Recently I found myself needing to convert some text created in Photoshop to a vector in Illustrator (without reformatting all the text). After some research via Google, Twitter, and asking around, no one seemed to have a sure-fire solution. I called a fellow designer and we bounced ideas off each other until we found a solution that worked in just a few simple steps.
Step 1
Open Photoshop file containing the text you’d like to be vectorized. It’s not necessary to have the text as the only layer in the file, just make sure the text layer is selected.
Step 2
Create a Work Path from the text. Layer > Type > Create Work Path. You’ll see a change in the appearance of the text after creating the Work Path.
Step 3
While the Work Path is selected, go under File > Export > Paths to Illustrator and save the file.
Step 4
Open the saved file in Illustrator, and change the color mode to RGB, it defaults to CMYK. (File > Document Color Mode > RGB Color)
Step 5
Select path and fill with colour, it defaults to no fill and no stroke.
Conclusion
Although the text is not editable, it saves you from having to redo all the formatting within Illustrator!