How to Make an Editable Knockout Text Effect in Illustrator

Illustrator Text Effects

The knockout effect has been around for a while now. But it seems like every tutorial to make this effect in Illustrator requires you to convert your text to curves, making impossible to edit the text later if you made a mistake. Today, I will show you how to properly make the knockout text effect in Illustrator in a simple way, so you can later edit the text and the shape without having to start whole process again if you want to change it later.​

But before we begin, if you want to follow this tutorial exactly as described, please download the following free image from Pexels: Download.

Step 1

For this tutorial, I will open an image to be used as a background to show you how the knockout effect works. Open the image you want to use as a background on your composition in Illustrator or make a new file at any size you want. The effect will work, as well.

Step 2

Select the Rectangle Tool (M) and make the shape that will contain your text. It can be any shape that you want, but to make the tutorial easy to follow, I will make a simple rectangle.

Step 3

Select the Type Tool (T) and type your text using any font that you want. Here I will be using Heavitas.

Step 4

Select both the Rectangle and your Text.

Step 5

Go to Window > Pathfinder.

Step 6

Lastly, while holding the Alt key on your keyboard, click on the Exclude icon.

Step 7

As you may see, the text color has become the rectangle color, but you can easily change the container to any color you want as you normally do in Illustrator. Simply select the rectangle and pick any color you want in the Swatches panel.

Step 8

If you want to edit the text, you can do it as you normally do with any text in Illustrator. Select the Type Tool (T), change the font family or size to your liking and the knockout effect will still work.

Step 9

Later, if you want to edit the shape, you can also do it as you normally do in Illustrator. Here I have selected 2 anchor points with the Direct Selection Tool (A) and dragged the inner circles icons a bit to make them a bit rounded.