White border around Black Text?

[jeb]

How do you do it? - tks - jb

[Soquili]

What colour is the background?

Begin by Using the Contour Tool to make an outer contour.
Change the number of contour steps to 1.
Click to select only the contour and apply White colour.

If the background is not white you are finished.

If the background is white then you will need to convert to Editable Shapes and apply a Black outline colour.

[jeb]

Perfect - tks Bill. - jb

[Soquili]

You are very welcome Jeb.

[jeb]

Well, now not so perfect.

When I first select the text and then click on contour everything in the tool bar comes up grayed out.

When I then move the slider it automatically sets the steps to 4 and the text is very fuzzy - not a nice, sharp line as your example. When I then change the steps to 1 it does not change anything.

I am doing something wrong but can't figure out what. - jb

And now I can't get it to do what it did before - When I try to click on just the contour and change the color to white it makes the whole thing white.

The background is a picture that I have made very light with the transparency - I work in B&W so it is a light gray.

[handrawn]

Hi Jeb

did you click return after changing steps to 1 ? - you will then likely need to adjust the contour width again

you also need to deselect the text before you select the contour to recolour

[jeb]

That clicking on enter after changing the steps was the solution I needed - works great now and one can also group and then put a black border around all of it - looks great.

Tks - jb

[handrawn]

ah these little things that are so important

glad you got it sorted

[Big Frank]

Here's an alternative method you might find useful: