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Participant
July 22, 2009
Answered

changing stroke color with eye dropper?

  • July 22, 2009
  • 5 replies
  • 145602 views

how can i change the stroke color of a shape using the eye dropper?  each time i try to do it, it fills the shape rather than changes just the stroke color.  i am trying to match the color from something other than a color that is what's on the color palette.

does that make sense??!

    Correct answer Zeno Bokor

    select the object you want to change, make the stroke active and Shift+click with the eyedropper on the color you want. The only problem is that you can't pick up patterns this way, only the exact color that you clicked on gets applied

    5 replies

    Participant
    January 7, 2022

    I couldn't figure out how to do it the way Zeno proposed. So, I ended up just saving the color to my swatches and using it that way. 

    Participant
    February 24, 2022

    This doesn't work for me either as of 02.2022. The last reply here that reported it working was from 2020, so maybe something has changed since?

    Doug A Roberts
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    February 24, 2022

    Works fine on Illustrator 26.0.3, Windows 10.

    Are you ensuring that Stroke is active first?

    Participant
    November 22, 2020

    All I had to was click shift this whole time?? I've been struggling with this issue for too long. Each time I would add the color to swatches and it was this whole thing, lol.

    Inspiring
    June 8, 2016

    Make sure you're clicking the stroke path with your eyedropper. If you don't you will change the fill color of the object you have selected. I believe that is the answer to your question. It may also be helpful to check your eyedropper options, which you can access by double-clicking the eyedropper icon in the tools panel. Once you're there, see if the Appearance checkbox is selected on the upper, left-hand corner of the Eyedropper Options dialog box. I hope this information helps.

    Zeno Bokor
    Zeno BokorCorrect answer
    Inspiring
    July 22, 2009

    select the object you want to change, make the stroke active and Shift+click with the eyedropper on the color you want. The only problem is that you can't pick up patterns this way, only the exact color that you clicked on gets applied

    Inspiring
    July 22, 2009

    Zeno has this correct and I have the hard way of doing this I thought asmuch and trashing the preference I can do this myself.

    Thanks Zeno.

    You should mark Zeno's post as the answer.

    There probably lots of people who should know where the answer is located when they do a search.

    prbmotion
    Participating Frequently
    July 10, 2014

    Agreed. Zeno has got it down.

    Inspiring
    July 22, 2009

    As strange as this might sound this is what you have to do.

    Double click the eyedropper tool in the tool bar, a dialog box will show up. In that dialog box uncheck Focal Fill on both sides. Make certain Strokes and its options for color etc are checked.

    and click OK  now when you. Now you will only change the stroke.

    Participant
    October 12, 2019
    Didn't work for me. I'm new to this, so I don't get what it did, exactly, but it felt inconsistent. Before I did that, it would fill the center even though I'd select the stroke box and then the color, but after, it wouldn't even do that when I'd click on the fill box and pick the color I actually wanted in the center---instead it put a ? there.
    Participant
    December 17, 2019

    What you can do is switch fill and strokes options (X shotchut), and then Shift+click which color you want to apply it will apply to the stroke only. Hope it Helps 🙂