How to bevel text in Illustrator
Use Effect › 3D and Materials › Extrude & Bevel with a small depth and a Bevel shape, or fake a bevel with two offset strokes in the Appearance panel. JuicyType's Bevel effect draws vector facets on the face from a single Inset slider.
The manual way, in Illustrator
- Select the text and apply Effect › 3D and Materials › Extrude & Bevel.
- Set Depth to 0 to keep only the bevel (if your build shows nothing at 0, use a small depth with a front-on rotation), turn on Bevel, choose a Bevel Shape and set Width, Height, Repeat and Space. Bevel Inside turns it inward.
- Alternatively, add two fills in the Appearance panel, one light and one dark, offset in opposite directions with Effect › Distort & Transform › Transform, below the main fill.
The built-in bevel is a rendered surface: expanding or exporting it gives an image, not paths. The two-fill trick is vector but a faux bevel, an offset edge rather than a facet.
Menu paths checked against Adobe's current Illustrator documentation; hands-on verification and screenshots are still to come.
Bevel with JuicyType
Select the text, open the JuicyType panel, choose Bevel, and drag. It is a live effect, so the text stays editable and every control can be changed later.
- Inset0–100%, default 40
- Colours and slope styleshared with the 3D section: top, side and slope colours and Color / Gradient / Comic / Split
Common questions
Is the bevel vector?
JuicyType's is. Illustrator's 3D and Materials bevel is a rendered surface, and expanding it produces a raster.