Strokes

Paths can be expanded to a stroke. The stroke controls are located in the bottom right of the Palette (Window → Palette, Cmd-Opt-P) and are accessible when View → Show Info (Cmd-Shift-I) is active and a path is selected.

Creating Strokes

Expand a path to a shape by selecting one or more of its points and entering a stroke width and height in the Stroke section in the Palette. The stroke width () and stroke height () are measured in font units. If no height is set, then the width is used for both dimensions.

A stroke can be applied to both closed and open paths. For closed paths, select the Fill checkbox from the Palette to fill the path delineated by the new outlines.

The original path is displayed in a light gray color, while the stroke outline is black. A stroke path can be converted to a conventional outline by choosing Expand Outline from the context menu. Hold down Option to expand outlines on all masters.

Stroke Style

Choose the stroke position using a percentage or one of the pre-defined options  center (0 %),  to the left of the path (−100 %), or  to the right of the path (100 %). The stroke join can be any of , , , . For open paths, the stroke cap can be selected independently for the start and end node and can be one of , , , , . The option automatically aligns to either the X or Y axis, whichever is closer to the cap orientation. Click and hold the button to choose a specific axis.

Pen Points

Pen points allow modulating the stroke width and height. Additionally, they provide control over the stroke angle and position.

Pen points can be defined for existing nodes or added at an arbitrary position along a path segment between nodes. Select a node belonging to a stroke and edit its pen point settings in the Info box. With the Select tool  active, right-click anywhere on a stroked path and choose Add Pen Point from the menu to add arbitrarily placed pen points.

Delete a pen point by selecting it and pressing the Delete key. For pen points on nodes, select the node and clear the pen point data in its Info box.

The stroke width () and stroke height () overwrite the path settings at that point.

For open paths, the end nodes of the path will retain the path settings by default. For closed paths, adding a single pen point overwrites the settings for the entire path; multiple pen points are required for stroke modulation.

The angle of a pen point rotates the pen:

The stroke position () can be controlled for each pen point:

The last two fields of the Info box control the stroke progression:

The upper field controls the progression into the pen point, the lower field controls the progression out from the pen point. The smallest value of −1.0 draws the stroke effect closer towards the pen point; the largest value of 2.0 spreads the effect across the path segment.