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If you somehow haven’t discovered the pathfinder tool in Illustrator, it’s a quick way to make and edit complex shapes in Adobe Illustrator. It can also help you create some interesting effects on your text. In just five steps you can create this sliced text effect with the pen tool and pathfinder tool!

Before we get started, be sure to download our working file and follow along with Chelsea

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Step 1

First, open your artboard in Adobe Illustrator and type out your desired text. If you have a specific point size you want the text to be, set that now. Then, outline the text by going to the “Create Outlines” tab in the “Type” drop down menu.

Step 2

Use the pen tool to draw a straight line through each word you want sliced. This line will be where the text is divided, so use the direct selection tool to adjust your line exactly where you want the cut.

Step 3

It’s time to divide the text! Select all the text that is going to be divided. Go to the “Pathfinder” menu and select the “Divide” option. The divide icon is shown in the image above, but you can hover over the pathfinder icons to see their titles. If you don’t already have a pathfinder window open, you can open it by going to the “Window” drop down menu and selecting “Pathfinder.”

Step 4

Move the text halves apart to show the separation. You can do this two ways. Either double-click the letters to be able to select what you want to adjust, or ungroup and regroup the sections into their own halves. In this tutorial, we’re doing the second option so it’ll be quicker to apply effects later. Try not to move the sections too far away from their original position so you can still read the letters.

Step 5

This step is optional, so you can stop here if you’re happy with the outcome! If you want more dimension to your sliced effect, add a drop shadow to one half of the word. This exaggerates the separation between the sections even more!