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Text align stroke outside greyed out

Forum|Forum|9 years ago
May 21, 2016
9 replies
99715 views

On my text, I need to align the stroke on the outside but it is greyed out. How do I get it to not be greyed out?

Correct answer Barb Binder

Clarifying the tips above

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As you are figuring out, Rite-Oak, you can't re-align the stroke on live (editable text). If you are willing to commit to the type being in final form, you can select it and pick Type > Create Outlines and you can align the stroke to the outside using the button you pointed to in the first screen shot. Once the type is converted to outlines, you won't be able to edit the text though.

To keep the type live (and editable), select the text and choose Window > Appearance:
Click the fx button on the bottom row and Path > Offset Path. In the example below, I set the offset to 1 pt to move it outside of the text.
If you want to modify the offset, click the orange underlined Offset Path in the Appearance panel and not on the fx button again.

Kalsers

Participating Frequently

Sometimes even if the text or object is qurved Align stroke to outside is greyed our.

It can be because path is not joined or have some gap:

You need to do Object -> Path -> Join

Monika Gause

Community Expert

If it is an open path that should stay open, then you can use a width profile.

If it is text, then you can either use a graphic style or you can use the Offset path effect

L

Lime3498448780cq

Participant

All the solutions here are for text. What if I encounter this issue on illustrations?

We outline object 'align to outside' and sometimes it will not let us, why?

Doug A Roberts

Community Expert

What kind of objects? Can you show an example?

G

Gavin Joseph

Participant

Hi - New to illustrator and just found this post.

I bypassed the issue by duplicating the text layer, putting it underneath and increasing it until it was bigger than the original.

Doug A Roberts

Community Expert

You could do that, but the appearance panel options detailed in this thread are probably more suitable in most cases.

apfotos

Participating Frequently

It doesn't work on every font - if you change the font, it should work - that happened to me.

S

Sumberdana

Participant

You can make it to Compound Path on menu Object > Compound Path > Make.

Then align stroke can be ouside.

Hope this helpful

instagram : @soemberdana

Scott Falkner

Community Expert

In the Appearance panel drag the Stroke below the fill, then make the stroke twice as thick. The stroke is still centred on the text outline, but half of it is obscured by the fill. You could instead add an offset path effect to the text of half the stroke width. Both of these will work on live text.