An Illustrator enthusiast and R-Design’s resident vector lover, I always get excited when I learn a new tip or shortcut for using AI. So a simple little tidbit I picked up from a colleague just made my day!

To make sure that we are on the same page, let’s briefly discuss strokes. A stroke is a “visible outline of an object”. A stroke can be any color. A stroke can be solid, dotted, dashed, or even rendered using brushes and symbols. A sample of a star with a solid black stroke can be seen below.

For ages I thought it necessary to take text and illustrations with a stroke and expand or outline them before resizing. In doing this, the stroke becomes a separate object. The reason for expanding is to avoid making the object larger or smaller, while the stroke remains the same width or point size (as seen on the right). In other words, the stroke would scale up or down proportionally along with the rest of the object.

The problem with working with text and illustrations this way is that once you have expanded or outlined, it is difficult to change or tweak the object and stroke simultaneously, without having to recreate a new version. I was thrilled (and a little afraid to think of how much time I have wasted in the past!) to learn that side stepping this sometimes tedious process is as easy as checking a box in my Illustrator preferences!

MAC: Go to Illustrator > Preferences > General and check the box next to Scale Strokes & Effects.

PC: Go to Edit > Preferences > General and check the box next to Scale Strokes & Effects.

Now your strokes will resize proportionally along with your objects, and you can scale to your heart’s content!