Shapes & masks from text and SVG
Three commands turn text and vector artwork into geometry you can edit. Each is one undo step, and the first two are worked out by the engine, because the result depends on the fonts installed on your machine.
Create Shapes From Text
Layer ▸ Create ▸ Shapes From Text, with one text layer selected.
The result is a new shape layer carrying one closed path per glyph contour, with the counters of letters such as O and A as holes, positioned exactly over the text. The text layer is hidden, not deleted, as in After Effects, so you can bring it back.
The outlines are the font’s own Béziers — as few anchors as the type designer drew — not a trace of pixels. If the font’s outlines cannot be read, the engine traces the painted text instead, and the new layer’s name ends in (traced) so that a traced outline is never mistaken for the font’s own.
Create Masks From Text
Layer ▸ Create ▸ Masks From Text, with one text layer selected.
This produces a new composition-sized solid, in the text’s fill colour, that holds one mask per glyph contour (counters become Subtract masks). The text layer is hidden, not deleted.
Masks, rather than a shape layer, are the point of this command: they can be feathered per glyph, and they can be read by effects that work from mask paths, such as stroke and scribble effects, which shapes cannot do. Rotated, scaled, parented and 3D text layers produce masks that sit on the glyphs as drawn.
Convert to Editable Shapes (SVG layers)
An SVG you drop in is kept intact as one layer, drawn faithfully — gradients, masks, filters, clip paths and patterns included — and is only parsed when you ask for editable geometry. (Animated SVGs are handled differently; see SVG import.)
To get the geometry, right-click the SVG layer and choose Convert to Editable Shapes…. A dialog tells you what will happen before it does:
- how many paths it contains and how many layers they will produce;
- that CSS or SMIL animation will be approximated as keyframes;
- that raster images inside it become image layers rather than shapes;
- that text becomes text layers and may reflow;
- that masks and filters are flattened, clip paths are cut into the geometry (turning curves into fine polygons), and gradients become editable fills.
Choose Convert, and the SVG layer is replaced in its own place in the stack by an editable group. The picture is kept where the layer drew it, and the whole conversion is a single undo step. A converted layer offers Revert to Original SVG in the same menu.
Where each lives
| Command | Where | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Shapes From Text | Layer ▸ Create | A shape layer of the glyph outlines; text hidden |
| Masks From Text | Layer ▸ Create | A solid with one mask per glyph contour; text hidden |
| Convert to Editable Shapes… | Right-click an SVG layer | An editable group replaces the SVG layer |
| Revert to Original SVG | Right-click a converted layer | The single SVG layer returns |