Outlines on text breaking regardless of outlining

[lidm]

Hello, all!

I have been at this for nearly 20 years and this is a new for me — So much so that I'm posting for, I think, the first time.

I have the most bizarre issue arising at the most inopportune time as I'm trying to get print-ready files out the door. I have a rather chunky outline on a bunch of live text. When I save it out it creates weird gaps in the outlines and while in the proof/revision stages I chalked it up to Acrbat being Acrobat and displaying weirdness.

My solution was going to be outlining everything before saving so none of that appears in the final print-ready files, however, it seems no matter what I do these gaps arise — and it's on nearly every instance of an outlined bit of text not just the one pictured in the video.

Any idea what the heck is happening and/or how I can fix this?

You should be able to view a screen recording here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fNHESgPFB_Xe673zL7Q1VOrvOuEH_FSv

Thanks in advance!

[Srishti Bali]

Hi @lidm,

Thanks for reaching out! This seems to be a file-related issue. Could you share the file with us? You can upload it to Creative Cloud or a similar service like Dropbox and share the download link.  

If the file is confidential, please send it via DM—just click on our names and use the "Send Message" button on our profiles.

Regards,

Srishti

[lidm]

So sorry for the delay on this. I've sent you a DM!

[Bobby Henderson]

It looks like there may be an errant anchor point or a couple of them doubled up at one location on the path. I prefer using the Offset Path effect for letter outlining effects rather than using line stroke. There are fewer paths to clean up when expanding the effect into editable paths (no doubled paths on the insides of letters). With an outline that thick it might be necessary to apply the effect separately to a few letters at a time. That would let you see which letter is causing the odd overshoot problems. If the effect is expanded the glitch can be edited using various tools.

[lidm]

Thanks for taking the time to respond! I looked for extra anchor points and there's nothing I can find. I tried several typefaces as I thought perhaps it could be an issue with the typeface itself but it happens to any with rounded tittles. I've got a DM out to an Adobe Employee so hopefully they can resolve the issue. 🤷🏽‍:female_sign: Otherwise there's a lot of manual path-adjusting in my very near future.

[Monika Gause]

Please share the file.

[lidm]

I cannot share the files as they are confidential. I have a DM open with an Adobe Employee to work through this issue. Thanks!

[Monika Gause]

You have already shown screenshots. 

So put those objects into a new file and share that?

Just by looking at screenshots this cannot be solved.

[lidm]

As I said previously, I've already messaged an Adobe Employee and am working with them to resolve the issue. I won't be sharing the file due to confidentiality reasons. If we don't get anywhere in DMs I will move the elements to a new file and post it.

I do appreciate all the replies and conversation here and fully understand your hands are tied with only screenshots for reference.

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

As suggested, you will have to change stroke to an offset, or manually deleting the extra "holes"

What is happening is your stroke is bigger than the object it's applied to, and strokes are centered on the path, so while half the stroke is going outward, the other half is going inward. In the case of the "dot" it's going past the edge of the dot in the opposite direction, and this path is being drawn in the opposite direction (due to a thing called winding direction) so it's essentially cutting a hole. There's no "fix" for it per se. That being said, this phenonemon mostly affects curves, especially those in a compound path like a font letterform, but its not limited to that.

 

[lidm]

Really appreciate this explaination. Super helpful thank you!

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

Try this instead:

Since you have your stroked type on a separate layer, convert your stroked type to outine.

Change the sroke to "align to outside" and reduce the width to half of what it was when it was centered.

Set your fill to the same colour as the stroke. Expand Appearance. Then use Pathfinder to Unite all the shapes.

You should now have one shape with no "holes".

It would be nice if you were able to "align to outside" a stroke on live type, but you cannot as far as I can see.

[lidm]

Hey! Thanks for this but unfortunately this didn't work. I ended up having to just outline everything and manually remove all the holes. Appreciate your time and all the suggestions!