Text outline tool not working

**nobbyy** · 27 June 2017, 06:21 AM

I have another problem today - for some reason the text outline tool has stopped working.

Everything looks fine in the design but when previewed or exported the text reverts to a single color.

I have tried it with different fonts, tried restarting the programme and running as administrator with no success.

Anybody else encountered this?

**nobbyy** · 27 June 2017, 06:46 AM

Brief update - I have 4 or 5 older versions of Xara on my machine and have tried them all and none now work - I am totally bemused.

The tool is clearly doing something in that if you add a very 'fat' line the shape of the text changes but the line is not visible.

Was beginning to think that it was a problem with my desktop but have just tried it on my laptop with same result.

I think that I may need to raise a support ticket.

**gwpriester** · 27 June 2017, 12:24 PM

Hi Nobbyy

Text outline tool?

Do you want to add an outline to your text? If so there are a few ways to do this. Add a one or two step contour with the Contour Tool. Or Add an outline to your text, then clone the text, change the color, and set the outline to none.

**gwpriester** · 27 June 2017, 12:32 PM

Two examples

**nobbyy** · 27 June 2017, 01:13 PM

Hi Gary - many thanks for the quick response.

What I am trying to to is to add an outline to the text as per the middle line in your second example.

Do I need to export this a picture? Is this why on preview it loses the outline?

**Egg Bramhill** · 27 June 2017, 09:46 PM

Hi Nobbyy, is this for print or web. HTML has no text outline (stroke or line width) for text so it's just ignored.

**mwenz** · 27 June 2017, 10:04 PM

Originally Posted by Egg Bramhill

Hi Nobbyy, is this for print or web. HTML has no text outline (stroke or line width) for text so it's just ignored.

https://css-tricks.com/examples/TextStroke/

Sure one can. Sort of but not all browsers. But solid fill is a fallback.

**Egg Bramhill** · 28 June 2017, 01:58 AM

Cheers Mike, but looking at these examples I think I'll stick with the no outline text

**mwenz** · 28 June 2017, 03:16 AM

It was just a point that it can be done.

Personally, I wouldn't add an outline to text for web use unless perhaps it is text sitting on an image so the text is able to be better seen/read. But likely not there either.

**nobbyy** · 28 June 2017, 05:24 AM

Hi all - many thanks for your responses - I was obviously having a bad day yesterday! LOL

So if its for web use I will need to export text with this kind of effect as a graphic/picture?