Not to be a jerk about this, but I would not use the method Crow Pebble mentions above. Iâve posted in several threads here on GDF about this already, but use the Appearance Palette in Illustrator. Everything will be live and editable in the future. You can change the font, change the text, et.c and the effect will remain.
This is another GDF thread on the appearance palette, but its not directly related to text effects, but it easily can be.
I did a quick google search and this blog post explains how to create âcomplexâ text effects using the appearance palette.
I cannot stress how useful the appearance palette is and most designers seem to not even realize it exists or realize its potential. The other nice route with the appearance palette is if you create an effect that you lie, you can save it as a graphic style and apply it to other text or other shapes moving forward.
You can also offset individual strokes, transform individual strokes and fills, etc. This thread explains that aspect in a little more detail.