Text with 'negative stroke' added becomes much thinner after flattening in Illustrator

Question

I added a white stroke to black text with a white background in Illustrator to make the text appear slightly thinner (Window ... Stroke ... Weight). I saved a .jpg and it looks good with the changes to the weight.

Then I selected the text and proceed to Object ... Flatten Transparency ... Merge because I don't want a 'live stroke' to be a part of the text, but now it looks it's MUCH thinner? I saved a new .jpg to confirm, and it's definitely several weights thinner after flattening.

I'm trying to figure out how to keep the same thickness of the original text with the stroke added, but also permanently remove the white stroke and save it without changing the overall weight if that's possible?

Thanks

Monika Gause · Accepted Answer

Thank you for the suggestion Monika... I'll have to figure out the math to get the same weight of the text after switching to the Offset Path method.

It's simple. The stroke is applied to the center of the path, so it should be basically half the stroke weight. You can enter that with the unit PT in the dialog box. You can even have Illustrator calculate it for you.

0.3/2 Pt

Monika Gause · Answer

Please show.

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