Illustrator : resize handles

I'm have several smaller giffs and jpegs as part of an image legend for a site.

However the images have resize handles attached that extend the images 5 to 10 px larger than needed with blank space. How do you get rid of these?

Problem seems to be with characters only (lower case?) & 'Save for Web'

While the actual image is at 11.8 by 19.6 px with document setup at 15 by 20 -- these handles are coming from the 18 pt. brush script MT italic that extends more than twice the size of the actual letter "e" . Which expands my Dreamweaver placeholder to 27 x 29. If I reduce this to fit in the same 16 by 20 placeholder as the rest of the images in teh legend in Dreamweaver, the letter "e" has to be reduced too small to see, to contract these outsized placeholders to fit.

It seems as if I should be able to resave the "e" in a different format then place as a layer in this dimension -- but save it as what?

IF ANYONE NEEDS THE ANSWER TO THIS:
What you do is save text as a vector graphic by going to TYPE>CREATE OUTLINE, THEN SAVE FOR WEB. BUT KEEP .AI file seperate.