Cut letters in half

[Phoenixt]

I am new to learn Illustrator. I have letters/ words on a black box (or background). I want to cut through the letters with a wavy line and the bottom half portion in the black background turn white, the top portion is still black on the white background. Any comment is appreciated ( somehow it is using Pathfinder). Thanks

[Yamrotil]

Nice question. One you have the desired shapes and text, right click text and create outlines, then text is a path. Now go to Window > Pathfinder, and there's lots of tricky stuff in there, the one you probably want is highlighted in the pic below.

My demo is black text, black shape and white background.

[Phoenixt]

Hi Yamrotil,
Thanks very much for the reply and demo graphic attachment, it's exact what I like to make some nice tittles. Now I know I can count on the forum for help.Thanks again.

[Yamrotil]

Hey that's ok Phoenixt. Your always welcome to post here. Hope the tittles turn out terrific.

[Phoenixt]

Hi,
As a newbie, I need specific instruction, I tried but I was at loss. I know to make the text in black LOL . I use pencil to make a shape of wavy line on the top of the text. How do you fill with black?. Using selection tool , I can see 2 paths but Pathfinder does not do anything ( maybe the shape is still in white). Please help. Thanks a bunch.

[Yamrotil]

Pathfinder should work with a line thru text so that's a bit strange. Here's a step by step. Sorry cant attach. the board attachment quota has been reached.

*

[Phoenixt]

After clicking everywhere million times, finally I got it work as you showed and understood more that the white portion of text is the cut out of intersecting paths, not reversing color as I thought. I am terrified of pen tool to draw, so if I use simple daisy .jpg file in Photoshop, I know somehow I have to have the outline path and bring in to Illustrator in order to intersect with text, would you be kind of showing me how to do it. Thanks in advance.

[Yamrotil]

With your daisy you will need to use live trace if you cant use the pen tool. Illustrator can convert an image into paths automatically. If you want to have a quick try go to File > Place, and add an image. Then select the image and there will be a live trace button appear in the toolbar at the top. Click it. *still cant attach images http://picpaste.com/pics/Untitled-21.1267838960.png

Please read step 4 to 7 in the following tutorial.
http://www.layersmagazine.com/designing-ultra-scenexcore-apparel.html
This is a proper explanation of live trace setup. In step 7 you can probably stop where it says

Draw a big black square around your shape and send it to the back. This will be your background.

as you may not want that. You should be able to obtain the shape of your flower.

Then once you have your flower shape you can add the text and go from there...

And you will need to use the pen tool. You can get around it for time being but u do need to learn it for vector work. Have a read about the pen tool.
http://www.oit.umass.edu/workshops/tutorials/images_publishing/ai_2.pdf

Gewd luck.

[Phoenixt]

Thanks for your kindness to spend time explaining. I am under the pressure to finish a magazine next week given to an amateur like me by a volunteering group. I did learn about Illustrator, but using once in 3 years so I forgot everything.The tutorial is very simple I can follow in short time. Again thanks for everything.