Outlines on text

The outline pen effect, IMHO, is kind of a kludge when it comes to applying effects to lettering. Too many things can (and do) go wrong with it. One problem is the effect is a live effect. If you apply a live outline effect to an object that has any chance of being scaled to a different size then you have to be sure to check the "scale with object" option.

The bigger problem I have with these "outline pen" effects is when they're converted into actual, editable vector objects you end up with a bunch of extraneous paths to delete and even clean up. I work in the sign industry so any effects I create with lettering I try to make "vinyl cutter ready." I don't need any paths in the artwork where they don't need to be, such as extra paths hidden within the insides of letters as well as outside the letters. A vinyl plotter blade or routing table bit will cut where ever a path is present.

With that said, the more reliable effect is the Contour tool. The Contour tool will not make a double outline both inside and outside the letter contour like the Outline Pen will do. The Contour tool has pretty much all the same capabilities as the outline pen tool, plus additional features, like being able to apply multiple outline steps. The Contour tool is also greatly improved from earlier versions of CorelDRAW. I still remember those old versions where the contour tool would create an outline just loaded with tons and tons of anchor points. Now it's more on par with the Path Offset tool in Adobe Illustrator.

Bobby Henderson said:

The outline pen effect, IMHO, is kind of a kludge when it comes to applying effects to lettering. Too many things can (and do) go wrong with it. One problem is the effect is a live effect. If you apply a live outline effect to an object that has any chance of being scaled to a different size then you have to be sure to check the "scale with object" option.

Additionally, Coreldraw's implementation has the unfortunate characteristic of distorting the outline when objects are scaled disproportionately.  Also unfortunate is that the option to scale outline with object is not global.  It's on a per object basis so one must always remember to turn it on or off.  And if memory serves me well, you run into problems when there are objects with outlines and objects without outlines, and they're grouped together.  I can remember trying to find the objects that had outlines, and trying to toggle scale with object on for those because I couldn't simply select the entire group select scale with object.  Coreldraw ran into some kind of issue there.  Maybe things are different now in the latest releases.

Illustrator,and I think everything else does these things differently.  Scale outline with object is a global setting in Illustrator.  Set it once, and it stays that way forever.  It doesn't matter if objects are grouped or not since the setting is not on a per object basis.  And if you have a circle with an outline, turning that circle into an oval does not distort the outline.

However, Illustrator has a different problem with outlined objects and it might be worse than the Coreldraw issues.  If you take that same circle with an outline and decide to increase it's size by typing a new size in the dialog box, the result will not be what you expect.  If the circle is 5x5, and you want it to be 10 x 10, you type 10 in the dialog with constrain proportions locked.  The result?  10.1274  x 9.234646.  Something like that. Try to go back to 5 x 5 and you get a new weird result.  Go back to 10 and you will begin to see that your perfect circle is now an egg shape.  This problem is more pronounced if you have an object with thick outline.  This is the one thing that Adobe seems unable to resolve.  The only way to scale that object to a precise size is to manually grab a handle and scale it, maybe using guides.  Or to convert the outlines to curves before scaling.