Offset path offsetting both ways, instead of one.

I frequently use both Adobe Illustrator and CorelDRAW in my sign design work every day. Both have their pros and cons. Both have lots of little things and big things each does much better than their rival. I do not find either drawing program to be a satisfactory replacement for the other. And I've looked at other contenders (such as Affinity Designer) and they offer even less overlap.

I'm familiar with the "Fillet/Scallop/Chamfer" function in CorelDRAW that is normally used to generate corner effects on objects, such as a rounded rectangle. I've never seen the effect yield any objects with anchor points that are broken open along the path. If the effect is applied on a closed path the path will remain closed. The effect has worked reliably (and very precisely) through many version cycles.

I suspect what is happening is a bit of "Messy Marvin" user error. I've been doing this work for over 25 years and will still be surprised at some of the odd, illogical methods some people will conjure up to do a simple task. Whoever is preparing the objects for sign blanks is doing something pretty odd. You'll have to investigate the workflow.

We don't use Illustrator as an in-between program for object nesting layouts to send to a routing table. In our case we use Flexi and EnRoute. For us Adobe's applications come in more handy for large format printing purposes, as well as generating static graphics and motion graphics for LED boards.

If I use CorelDRAW to create a nesting layout to export to Flexi (or even send to Illustrator) I'll remove any line stroke values. The objects should have only a flat, solid fill. That will eliminate any duplicate lines that could show up in the target program. It will also provide a big hint to the user if any paths are open, not closed. You won't see any fill on the object if the path is open. The latest versions of CorelDRAW will show a doubled-up pair of anchor points (or "nodes") for a broken open point on the path. If there are any compound paths care must be taken to make sure the objects don't get sliced during export. The user must check the EPS or AI export filter to make sure an option like "simulate compound paths" is not checked. It's usually a good idea to look at the outline view of the artwork when it is imported into Illustrator.

You could turn all of the open paths into shapes, thus eliminating the open paths. Then you could do the offsets as I stated above. But like others are saying, without seeing what you are working with, it's really hard to give a definitive answer.

Typically, when Offset Path results in bidirectional offset, it's a dead giveaway that it's been applied to an open path. Did your sign shapes originate in Illustrator or elsewhere?

You can do math in any of your numerical entry points now. Not exactly sure what you have going on with the signs at the moment, like are they using a stroke on the edges and what not. But I just made to rectangles to represent the signs, with some text inside. Using the black arrow tool, I selected all of the parts of one of the signs. Up on the top, you can see the X and Y positions. I clicked on the x position which at the time was at 10.25 inches. Right after the 10.25. and before the in, type +.03 and enter. It will move everything over.

I just did this on the x axis, but it works in either direction.

1 thing to remember, if you have a stroke around the edges of the sign and the stroke is set to be in the middle or the outside, you may not get the desired gap in between the images. The stroke needs to be set to inside for it to work correctly at only moving .03 inches.

When I dropped those two "signs" onto the page, I made sure that Smart guides were turned on so that when I put them next to each other, they would snap into place, exactly side by side.