How To Enlarge Text In Adobe Illustrator

By the end of the article, you’re going to feel confident designing graphics, adding text, and more — here are 4 ways to enlarge text in Illustrator.

How To Enlarge Text In Adobe Illustrator

The quickest method to enlarge text in Adobe Illustrator is to select the text, and then go to the Character panel to increase font size.

If you wish to enlarge text, there may be various reasons. You may be looking to create a drop cap in Illustrator, and to do that, you will have to make the first letter bigger than the other text.

Or you may be looking to emphasize your message that you have to resize a text box so that it will stand out from the other text.

Or you don’t see the text bounding box, in this case, you can’t just click and drag the corners of the bounding box to resize the text.

Whichever reason that may be, the largest size you can enlarge a letter is up to 1296 pt, so do keep this limit in mind.

Meantime, here are the various methods on how to enlarge text in Adobe Illustrator.

Method 1: Character Panel

Step 1: Open the Character Panel

Open the Character panel by selecting Window, then select Type in the drop-down menu, and Character in the next drop-down menu.

Or, use keyboard shortcuts Command + T on Mac.

Or Ctrl + T on Windows.

Step 2: Select the Text

Next, select the text by clicking on the text box once. Here’s the design I’m using for this example. You can also add outlines to the text with a color different from the text for some flavor.

If you want to enlarge only some text from one text box, you can do that by highlighting the text you wish to enlarge.

Step 3: Change Font Size

In this section, you will get to know how to change font size in Illustrator.

First, go to the Character panel where it says “Set the font size”. Click on the arrow that points upwards. Clicking on it one time makes your text bigger by 1 pt. Keep clicking on it until you are satisfied with the size of your text.

Or change the value in the “Set the font size” field to something bigger. Once done, align your text by shifting the text box for better results.

Method 2: Keyboard Shortcuts

Step 1: Select the Text

Select the text you wish to enlarge, either by clicking once on the text box to enlarge all the text in one text box or by highlighting some text in one text box. You can also select many text boxes and enlarge all the text at one time.

Step 2: Enlarge Text with Keyboard

Next, hold down Shift + Command + Full stop (.) for Mac on the keyboard.

Or Shift + Ctrl + Full stop (.) for Windows

Your text will enlarge by 2 pts each time you use this shortcut. Use the keyboard shortcuts as many times as you want until you’ve enlarged your text to the size you want.

Method 3: Free Transform Tool

Step 1: Select The Text Box

Click on your text box once to select the text. The Free Transform Tool can only resize the text box. In this case, you can’t enlarge selective text by highlighting them within one text box.

Step 2: Select the Free Transform Tool

Click on the Free Transform Tool on the Toolbar or press E on the keyboard.

Step 3: Resize Text Box

Bring the Free Transform Tool cursor to any corner of the text box. Hold down the Shift key, click, and drag the text box outwards to enlarge the text.

Method 4: Scale Tool

Step 1: Select The Text Box

Similar to using Free Transform Tool, you can’t use the Scale Tool to resize highlighted individual letters or words inside a text box. You will have to resize the whole text box.

So, if you intend to create a design with different font sizes and placements, make sure to place your text in separate text boxes first. Go ahead to include other elements such as add bullet points, glyphs, or other graphics.

Next, select the text box by clicking it once. In this example, I want to enlarge all four text boxes together in one shot. To do that, hold down the Shift key while you click all four text boxes.

Step 2: Select Scale Tool

Click on the Scale Tool on the Toolbar or press S on the keyboard.

Step 3: Resize Text Box

You will see a bright blue target icon appear next to your text box. That is the pivot or anchor point that the Scale Tool will use to resize the text box. If you don’t see the icon anywhere, use the Scale Tool to click any part of the artboard one time and it should appear.

In this example, I want the text to enlarge outwards on all sides from the middle, hence I use the Scale Tool one time in the middle of the text.

Hold down the Shift key, click, and drag the text box outwards and diagonally away from the text to enlarge the text. If you were to move the cursor up and down, you would see that you can use this tool to rotate and stretch the text too.

Final Thoughts

Using the Character panel to enlarge text in Adobe Illustrator is my favorite method so far since it allows me to resize to the exact size I want quicker than the other methods.

One of the most important things to keep in mind when it comes to resizing or enlarging text is to do so proportionately unless for some reason you wish to intentionally stretch it.

If your text has an outline stroke, it will not enlarge with the editable live text. Make sure you either add the outline stroke after you’ve enlarged it or expand your text first to convert the outline stroke to a shape. In this way, you will see the stroke resize proportionately with your text.

Does this help you enlarge text in Illustrator? Let us know in the comments below: