Can no longer outline stroke text

Question

Today as I was working on a document the strangest thing happened - a set of steps I literally just completed stopped being available to me (options were greyed out in the menu).

I used to be able to create a text, give it a stroke and go to Object > Path > Outline stroke. It's now greyed out. The first two steps of this tutorial is what I am trying to do: https://design.tutsplus.com/tutorials/how-to-use-outline-stroke-in-adobe-illustrator--cms-34160

I feel like pulling my hair out.

Does anyone have any ideas? I know I can do create outlines, but outlining strokes worked way better/faster for me. Can anyone recreate the tutorial's first two steps on their end and tell me what results they get?

Monika Gause · Accepted Answer

If Outline stroke or Expand appearance or Expand do not work, use "Flatten transparency". Tiurn on the options Outlne text and Outline stroke in this case.

But if your goal is to make text fatter, then do not use Outline stroke at all. Offset path does it quicker. Also available as an effect.

Laura Coyle. · Answer

Hi, I looked at both the video and the written tutorial and there is an extra step in the video, that was left out of the written post. In the video, he selects the live text object and expands it, using Object > Expand. You won't be able to expand the stroke on live text without expanding the text first (type > create outlines also works to expand live text). Hope that helps!

Sign up

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Sign in to Adobe Community

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Scanning file for viruses.

This file cannot be downloaded