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I am trying to prepare scientific figures in Illustrator.

I want to keep the font size of the text constant while rescaling the figure. Is it possible to do in CS6?

Thanks a lot for inputs. To elaborate my question, I have a screen shot of illustrator artboard as an example. Here I have two graphs, with text font size say of 6 (arbitrary), now I decide to add one more graph. In order to do that I need to rescale the existing two graph to make space to third one. Now when I rescale two graphs , the font size also changes . How can I avoid this? How can font size be kept constant? Rearranging figures is very common while preparing scientific figures and posters. So I cannot decide beforehand on the figure positions and there are like 20 figures to work on. So overtime if I rescale figures I cannot individually change the font size for all 20 figures. I am sure there must be a way to do that as Illustrator is a very preferred software in scientific community . I am just not able to find it.

I hope this is a better explanation of my question.

enter image description here

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  • It would be greatly helpful, if you inserted a screenshot of the problematic figure and explained, which forces you to scale the texts, too. Why for example you do not leave them out of the selection of the soon enlargened part.
    – user82991
    Aug 4, 2017 at 23:22
  • Yes and no. There is no option for this but you may luck out and be able to scale up and then scale all text down. But this depends on all thext having anchor points in a location that is correct.
    – joojaa
    Aug 5, 2017 at 5:27
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    Normally you wouldn't need to do this. You would just go back to your original data set and remake the graph. But for that graph just scale the squares sideways.
    – joojaa
    Aug 5, 2017 at 10:01

2 Answers 2

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I have often prepared graphs for a person who puts them into a magazine or a brochure in Adobe InDesign. She had specified that the numbers and texts must not lose their order when the graph is resized. Also the font scaling must be selectable. The following system has mostly been satisfactory:

enter image description here

  1. Make a textbox that fits exactly to the axis division (=use smart quides), center the dummy number or text, copy the boxes side by side for every interval

  2. Copy or write the actual data to the boxes, move the boxes as a group to the visually right place in relative to the axis division markers

  3. The graph is resized => font size is often changed without asking

  4. Select the textboxes and choose the wanted font size. There's no need to select actual texts, only the boxes. The boxes can be grouped.

Why this way? Why not to use the graph tools?

The graphs have often bizarre curves that can't be created in Illustrator nor in InDesign, but the curves can be imported as well as the axis lines and divisions. Only numbers and texts must be inputted.

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If these are live Graph objects created using the Column Graph Tool, then yes the font size can easily be changed after rescaling, but you need to select the graph with the Selection Tool (V) - the black arrow, then you can simply change the font size. In this example both graphs are set to 10pt. In fact you can select all the graphs and change all the font sizes in one go.

Example image

If after changing the font size, the numbers are slightly out of position, you can use the Direct Selection Tool (A) - the white arrow, to select just the numbers, then you can reposition them using the arrow keys on your keyboard to nudge them into position.

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  • No, its just an example. I used graph pad prism for graphs. And there are some microscopy images (tiff) too, whose text font size changes everytime if I rescale.
    – neha mishra
    Aug 5, 2017 at 10:19
  • @nehamishra Tiffs are raster images - if the fonts are raster then you can't change them in Illustrator. You'd need to edit the images using a raster image editor like Photoshop - and it won't be easy, since if the text is not on it's own layer you'd need to erase the existing text and recreate it. Or you could add a clipping mask in Illustrator to remove the text, but then you'd need to create new text.
    – Billy Kerr
    Aug 5, 2017 at 10:21
  • Okay thanks. So to keep it simple, if I have an image placed in illustrator and label it, Everytime I rescale this image, the font has to be adjusted.
    – neha mishra
    Aug 5, 2017 at 10:24
  • Is that the case?
    – neha mishra
    Aug 5, 2017 at 10:24
  • @nehamishra Yes it would have to be adjusted. You could make this easier on yourself if you use the Graph tool in Illustrator to make your graphs, rather than some third party software which generates raster images. Keep it all vector, and it will be easier in Illustrator.
    – Billy Kerr
    Aug 5, 2017 at 10:25

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