Expert: Amy - 7/16/2004

Question
Illustrator 9 (Mac). If I stroke a 40 point wide square with a ten
point wide line, how can I use the transform measurements to
measure the outer edge of the stroke and not the center line of
the square. In other words, once I add a ten point stroke, the
square should measure fifty points wide (extra five points on
each side of the square). I ask because if I'm trying to create
something to an exact width, I always end up having the edges
of stroked lines sticking out past the measurement I was going
for. Or, is it possible to move the stroke to the inside/outside of
a path as opposed to through the middle of it?

Answer
I feel your pain.

I'm always going slightly outside of ad measurement limits because of the stroke weight, too.  I just reduce my artwork at the end by 99.8% or whatever.  Newspapers always ruin my artwork anyway.

BUT here's where you finally get to learn what the Offset Path command is used for (even though I never really use it).

Make your square.  40pts with a 10pt stroke.  Select it and choose Object>Path>Offset Path and enter "-5pt" in the offset box and click okay. (5pts is half of the stroke width and negative offsets it toward the center of the square instead of outward.)

Now there are two squares, so select the outermost one and delete it and the remaining one should be right on the money as far as total size and stroke width.

Hope you are able to use this tool to get what you want!

-Amy