You can now place images inside of text with the power of artificial intelligence in Adobe InDesign.
Follow along in this tutorial and learn how to use the newly integrated Text to Image feature in InDesign to generate artwork and place inside of text.
For this tutorial, we'll be working on an A4 sized poster for a fictional Reno Film Festival. Other topics in this lesson include how to convert live text to outlines and applying a compound path.
You can download the lesson files for this tutorial by clicking the link below to follow along step by step.
The first step is converting the text in the layout to outlines. This means that the text will no longer be editable. A good rule of thumb is making a copy of the text you plan to convert to outlines just in case you have to edit the text.
Create Outlines
Click on the text frame with the film fest title.
Go to Type > Create Outlines. A shortcut to this is Shift + (Command) + O on a Mac OR Shift + Ctrl + O on Windows.
Now that the text has been converted to outlines, it also automatically groups the three words in the main title. Let's ungroup them by going to Object > Ungroup. You can also hold Shift + Command + G (Mac) OR Shift + Ctrl + G (Windows) to ungroup the three words.
Because we will be adding the image inside the entire group of characters, the next step will be applying a Compound Path. The Compound Path treats the entire text package as one unit instead of each word individually when placing the image.
Compound Path
Select all three words in the main title and then go up to Object > Path > Make Compound Path.
Go to Object > Content > Graphic to ensure the compound path is set up to place an image.
With the text is now set up and ready to go, the next step is using Text to Image to add the abstract textured image.
For this next part, ensure you're working in the latest version of InDesign (19.5). If you don't have the latest version, this will not work as you won't even have the option to use Text to Image.
The Text to Image (Beta) feature can be located by going to Window > Text to Image (Beta).
Text to Image
Click on the main title and with it selected, in the Text to Image panel, write the text prompt: "abstract watercolor paint, bright teal color, liquid fluid texture." (Note: You can write a prompt of your choice that is similar or use the one provided for this tutorial).
Under the Content dropdown option, choose Photo. Art would also work in this case, however let's go with Photo for this instance.
In the Aspect Ratio, you can choose from one of the preset ratios, or choose Frame Dimensions since this is a custom frame.
Click Generate.
Powered by Adobe Firefly, the Text to Image feature will generate three options initially. Choose the best one that fits the design. If you're not satisfied you can refine the text prompt or simply just click Generate again to generate three more.
Here's a look at the generated versions based on the text prompt provided above:
You can adjust the content within the graphic, just like you would any other image inside an image frame.
Follow along in the rest of the video and learn how to apply an inner shadow and inner glow to take this graphic to a whole new level.
One last think to note to close out this tutorial: the variation you choose is the one that will be linked when you package the InDesign document.
For example, if you choose the third variations, it would be saved GenAIImage_03 in the Links panel. The more you generate, the higher that number goes, but just know it only links the version you select.