Adobe Illustrator CS6 - internal path?

mrmac

Forgive me if this sounds daft, but I've never used Illustrator before, and I'm lost!

I have two things I'm trying to do:

1) If I use a text font, Arial for example, I can "Create Outline" easily, but what I want to do is create an "Inline". That is a single path, running along the centre of the font. I want this path so I can apply different stroke effects to it.

Example:



2) I want to be able to "Create Outline" to clipart, but does this need to a specific filetype to begin with, as I'm not having much luck with that either.

Example:



It's also possible that there's a better tool than Illustrator for doing this?

Thanks, any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

5uspect

Text doesn't have anything but an external path and a fill. It's not like a regular path with a fill and a stroke. I'm not aware of an easy way to get a median path through a character. If you expand your text (Object>Expand) you can apply an offset with a negative value from the Path menu under Object. This isn't ideal. Another option is to use a blend to create a series of objects and edit the linking line to follow each letter.

Another approach would to create a symbol brush and apply the brush to your text. Here's a guide:
http://smallbusiness.chron.com/scatter-symbol-path-illustrator-49889.html
Symbols can be pretty powerful, but take time to master, here's another more general guide to them:
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2011/09/16/an-in-depth-study-of-symbols-in-illustrator-cs5/

Reagrding your second question, you want to save clipart for MS Office?
I presume it uses MS's own Windows Metafile format.