AI help

[chillwihll]

So I am trying to overlap 3 letters to make them into a logo. Now I want a stroke around the logo. Is there a way that I can set a stroke without stroking the individual letters--because then, the strokes overlap.

[vtwin_gary]

i'm not an illy person & it gets slow in here after 5 but someone may pop in & help you out.

hello & welcome to gdf

[MD]

If I understand you right all you would have to do is make a duplicate of the 3 letters, stroke those and send to back. Group your letters together and use the align palette to line them up perfectly. That should take care of your problem.

If not post a screenshot of the logo so we can see what you are talking about.

Oh and BTW Welcome to the Forum :D

[chillwihll]

Copy/paste, Stroke, Group, Send to Back. Brilliant! Thanks.

[MD]

no problem.

[PrintDriver]

I mighta welded them together with the Pathfinder>Add to Shape Area>expand but that's cuz I'm a vinyl guy too.

[keith1]

Select all the letters then create outlines, keep them all selected and then go to the pathfinder pallette and choose the first option. That will make it all one graphic and then apply the stroke and presto no overlapping strokes.

[MD]

That would work but I don't like the way illy outlines things. The stroke lands in the middle of the path crowding the type structure. Try to put a thicker stroke on serif type - not too pretty is it? Also your idea would not work if the letters were different colors like the ebay logo.

[PrintDriver]

Keith that's what I said. Only come to think of it, once I welded em I'd probably outline em rather than stroke em.

Ooo multicolor outlines, MD? <Shudder> (ebay isn't outlined, they've discovered transparency, LOL).

[keith1]

Keith that's what I said. Only come to think of it, once I welded em I'd probably outline em rather than stroke em.

Ooo multicolor outlines, MD? <Shudder> (ebay isn't outlined, they've discovered transparency, LOL).

I know I was writing it the same time as you were because I didn't see your response until after mine. :)

[Ghastly]

gonna throw my 2 pence worth in...once you have created outlines and unified yer text into one shape, its true that if you stroke it as MD said the stroke ends up in the middle of yer path....there is a fix though :cool:
- outline the stroke (you could make it multicoloured now if ya really wanted to and stuff)
- send the outlined stroke to the back
- copy the original text before selecting it, selecting the outlined stroke, and using the minus front filter
- Paste in front...now you have the text and it's stroke as seperate objects, no overlapping paths, and stroked from the edge outwards.

*edit* Also if what I've read is correct CS2 allows you to stroke from the edge without messing about with the above

[Broacher]

CorelDraw version: with text selected: F12, Alt-B, Enter. No copies, no converting to outlines... just a simple additional object attribute: outline behind fill.

And you would think that you could do much the same with the Appearance palette in AI. Just drag the outline of the selected object beneath it's fill. But it doesn't work on text. And even after you convert to outlines, you have to Ungroup, and combine paths to make that trick work. Wouldn't another simple button in the Stroke palette, such as 'Behind Fill' be so much simpler?

[MD]

Keith that's what I said. Only come to think of it, once I welded em I'd probably outline em rather than stroke em.

Ooo multicolor outlines, MD? <Shudder> (ebay isn't outlined, they've discovered transparency, LOL).

No I meant if the letters were different colors like ebays the uniting the letters would not work. A multi color outline would be quite interesting though :D

[PrintDriver]

Wait...
If I want to put an outline around the group of letters, not each individual one, I'd copy/paste in back the entire set of 4 ebay letters. I'd weld those 4 copies into one large mass (a technicality, the fill would have to be white because those letters look transparent). Then I'd apply an outline to the shape which would be outside the welded shape, ungroup it and send that new outline to the back and fill it with my outline color. We won't go into traps...
8)