Outlines Inlines and seperating

[Selwynio]

Hi, 

 

Making a simple Recatangle as an example - 100cm x 50cm. I make this Blue (colour is irrelevant), I then go in to 'Effects', and i can see that i can add an outline to this. I also have the options 'Inside' 'Outside' 'Centre'

 

I'm interested in the Inside and the Outside.

 

However it only allows me to make a line maximum of 100px. 

 

I need to be able to do an inline, or outline to a specific measurement, lets say 65mm. But the 100px is nowhere near 65mm.

 

How can i achieve this Inside line, or Outside line to a specific unit of distance??

 

Further to that, If I can make the line to the right distance, how can i then make the 'Inside' line that I have created, become a new path that can be moved/manipulated independently of the original rectangle I have drawn?

 

Thanks

[Alfred]

Welcome to the Affinity Forums, Selwynio. :)

 

I need to be able to do an inline, or outline to a specific measurement, lets say 65mm. But the 100px is nowhere near 65mm.

 

Please forgive me for saying so, but your statement that "100px is nowhere near 65mm" is meaningless! At a resolution of 100 pixels per inch, 100px is only 25.4mm, but at a resolution of 25 pixels per inch it's 101.6mm.

[Selwynio]

Cheers for the reply there.

 

I'm a little rusty, and quite ignorant with all of this. Desperately trying to get back up to speed with the designing side of what we do here.

 

I didn't even know that px meant pixels.

 

So, i guess what i need to find out is..........Is there away of specifying a distance measurement to an Outline or 'Inline to a path. And then 'ungrouping' the two elements, so they can be be dealt with indifidually.

 

Cheers

[MEB]

Hi Selwynio,

Welcome to Affinity Forums :)

Don't use Layer Effects for this. Layer Effects are raster based and cannot be converted to vectors - this means you can's convert the Outline FX to a shape as you need.

Make sure your document is set to cm if that's the units you want to work with. You can do so, clicking on the View Tool (hand icon on the bottom of the left toolbar) and changing the Units dropdown on the context toolbar to Centimetres. Draw you rectangle with 100x50cm, then go to the Stroke width popup in the context toolbar and set it to the value you want. If you need more than 100 (the max value of the slider), click on the inout field and enter the value you want. You can also set the alignment of the stroke there (last row of icons).

To convert the stroke to a shape, select the rectangle then go to menu Layer ▸ Expand Stroke.

[Selwynio]

MEB 

 

Thanks so much for that. Really appreciated. Hopefully there will only be a few more things that I need help with, and I'm hopeful that a few days working with Affinity, and I will be flying.

 

Many thanks again.

[Selwynio]

Is there a different process for outlining text?

[MEB]

Hi Selwynio,

What do you mean? You can also apply strokes to text... Can you elaborate a little?

What are you trying to achieve?

[Selwynio]

I think I've figured it out. I'm going to spend some real time with it over the xmas shut down, and I'm sure I will figure out most of the answers to everything.

I'll post again once I get stuck.

 

Thanks again for the help, and quick replys.

 

Malc