Outline stroke
Convert a stroke into a filled vector shape with editable paths.
What outline stroke does
A stroke is normally a visual property applied around the edge of a shape — it has a width, color, and position (center, inside, or outside), but its outline is not directly editable as geometry. Outline stroke converts that stroke into an actual filled vector shape whose anchor points you can then manipulate in vector edit mode.
This is useful when you want to:
- Bevel, round, or distort the stroke's outline
- Create complex stroke effects by modifying the resulting shape
- Apply fills and effects to the stroke shape independently
- Export clean vector artwork where stroke width must be embedded as geometry
Converting a stroke to an outline
- Select a vector or shape that has a stroke applied.
- Click Outline Stroke in the inline toolbar (text layers have it in the toolbar's More menu).
- The stroke is removed from the layer's style properties and replaced with a new vector shape that matches the stroke's visual outline.
What changes after outlining
- The original stroke property disappears — the shape's visual border is now the new vector outline shape.
- If the layer also has a visible fill, nothing is lost: the result is a group with two layers — the original layer with its fill (strokes removed; a rectangle stays a rectangle) below a vector filled with the stroke color. The group takes over the layer's position, rotation, visibility, lock state, opacity, blend mode, effects, mask role, aspect-ratio lock, export presets and its settings as an auto-layout child. This matches Illustrator's Outline Stroke. The outlined stroke layer's bounding box fits the outline itself, and the group's box is the union of both layers, so a centered or outside stroke makes the group slightly larger than the original layer; nothing moves on the canvas. A layer with only a stroke becomes a single vector — a fill that is hidden or at 0% opacity counts as none.
- In the Layers panel the group and the fill layer keep the original layer's name; the outlined stroke layer is named Stroke Outline (Text Outline for text). A vector painted only with the paint bucket counts as filled, so it gets the group too.
- Inside a boolean group the two layers are placed side by side instead of being grouped, because boolean operations only take vectors and shapes as operands (the fill layer keeps the original's mask role and export presets, the outlined stroke layer only paints); a boolean group that is itself outlined keeps its operands on the fill layer. Component masters, instances, and the layers inside them are left unchanged.
- Undo restores the original layer and selects it again.
- The resulting shape has its own fill (matching the original stroke color) and can be styled independently.
- Enter vector edit mode to move individual anchor points: on a stroke-only layer the outlined shape is already selected; on a filled layer double-click into the group and select the outlined stroke layer first (the group itself cannot enter vector edit).
Tips
- Duplicate the layer before running outline stroke so you can revert to the original if needed.
- Apply this after finalizing your stroke width — changing the outline width after converting requires manual path adjustments.
- Outline stroke is most useful before applying boolean operations, which work on filled geometry and do not include stroke thickness.