Adobe Illustrator: How do you expand a vector to the extent of the stroke?

Question

enter image description here

I have some vector shapes with a white fill and a 0.3pt white stroke.

What I want to do is expand the shape to the extent of the outside edge of the stroke.

To put it in kind of visual terms, what I'd want to see in the image above is the blue selection line on the border between the white and the pink.

I hope I've explained it well enough. If not, please ask for clarification.

This worked, although it gave me a bunch of shapes inside the one I wanted, so I'll just go through and delete them. Thanks. — Graham Nicol, Jun 30, 2014 at 11:57
5 seconds of googling "expand + illustrator" should have solved this … — tim human, Jun 30, 2014 at 12:00
This Google search returned no useful results when I searched it before posting this question. Although, the top result in the search is now this post. But without your original comment (which I'm assuming you deleted) that containted the answer. — Graham Nicol, Jun 30, 2014 at 12:37
@timhuman if the comment you provided answered the questions, then post it as an answer with a screenshot of where the OP can find it. OP.. If you did do a search then you should include that in your question so people will know you did try to put effort in finding out. — user9447, Jun 30, 2014 at 12:58

Chris · Accepted Answer · 2015-09-14 10:36:54Z

8

A little late to the party here, but here's the way I would do it

Object > Path >Offset Path

You can adjust the size of the offset (which is basically expansion of the path) and preview it to fine tune it.

Hope this helps future users!

answered Sep 14, 2015 at 10:36

Chris

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What is the difference between "Object" > "Path" > "Outline Stroke" from the other answer and your "Offset Path"?
– Mensch
Sep 14, 2015 at 12:55
1

@Kurt less operations and fever point artefacts
– joojaa
Sep 14, 2015 at 13:27
@joojaa Thanks, wouldn't it better to add that to the answer?
– Mensch
Sep 14, 2015 at 13:31

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user9447 · Accepted Answer · 2014-07-01 13:02:15Z

7

Object > Expand Appearance then merge with Pathfinder.

Alternatively:

Object > Path > Outline Stroke

user9447

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answered Jun 30, 2014 at 11:50

KMSTR

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Thanks, but Expand Appearance is greyed out :/
– Graham Nicol
Jun 30, 2014 at 11:54
then try Expand... first.
– Vincent
Jun 30, 2014 at 11:55
Expand Appearance is still greyed out. Expand... gives me the same result as tim human's method above (i.e. lot's of shapes inside the one I want), which is good enough for my purposes.
– Graham Nicol
Jun 30, 2014 at 12:00

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2 Answers 2