Illustrator is powerful vector graphics program. Here’s how to take control of outlined text once and for all!

This week, I was working with text, and I was looking for a way to put a thick outline around each letter. Initially when I added a stroke to the text, and cranked up it’s thickness, the stroke appeared on top of the text. This just looked bad, and I wanted the stroke to go behind the text. I clicked on the stroke options in the text, thinking I could set the stroke to be behind the text. No dice. On text elements, for some reason this option is grayed out. After some fiddling around, I found that the effect I wanted could easily be achieved by using the appearance panel.

Here’s how to add a stroke to text, and have it appear behind the fill.

1: Add your text

2: In the Appearance panel, click the ‘Add Stroke’ button

3: Move the stroke so that it appears under the ‘Characters’ in the stack

4: Now your stroke will appear behind the fill, and you can crank up it’s width without choking out your text.

This is a great way to give text some very complex strokes, while keeping the text editable.

My new favorite Illustrator effect is now multiple strokes on text. I like the retro look you can achieve, I just hope I don’t wear it out like lens flares in the early 2000s.