Converting to editable shapes may or may not be what you are after. Once you convert your characters to editable shapes they are no longer text objects. If you wish your characters to remain text objects, just create a separate text object per character, and this will also allow you to move the characters independently.

Even if you are going to convert your characters to editable shapes, I would suggest using my method and cloning your positioned text objects to another (hidden and locked) layer before converting them to shapes. This way, if you do want to come back and change the font (or noticed that you misspelled something) it is quite easy to go back and grab the original text object for editing.

I hope that helps,
Eric