Alignment of curve with round cap & editing of expanded stroke

[sowenjub]

For a path with a round cap, the alignment is based on the end of the path.
In the attached design, snapping the curve to the right means that the cap will be clipped / outside the Artboard.

Expanding the stroke is one way to solve that, but then it becomes difficult to edit the path. What I usually end up doing is keeping a copy of the stroke before I expand it, and hide it.

Is there a better way to handle this?

Thanks

[GarryP]

You can use a “Circle Solid” End Cap on the Curve but there doesn’t seem to be a good size that ‘blends’ nicely with the rest of the stroke at high stroke widths – there always seems to be a ‘waist’ or ‘bulge’ near the end.

[sowenjub]

6 minutes ago, GarryP said:

You can use a “Circle Solid” End Cap on the Curve but there doesn’t seem to be a good size that ‘blends’ nicely with the rest of the stroke at high stroke widths – there always seems to be a ‘waist’ or ‘bulge’ near the end.

Right, I'd rather not introduce such an artefact for the sake of alignment.

[GarryP]

I’m pretty sure that this has come up before in the forums but I have no idea what you could search for to find it easily.
If memory serves me correctly there wasn’t a solution, but I’d be happy to be proven wrong as it would be nice to learn something new.

[sowenjub]

6 minutes ago, GarryP said:

I’m pretty sure that this has come up before in the forums but I have no idea what you could search for to find it easily.
If memory serves me correctly there wasn’t a solution, but I’d be happy to be proven wrong as it would be nice to learn something new.

Before posting I found this post. I hoped 2 years had brought better solutions, but apparently not. I'll stick to my "duplicate, expand and hide" method for the time being. Thanks for trying to help!

[MikeTO]

The easiest workaround I can think of is to draw and inset it from the corners of the page half the width of your stroke. If your stroke is 30pt then inset it by 15pt. Give this box no stroke and no fill so it's invisible and send it to the back. Ensure Snap to Object Bounding Boxes is checked. Then the curve you're working with will snap perfectly inside the page diameters with no clipping.

[sowenjub]

17 hours ago, MikeTO said:

The easiest workaround I can think of is to draw and inset it from the corners of the page half the width of your stroke. If your stroke is 30pt then inset it by 15pt. Give this box no stroke and no fill so it's invisible and send it to the back. Ensure Snap to Object Bounding Boxes is checked. Then the curve you're working with will snap perfectly inside the page diameters with no clipping.

Nice trick as long as it's just the one stroke. Thanks.