: How to convert text paths to editable text in an .eps file downloaded from Shutterstock? I am an experienced PHP programmer, but very new to Illustrator. Finally, the time has come that I

@Chiappetta793

You can convert an image in pdf and then use a online OCR service
like this one "onlineocr.net", but you can find many others.
It worked beautiful for me in AIllustrator.

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@Merenda852

If the text is only a set of paths, then there's not a whole lot you can do. I know of no way for Illustrator to analyze paths to figure out what font they are based off of and convert them back to editable text.

My guess is that the author of the file wouldn't have been able to embed fonts in the file for licensing reasons and so they just created the outlines.

Try to figure out what the font is! Maybe you can contact the creator of the piece. If not, try WhatTheFont.com and go from there; maybe someone here can help you with that too if you can't find it on your own. Once you have the font in hand, you can just recreate the text and match its style up to the graphic.

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@Hamaas979

The text has been outlined (converted to paths). Once text has been outlined, it cannot be un-outlined.

This is typically done so that a font file does not have to be embedded. Ideally the designer should have kept a copy of the original text object locked and hidden, but I'm guessing that is not the case.

You will have to go through and re-create the text objects, unfortunately.

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