May 10, 1998

Making Lines Fillable

Few know it, but you can actually make any weight line fillable, meaning you can apply any fill effect to a line. One catch, you must use a couple of extra steps to do it. There might not be a large demand to do something like this, but someday you may have that special piece of artwork that you wish you could easily apply a fill to a line. Below I explain how to do it.

Version: 5 and above

Let's say I create this logo for my client above at left. They want one change, to make the stepped lines blend in with the yellow background. Well that's great, but as you can see in Keyline mode (above right) those lines are actually lines and not fillable squares.

Using the Expand Stroke operation on those lines, turns them into fillable squares, and they are the exact same width as the original stroke. Now I can make that simple change without having to draw a bunch of squares. Below I use another example of how to use the Expand Stroke operation.

1) For this example, I first convert this text to paths, this way I can apply Fill and Stroke effects to it. Next I give it a 5 point line and a basic Blue fill. I then clone this and put it on a separate layer so I can save the fill, because it gets lost as a result of the next operation.

2) Now while the shapes are still selected I choose Expand Stroke from the Operations palette. This can also be found under Modify -> Alter Path -> Expand Stroke. You'll be shown the above dialog box. The width measurement value depends on what your document's units are setup as. It's best to have it set at Points for this type of operation. Now I enter 5 as the Width, because this is the original width of the line.

3) Now my objects have an editable fill that is the exact width of the original line. By doing this and you have the option Path operations consume original paths turned on in your preferences, then you lose your fill. If you kept that clone on a separate layer from step 1, you can get it back.	4) Now I can add some fill effects to those areas that I couldn't before.

This is a great tip for converting those lines into fillable art. I know I needed this effect a lot, and sometimes forgot completely about it. Hopefully this will help you in your future endeavors.