What is this outline around text and how do I get rid of it? (Adobe Illustrator CS5)

Question

There's this thin orange-ish outline around the text. I am talking about the ultra thin color around my text, you can clearly see it on the @ character, there's a "stroke" around it, though I'm 100% certain it is not a stroke.

I'm guessing it is Illustrator's way of telling me that text color should not go with that background color, because it seems to go away when I　switch to certain background colors. But I don't like to be told what to do.. :|

So how do I get rid of this regardless of what background color I choose?

Answer 1

This has more to do with how Illustrator handles the font's antialiasing/hinting than anything else. There is some transparency on these fonts that may not resolve well on certain colors. Sometimes Illustrator just doesn't handle pixel-related things that well.

Photoshop handles pixel-based images better, so if you try this text on that background color in PS, you'll find that you don't get that slight border. If the intent of this document is to print, though, you'll probably find that printing from Illustrator will yield text without the border. Illustrator/vector art does better on printers.

Hope this helps!

Answer 2

As Brenden points out, it is due to anti-aliasing in Illustrator.

It won't effect output.

However, if it really bothers you there is a workaround.

Set the text blend mode to "Multiply" in the Transparency or Appearance Panel.

Here's the difference:

Overprint will have the same effect. If you set the text to Overprint Fill in the Attributes Panel then turn on View > Overprint Preview you'll also eliminate the anti-alias "glow" which can appear.

Overprint Preview may have some undesired effects when using Save For Web however. So it's best to use Multiply if the project is destined for screen reproduction.