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I'm using Illustrator CC and I have a logo which has a stroke around part of it. I want to resize the logo while scaling the stroke proportionately. Yes, I know that question has been asked and answered a bazillion times (answer: turn on "Scale strokes and effects").

However, although that does work fine when I'm resizing the logo manually (by clicking on one of the corner boxes of the logo and dragging in or out to resize) - it does not work fine if I manually enter a new size value into the width or height field of the Transform panel.

In other words, if the entire logo (which is all grouped together) happens to be 300 px wide, and I click in the width field of the Transform panel and type in "1000 px" and hit Enter, it resizes the entire logo - but the stroke is not resized proportionately. Rather, the stroke becomes much large than it should be in proportion to the rest of the logo.

Whereas if I were to drag one of the corner boxes out with my mouse, it would resize the stroke proportionately. I find this really weird and I can't figure out why it behaves differently just because I enter the new size in manually via the keyboard.

Any ideas?

I've searched and so far can't find this specific question asked anywhere else.

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5 Answers 5

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Changing the width by inputting a new measurement is not scaling. It is altering the object directly. Therefore the strokes won't scale because there's no "scaling" taking place.

Dragging a handle of a bounding box is scaling, so strokes will scale.

Scaling refers to altering the width and/or height by percentages or a ratio. When you start using specific measurement values you have abandoned "scale" in favor of object reconstruction.

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  • Ah, I see - that makes sense. So is there any other way to accomplish what I'm after here, ie. the ability to resize an object to an exact size (by typing in the size somewhere) but with the strokes also scaling? Surely there must be a solution for when you need to enlarge an object to X pixels wide, and with its strokes in proportion, and you can't drag the handles because that won't get you to exactly X pixels?
    – GermanKiwi
    Commented Sep 13, 2014 at 16:29
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    FWIW, I do find it strange that checking "Scale strokes and effects" does, nevertheless, have an affect on the size of the stroke when I enter a new measurement into the width or height field directly. If I don't check "scale strokes" and then I type in a larger size for the object, the stroke size stays exactly the same. That makes sense. But if I do check "Scale strokes" and then type in a larger size, the stroke becomes much, much larger - way out of proportion to the object. So it's odd to me that with the stroke, it's either no change, or way too much. :/
    – GermanKiwi
    Commented Sep 13, 2014 at 16:46
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Make sure your objects are on the same layer, no subgroups, only 1 stroke setting.

Now lock them together, you can either flatten or expand, then group them.

They should now scale X and Y with entered values and keep the stroke proportional.

The stroke will no longer be editable as such but it will be fine for use graphically.

Alternately if you create the stroke with Object>Path>Offset Path you can specify the pixel width of the offset and that will scale proportionally.

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try to create a new document --> enter image description herepreview mode --> set to DEFAULT

Then copy and paste your artwork onto the new document, and re-draw the stroke...then try to scale or change the weight, you will find the stroke scaling accordingly.

Hope it could help. :)

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In your Preferences window cmd+K under the General tab select
[x]scale stroke and effects

Preferences window:
General tab for [x]use precise cursors and [x]scale stroke and effects.
Units tab (inches, points, etc) and Type to points and Guides if needed.
View > show bounding box

Good Luck!

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    Clearly you failed to actually read the question.
    – Scott
    Commented Sep 13, 2014 at 6:50
  • Yes indeed, as @Scott said you clearly haven't bothered to read the question at all; this is most unhelpful.
    – GermanKiwi
    Commented Sep 13, 2014 at 16:48
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You can expand the stroke into an object. Problem solved.

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