Easily Make Auto Text Boxes in Illustrator

Illustrator Text Effects

If you are making a poster promoting an event or simply making a header text for your website, incorporating highlighted text adds visual interest and emphasis, elevating the overall design and enhancing the effectiveness of the message. Highlighted text is a great resource to be used because it effectively captures the user attention and communicates key messages with clarity and impact. So today, I will show you how easy it is to create a fully editable text box in Illustrator using only the Appearance panel with the ability to change the text box size, color, and fully edit the text without having to recreate the entire effect.

Step 1

Open Illustrator and make a new file at any size you want. In this case I will make mine at 1200 x 900 px.

Step 2

Select the Type Tool (T) and using any font type your text.

Step 3

With your text selected go to Window > Appearance.

Step 4

Click on the "Add New Fill" icon twice to add 2 new fills.

Step 5

Select the first Fill layer and pick any color you want to use on your text. In this case I will set mine to Black.

Step 6

Select the second Fill layer and pick any color that you want to use for your text box. Here I've set mine to Orange.

Step 7

With the second Fill layer selected, click on the "Add New Effect" icon and from the dropdown menu select Convert to Shape > Rectangle.

Step 8

In the Shape Options window, add any extra width and height that you wish for your text box and click OK.

Step 9

If your text box is offset (like in this case) be sure to have the second Fill layer selected. Click on the "Add New Effect" icon and from the dropdown menu select Distort & Transform > Transform.

Step 10

Lastly, in the Transform Effect window adjust the "Move" values until your text box is centered and click OK.

Some Final Notes:

Now that you know how to make an Auto Text Box in Illustrator, you can edit your text as you normally do in Illustrator and easily change the text and box colors in the Appearance Panel like in the following examples.