How to Use the Character Panel in Illustrator

The Character panel is a crucial panel to know and understand to create beautiful typography. The settings change the typography size, leading, kerning, and tracking as well as many more options. These settings will be unique for different fonts and different design outcomes that you want to achieve. In this tutorial, we will learn how to use the Character panel in Illustrator.

Step 1 - Create your document and type out your text

Firstly, create a new document by selecting File > New and choose your artboard size. Then using the type tool, click anywhere on your artboard and type out your text.

Step 2 - Open the Character Panel and choose your font

Open the Character Panel by selecting Window > Type > Character andhighlight your text. Within your Character Panel select your desired font. You can do this by scrolling through the list where you will be presented with a preview of all your fonts. Alternatively type in the font nameuntil it appears in the window. I’m using the Wild Mango font from Font Bundles.

Step 3 - Show all your Character Options

At times when opening the Character panel, you will only see a small preview of your options. To show them all, select the burger menu on the top right of the panel and select Show Options. Now you can see your full Character Options.

Step 4 - Change your Character Options

Now that you have your Character Options open, you can change your character settings. Each setting has 3 options of changing. Using the up and down arrows; selectingthe drop down menu with larger increments of settings; or you can type in your settings.

Your font will change as you change the setting or hover over the options in the drop down menu.

Set the Font Style

All fonts will vary depending on whether or not they offer font styles. These styles may include regular, bold, italic or many other options around these basic ones. The font I chose, for example, only has a regular option.

Leading

The leading is the distance between each line of the type. For example, the space between the baseline of the text (blue lines at the base of the type) will get larger and smaller with this setting.

Highlight all of your text and change the settings using the arrows or drop down menu.

Kerning

The kerning adjusts the spacing between your singular characters. This setting is important as it will make the text more visually appealing. Each letter may need to be individually changed. The reason for this is because spacing between each letter shouldn’t necessarily be exactly the same. The kerning depends on the shape and curve of the lettersthat sit next to each other.

Place your cursor in between the letters that you want to change. I have added a small amount of space in between the ‘d’ and ‘l’ of Bundles.

Tracking

When you are happy with your kerning, you can amend your tracking. Your tracking setting will change the spacing between your overall word as opposed to your individual letters.

Highlight all of your text and change the settings using the arrows or drop down menu.

Vertical and Horizontal Scale

This setting will stretch the text by a percentage. These settings can be changed individually when highlighting your text and changing the settings. Alternatively, to adjust a certain percentage of the text change both the vertical and horizontal setting to the same percentage. I have changed both of mine to 50%.

Baseline Shift

This setting will raise or lower your highlighted section of font from the baseline (blue line).

Character Rotation

This setting will rotate the individual letters within your highlighted selection.

All Caps

This button will make all of your highlighted text CAPS.

Small Caps

This button will make all of your highlighted text Sentence Case.

Super Script

This button will make your highlighted selection sit smaller at the top of your text. Itcan be useful for trademark icons or some mathematical scenarios.

Sub Script

Sub Scriptwill do the opposite of Super Script. It places your highlighted selection smaller and lower than the baseline of text.

Underline

This button will place an underline on all of your highlighted text.

Strikethrough

Strikethroughwill place aline throughall of your highlighted text.

Now that you know how to use theCharacter Panel, you have total typographic freedom to create beautiful designs! We have a helpful tutorial on how to customize your fontsby using the Glyphs Panel.

If you enjoyed this tutorial, we think you will alsoenjoy our other Illustrator text tutorials such as how to fill text with a gradient, and how to do wavy text in Illustrator