How to Outline Strokes in InDesign: Is It Possible?

[Roger Breton]

I think I know the answer to this question. Just in case I am missing something very obvious.

I don't need such a feature to the point that I wouldn't be able to copy/paste the shape to Illustrator, outline it there and copy it back as a "surface". 

To me this feature will never be found in InDesign... but I have to ask...

Maybe through the help of a "script"?

Thank you for your patience and kind help.

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[Steve Werner · Accepted solution]

There is no such command in InDesign. I don't know the limitations of scripting for InDesign well enought to say it can't be done with scripting but I doubt it.

Of course, it's easy in Illustrator because fundamentally it is a drawing program and InDesign is not: Object > Path > Outline Stroke.

[Willi Adelberger]

It is not possible in InDesign. What is the reason to do so?

[Roger Breton]

Well, for reasons of "convenience" which happens all the time. Take the example of this simple cross :

It started out as two overlapping 4 points black strokes. Easy enough to center the strokes but I needed to have a small white area at their overlap. In other words, this was a perfect case for the Exclusion pathfinder. But it does not do anything on "Strokes"? If I would have been in Illustrator, I would have simply oulined the two strokes and we would have been done. As "filled surfaces", the pathfinder filter would have worked. So I ended up redoing the cross with two small filled rectangles in InDesign and then the pathfinder filter worked. You see?

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@Roger Breton

Yes, it's possible through scripting.

If you work on a PC - you could use free version of my ID-Tasker tool for small amount of objects / infrequent use. 

Full / paid version can do it in bulk, on all or only selected objects, automatically process multiple files. 

[Roger Breton]

Win11 Microsoft Edge didn't allow downloading the ZIP file but Chrome did 🙂

[Roger Breton]

Unable to run ID-Tasker for now... Will try later. Looks like I'm going to have to register InDesign the old way...

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@Roger Breton

I've sent you a message on priv.