
Make a grid-plane. Make some text. Extrude the text in its modifier panel. Then place the text through the plane.
Convert the text to mesh from curve/meta/surf/text. Pick the plane, go to modifiers, add a Boolean modifier. Select the text as your second object.
Hit space again, and convert the boolean to mesh from curve/meta/surf/text. Delete the plane object and the original text object. Now you just have the gridded version.
Note that this does add the grid, but it doesn't make it a great mesh. I've drawn on some messy parts in blue, red and pink, where you don't have neat triangles or quads:

Personally, I think I'd rather manually create bridges, and get a better edgeflow. But maybe you've got a different goal or workflow.