S.W. wrote:
Is there a way to convert all instances of font/dingbat to outlines in a document? I was using the square shaped dingbat from Wingdings as placeholder for a Check Box in a form I was designing in InDesign. To my surprise the Acrobat form recognition function wouldn’t recognize boxes in the PDF I exported, unless I converted them to outlines. So is there a quick way to do this for the entire document?
Interesting problem! While you cannot convert a single character to outlines everywhere throughout a document, you can convert it once, then use Find/Change to replace it.
- Select the character you want to convert and copy it to the clipboard (Edit > Copy).
- While it’s still selected, convert it to outlines (Type > Create Outlines)
- Open Find/Change (from the Edit menu or with Command/Ctrl-F).
- Place the cursor in the Find What field and paste (Command/Ctrl-V). You should see the dingbat there (or the character that makes the dingbat). If it’s in a particular font (such as Wingdings), then click the Find Format area and specify the font in the Basic Character Formats pane.
- Now choose the Selection tool, click on the character you converted to outlines, and copy that the clipboard.
- In the Find/Change dialog box, click in the little triangle menu to the right of the Change To field, and choose Other > Clipboard Contents, Unformatted.
- Click Change All.
That’s it! I love the ability to replace with the clipboard contents, especially when it comes to replacing with an inline object like this. So handy…
This article was last modified on December 18, 2021
This article was first published on March 20, 2008
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