How to Offset a Text Stroke in Illustrator in a Non Destructive Way

Editable Text with an Offset Stroke

Sometimes, you need to have a full stroke around a text, but in a way where that stroke is set away from the text itself with a visible gap in between. By using the Appearance Panel, you can easily offset the stroke, but you will get a stroke around each separated letter and those strokes will overlap each other (and that simply does not looks good). There are of course a few different ways to properly offset a stroke around a text, but most of the methods will simply not allow you to edit the text after you apply the stroke due it requires to outline the text first. Today, I will show you a quick and easy way to offset a stroke around a text in Illustrator in a way that your text will remain fully editable.​

Step 1

Open Illustrator and make a new file at any size you want. In this case, i will make mine at 1800 x 1200 px.

Step 2

Select the Type Tool (T) and type your text into the Artboard. For this tutorial, i will be using a free font designed by Tony Thomas called "Rolight" which you can download right here at Medialoot: Download.

Step 3

With the text selected, go to Window > Appearance.

Step 4

Click on the menu icon and from the dropdown menu select "Add New Stroke".

Step 5

Set any stroke size and color you want. In this case, I will setup mine at 16 pt using an orange color.

Step 6

In the Appearance Panel, click on the bottom FX icon and from the dropdown menu select Path > Offset Path.

Step 7

In the Offset Path window, set any Offset size you want and click OK. In this case, i will setup mine at 20px.

Step 8

As you can see, we get some overlaping strokes on our text. To solve that, click on the FX icon again and from the dropdown menu select Pathfinder > Add.

Some Final Words

Now that we successfully applied an offset stroke around our text in a non destructive way, we can freely edit it as we normally do in Illustrator and change it as we want it. Of course, you can not only change the text, but also the typeface, the size, etc due it is fully editable.