Align Stroke to Inside doesn’t align to inside of stroke but to inside of counter

[Lavitas Macutis]

Dear Community, 

I create outlines out of type (Type > Create Outlines) and then assign a stroke weight. In the Stroke panel, I set Align Stroke to Align Stroke to Inside. It does that in open line shapes (I, 2, 3, E …) but on any shape with an enclosed form—a counter—such as O, o, e (the upper part of the e) etc., it seems to interpret Inside as: Inside the counter. However, the outline does circumscribe a closed form who's outline it is (if I’d pour colour into the form the outline circumscribes, I’d end up with the proper letter from which it is the outline—which is exactly what happens when choosing to Fill that outline). Now, how do I get InDesing to align the stroke inside the form circumscriped by that outline and not inside the counter? If I’m not clear enough, please have a look at the images attached. In the little hand drawing, 1 is how it looks, 2 is how it should look. 

Thanks!

[Mike Witherell]

I recommend you try this same exercise in Adobe Illustrator.

After converting to outlines, you next might try to select the compound paths and release the compound paths. Now you can set individual paths to inside or outside, and you wont have the even/odd rules interfering.

[Peter Spier]

When converted to outlines, type with counters becomes a compound path, so basically this is expected behavior and the reason that only aligning the stroke to center is viable for type.

The larger question is why you are creating outlines to begin with. You'll probably get a raft of people telling you never to outline type (I'm aware there are some times when outlining is necessary), so more aboutr your workflow might help guide you to a more workable solution.

[Steve Werner]

If you absolutely must convert text to outlines, follow the advice of Dov Isaacs, Adobe Principal Scientist (retired) who until a couple years ago answered these questions frequently in this forum. The best way is to use an Acrobat preflight fixup:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/acrobat-discussions/why-wont-my-fonts-outline/td-p/10279598

[Steve Werner]

This illustrates my answer above for the best way to convert fonts to outlines - the Acrobat Preflight fixup - Convert Fonts to Outlines

[Peter Spier]

@Steve Werner I think the fact that the OP is converting to outlines in InDesign implies that he's doing something with those outlines, like applying a color to the stroke. I don't think that can be done directly in Acrobat after the conversion to outlines, but I suppose one could just apply a stroke to the type in InDesign before exporting. That would not, however, solve the stroke alignment problem.

I'm waiting to hear the workflow...

[Steve Werner]

I wasn't very clear to me what the poster was trying to accomplish. But my main point is that there are many reasons NOT to convert type to outlines and very few good ones.

Since Dov no longer appears on thus forun, I wanted to reinforce that point.

[Lavitas Macutis]

Hello Mike, Peter, Steve, thanks for your answers. I totally agree with Peters larger question, I have never have done such a thing before, but I’m dealing with a client who’s print shop is to print on textile and demands outline strokes with a weight and no fill inside the outline. No idea why, difficult communication with those guys.

Anyway. Peter was right in assuming that I have to put some colour to those outlining strokes, so I tried and went for Mike’s suggestion. Now, in Illustrator, the option to Align Stroke to Inside appears greyed out (as shown in the attached pic). I tried to find out why, but all I could find was that this might be the case because one applies the appearance set at group level, which doesn’t seem to be the case in my attempt. Any idea why else? Might this have to do with the fact that while in InDesign, the letter a is shown with inner and outer outline (blue on white), in Illustrator, the inner outline (green on white) appears to be lacking?

Thanks !

[Lavitas Macutis]

Sorry, I didn’t reload before posting so I missed Steve’s last. I’ll read and answer. 

[Lavitas Macutis]

Ok, right, Steve, I totally agree of course. In this somewhat hasty job (as a graphic designer’s gigs can sometimes be), like I said, the print shop demands it because that’s how they do it, period (I’m quoting here). So I simply try to comply to get my client his shirts printed. That’s the story here.

[Lavitas Macutis]

Update and apology—I just figured out that Illustrator takes the outer line (of that letter converted to paths seen in the attached image) as an individual vector, independent from the inner line. Or at least I can select them individually. That explains why the Align Stroke to Inside is inactive: A two-dimensional line has no inside. Ok. On the other hand, Illustrator still offers the option to Fill—certainly not the two dimensional line. Instead, it fills what has formerly been the first text line. The layer panel says compound path, and (as far as I see) there is no level beneath that. Still, with nothing more selected, the fill is applied to the next higher level of compound path. Maybe I lack some basics here. I’ll do some reading about compound paths. 

[Peter Spier]

T-shirts are screen printed, I believe, and I suspect they need the outlines to make the screens, though honestly I don't know why that would be (cutting plotters for sign work require outlines). Perhaps to remove anti-aliasing.

Frankly I'm not sure why aligning the stroke to center won't work for this. We're talking t-shirts here, large scale type, and the difference, visually, between the three options as far as size goes would be imperceptible in most cases. That would allow you to stroke the type and add whatever color fill you want in InDesign, then convert to outlines in Acrobat, I think.

[Lavitas Macutis]

The type is not that large type, that's the problem, but really since the matter is pressing a bit, I think I’ll enlarge it and live with the stroke not aligned to the inside.