... who don't understand what it can do for them.
No doubt because it is one of the most unintuitve half-baked features in Illustrator. (And that's saying alot.) What could possibly be a less intuitive interface design for such a purpose? I mean, c'mon; apply something called an "Appearance" to an object--which is not actually what you want--and then "convert" it to what you really want--which is just a rectangle or an ellipse behind the object?
The best part of using it is that the a box behind the text can expand and contract as your edit your text.
Calling this the "best part" of Convert To Shape is itself a pretty poor commentary on the feature. I mean, the best people can figure what to do with it is to use it as an awkward, poor-man's workaround to simulate bare-bones basic functionality that has always been missing in Illustrator?:
- A proper auto-fitting textframe
- The ability to center text vertically within its textframe
- Proper shape primitives (rounded rectangle with live adjustable corner radii)
- Proper callouts and connectors for worflow and org diagrams
Moreover, given its actual behavior, wouldn't one expect something with so grandiose a name as "Convert To Shape" to be able to do somewhat more than draw a lame rectangle or ellipse? Why wouldn't such a feature be able to substitute any polygon? And why implement it as a replacement for a stroke or fill Appearance anyway? That grossly limits it. Convert To Shape should be able to work with anything stored as a Symbol (and should be called something sensible like Attach Symbol). Implemented as it is, it just exemplifies how Illustrator's scattered, piecemeal features are so poorly integrated with each other.
I'm not attacking you, Barb, or your tutorial or your good intentions. It's just so silly to so often see every little lame and awkward Illustrator feature that is obviously tagged-on as a cheezy, decades-late-to-the-game workaround for far better and quite commonplace functionality--couched in undeserved praise. There's nothing innovative or ground-breaking about this.
JET
