length, hit your "t" button to get your type tool, click+drag release for text box. Type what you want, highlight text, and go to Type > Fit headline. This will stretch the type evenly across the text box; however if you resize the box you will need to redo the fit headline part.

 

[Marie]

You could try it this way - but the text will no longer be "live". Type the wording. Then draw a box the size you need. Select both (with the box being on top of the text). Then Object - Envelope Distort - Make with top object.

 

[Bobby H]

I am searching for a way to automatically fit text into a static box in illustrator. ( I run the latest illustrator CC version)
In other words... if i type a name into a box it should automatically resize the text to fit within the box walls either based on height or length.
I have seen a few ways to resize the box to fit around the text but not the other way around.

Adobe Illustrator (and rival applications like CorelDRAW) will let you flow paragraph body copy inside a container object. However, I'm not aware of any vector drawing application or page layout application that will automatically re-size lettering to fit in a container, much less alter both letter heights and widths to do so. You'll have to do that kind of work manually, and maybe do so using OTF Variable fonts that have width axis capability to get decent looking results.

Last year some new font height options were added to Illustrator. That can help with setting cap letter or lowercase letter heights to a specific size to match up with a certain box size. A Variable font, such as the Acumin Pro Variable Concept font, will give you flexibility with setting the width of the copy.

 

[GAC05]

Not automatic, but in Flexi you could type all your text - group select it and then select the container and use the fit height or width to scale all the selected text. It keeps the proportions so the text won't get smashed or stretched.

 

[Attila Nagy]

I cannot remember clearly, it was long time ago, but I did something like that in InDesign.

 

[MHester]

To my knowledge (and age old memory which is getting worse these days), I dont think Illustrator has any way to automatically decrease the size of text when it flows into a text box causing it to always fit. That would have to be a pretty cool if/then script for it to happen. Have you tried putting this question out to the Adobe forums to see if anyone recommends a 3rdparty plugin??

 

[bepees]

Thanks for all the answers.
Basically what i aim to do is cut the time it takes to edit a layout with different names. My company produces personalized gifts and we put individual names on everything.
We make around 500-1000 items per per day and to manually edit the height/length of every text is time consuming. In our embroidery program there is a function to automatically
resize names to fit a box. I was hoping for some way to do it with vector texts as well.

MHester yes i have. No one has a way of doing there either so i thought i'd try my luck here

 

[jfiscus]

Maybe using InDesign?

 

[Bobby H]

The GREP styles trick within InDesign looks a bit complicated to set up, but it's still interesting. That video was made in 2015, prior to some noteworthy changes in type technology. It would be really interesting if the GREP hack could be applied to text strings using OTF Variable Fonts, specifically ones that have Width Axis Variability built-in. Acumin Pro is one example bundled into Illustrator. Windows 10 has the Bahnscrift typeface included with it, although its Width Axis doesn't change to any big extremes. Depending on the Variable Font used the names could all be closer to the same letter heights, just with the widths changed.