Convert Strokes To Outline & Welding

[Pantone]

Hello All,

I humbly ask for help from those of you more knowledgable than I am...

When using the Freestyle Script font in a sign design in Flexi the letters are a bit "thin" so I add a .090 stroke to the words using the Fill/Stroke Editor. Now...looks fine on the screen. Here's where I can't get it just right...

I then convert the stroke to outlines then select the text and try to "weld" everything together so that it cuts as a thick solid stroke instead of an outline. Does that make sense?

I've done it before but I can't remember exactly how I did it! Convert to outline...convert stroke to outline...select the text...effects/combine/weld...it is some combination of those but I have only stumbled on it and can't get it right since.

Basically...I want to make a think font thicker when there is no bold option available.

Any assistance on how to accomplish this correctly would be greatly appreciated.

 

[iSign]

I just loaded Flexi last week, mostly for my new employee to learn.. (then he can teach me ) so I should probably stay out of the way for someone who knows what they are talking about, but since it's Sunday..

I would say it sounds like you have mentioned all the right steps in seemingly the right terminology... I wonder if getting the right sequence is the only factor causing it not to work already.

In Illustrator the first step required (before or after assigning the stroke)would be converting the text to outlines (or whatever flexi calls the process of changing the text from being recognized as text, into being only seen as a graphic) ...you menton this as if it was your first step also, but in case you tried to outline stroke or weld before this step... I would try those steps after converting to outlines.

 

[ryan_long_01]

(this is coming from a flexi newbie) i try to avoid 'stroke' in flexi when i can help it, instead i use the 'outline' effect when i can. then you can separate the outline and weld it to the rest of the text (which you have converted to outlines). let us know if this works out for you...

ryan

 

[iSign]

that sounds like a good solution.I always thought illustrator should have a better outline function.

 

[Fred Weiss]

To embolden text in Flexi, the easiest way is to outline it. The outlining will also automatically weld any overlapping shapes and preserve the compounding. When you're happy with the result, delete the text and convert the outline effect to outlines. this basically removes the ability to change the outline later but releases it from extra memory being used to store that information.

You can do it with strokes but it requires several more steps.