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- In this movie we'll
discuss how strokes align

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to their path outlines.

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Initially it's going to
seem a little but obscure

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but it goes to the heart
of how strokes work

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inside of Illustrator.

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Notice the title of this
document its '220 x 420 guides'.

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What we have here are
three rectangular guides,

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each of which measures 220
points wide and 420 points tall.

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What I'm going to do now
is click and hold on a

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rectangle tool in order to
bring up the 'Shape' tool

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fly out menu and I'll select
the ellipse tool and then

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I'm going to position my
cursor right here at the center

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of this rectangle and I'm
going to press the 'Alt' key

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or the 'Option' key on a Mac and click.

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Then, inside the ellipse
dialog box I'm going to

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set the width value, not to
220 but rather to 200 points

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and I'm going to set the
height value not to 220 but

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rather to 400 points.

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In other words, both the width
and height values are 20 less

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than the the width and the
height of the rectangles.

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I'll click 'OK' to create that
ellipse from the center out.

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I'm going to go up to
the line weight value,

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click the down pointing arrowhead
and change the line weight

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to 20 points, just as we
saw in the previous movie.

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I'm also going to change the
color of that stroke to that

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same shade of purple, just
for the sake of demonstration,

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R 102, G 45, B 145.

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I'm going to get rid of the
fill, just so it doesn't

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get in our way, by clicking
on the first swatch

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and selecting none.

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Now let's duplicate the
shape a couple of times

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by first switching to
the black arrow tool,

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which of course you can
get by pressing the V key

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and then I'm going to drag
the center of this ellipse

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over to the right until it
snaps into alignment with the

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rectangular guide line.

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Now I'll press the 'Alt' key
or the 'Option' key on a Mac

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and if you're doing things
right you should see a

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double white arrow head,
which tells you that you're

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snapping and that you're
going to create a duplicate

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of this ellipse.

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Then go ahead and press
Ctrl+D or Command+D on a Mac

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in order to create another
duplicate of that shape.

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Now I'll go up to the 'Select'
menu and choose the 'All'

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command, or press Ctrl+A
or Command+A on a Mac

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to select all three of these shapes.

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I'm going to zoom in as
well and I want you to see

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that they exactly fill their rectangles.

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You might think, 'Well,
gosh Deke, that's really

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entertaining, but why is this important?'

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What's happening here is
that the stroke is exactly

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centered on the path outline and so,

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because it measures 20 points thick,

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it extends 10 points
(that's half of 20 points)

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outside the ellipse,
and the other 10 points

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into the ellipse.

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As a result we're filling
that 20 point gap between

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each one of these shapes
and we're doing so exactly.

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If I were to turn off the
guides layer for a moment

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and then I was to zoom
in on the inner section

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of these two ellipses
you can see that they

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exactly touch each other.

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That's because there's
a 20 point gap between

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the two ellipses and in both
cases we have 20 point strokes

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which extend 10 points to
the left from the right shape

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and 10 points to the
right from the left shape.

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You can modify that if you like.

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I'll go ahead and zoom out
just a little bit by pressing

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Ctrl + - a few times.

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To modify the alignment you
click on the word 'Stroke'

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up here in the control panel
to bring up the stroke panel

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and you drop down to this
'Align Stroke' option.

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Notice that by default it's set
to 'Align Stroke to Center'.

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You can, if you like, set it
to 'Align Stroke to Inside',

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in which case all 20 points
of the strike is going to move

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to the inside of that path
outline and none of the shapes

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will touch each other as
we're seeing right here.

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Or, you can set it to
'Align Stroke to Outside'

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in which case the entire
20 points of that stroke is

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going to go outside the
path outline and in our case

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because each one of the
ellipses is 20 points away from

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it's neighbor, the strokes
are going to entirely overlap

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at this location.

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We'll end up, if I press the
'Escape' key and then press

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Ctrl+0, Command+0 on a Mac, to zoom out,

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we'll end up with this
perfect overlapping effect

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right here.

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Notice, the reason I say
it's so perfect, is because

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the stroke that's associated
with this path outline,

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for example the center one,
is not extending at all,

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it's just touching the inside
edge of both of it's neighbors

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but it's not overlapping
into the neighbors one whit.

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One of the things you should
know about aligning strokes

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is that it only works
with closed path outlines.

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In other words, if I were to switch to the

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white arrow tool here, which I
can get by pressing the A key

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and then I click on, let's
say, this segment right here,

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and were to select it
independently of the others

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and then I press the 'Backspace' key,

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or the 'Delete' key on a
Mac, that goes ahead and

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opens up that path outline so
that it begins at one point

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and ends at another, at which
point I lose that alignment.

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Notice now that the stroke
is once again centered

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on the path outline?

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That's just the way it is.

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For example, if I were to
switch back to my letters

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right here, you can
see that they're either

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open path outlines, in the
case of the C for example,

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or they're compound paths.

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Whenever you're working with
open paths or compound paths

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when you click on 'Stroke'
you'll see that your

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'Align Stroke' options are dimmed.

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Whereas if I was to switch
to the infinity symbol,

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which is a closed path
outline, notice that it has

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complete and total continuity,
there are no end points,

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I'll go ahead and press
the V key to switch to the

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black arrow tool, I'll click
on that path to select it

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and then I'll grab my eye
dropper near the bottom

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of the tool box, which has
a keyboard shortcut of I.

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I'll go ahead and click
on any one of these paths,

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whether it's an open
path or a compound path,

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that'll go ahead and lift
that purple 20 point stroke

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at which point I'll go
ahead and zoom in by

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Ctrl+Spacebar clicking or
Command+Spacebar clicking on a Mac

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now if I click on the word
'Stroke' the 'Align Stroke'

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option is once again active so
that I can switch the stroke

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to the inside or to the outside, like so,

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or I can move it back
so that it's centered

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on the path outline.

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This is going to be integral
because most strokes

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are centered on their path outline.

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That''s because we have a
lot of different kinds of

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path outlines that are
available to us in Illustrator.

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You want to think in terms
of half of that line weight.

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It's not so much that we
have a 20 point line weight

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as we have a 10 point
weight on the outside

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and a 10 point weight on the inside.

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I'll show you exactly why that matters

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in the very next movie.