Expert: Amy - 5/17/2007

Question
I find when creating a graphic with text that has an outline, (ie. a logo), once grouped together to scale the object down to a smaller size, the text outlines keep the same size, ie. 2pts, and do not scale proportionately to the rest of the image. Any idea how I can get the outlines to scale in proportion to the rest. For instance at the large size the outlines would look fine at 2 pt, but when scaling to a smaller image the proportion is messed up and 2pt outline is way too large.

Thanks. I hope you get what I am trying to say.

Answer
Hi Nicola.

You can control the scaling of the stroke if you use the scale tool to do your scaling.

Select the object(s) you want to scale, then double click on the scale tool in the tool palette.

You will get a dialog box with an option to "Scale strokes and patterns" (or similar wording). Check that box and enter a value to scale down to.

Incidentally, once you have checked that box, the scaling you do using the Bounding Boxes on an object will have scaled strokes, too.

At least that's the way it used to work. I don't have a copy of CS2 where I am so I can't test that right now but I think I'm right.

Hope that helped!
Amy