Building Graphic Style Question

[JimDiGiovanni]

I am trying to create a graphic style where you can knock out part of a shape using a stroke.
I have faked it here using a stroke the same color as the background. What I am trying to achieve is a graphic style where this knockout will always offset and knockout part of the shape like printing misalignment. Is this possible? What is a good approach to this?

[Monika Gause · Accepted solution]

Set the opacity of that specific stroke to 0

And then set the text object itself to "knockout group" (use the "opacity" at the very bottom of the appearacne panel for that)

[JimDiGiovanni]

Amazing! That was exactly the solution. Thank you so much.

Jim

[meganchi]

If I were to do this effect, then I would first expland the letters and drop shadows, select them all, then use the pathfinder "trim" function. Then, select what you want "knocked out" and delete the shape.