Q:

Is there a way to see the text of tty7 without shutting down Xorg? 

Is there a way to see the text of tty7 without shutting down Xorg, just like switching to another tty? 

A:

I presume you want to see the X server logs for your GUI under VT7 (Ctrl+Alt+F7).  In other words, the text that gets printed if you were to do a text boot, login and type "startx" (before the script hands over to your DE). 
If this is the case, you can simply open your Xserver logs:
less /var/log/Xorg.0.log

For boot logs that would appear prior to the console login & X greeter, check:
less /var/log/boot.log

The greeter creates its own logs.  If you're using lightdm (the default greeter), then you'll find them all under:
/var/log/lightdm/

