Where Are My Stroke Styles in Illustrator?

Recently, I got the following question from an InDesign artist who was just getting into Illustrator: “In InDesign, after I apply a stroke to a path, I can choose from all types of stroke style presets right in the Stroke palette. I find nothing like that in Illustrator’s Stroke palette. Am I missing something?”

Nope! It’s not included in Illustrator’s Strokes palette. But creating your own custom strokes is easy.

A quick example:
1- Draw a path with the Line Segment tool or the Pen tool.
2- With the path selected, go to the Appearance palette, and click on the Stroke in the palette listings. Click the “New” (page) icon at the bottom of the palette to create a second stroke for this path.
3- Click on the bottom Stroke listing and make in twice as thick in the Stroke palette.
4- Click on the top Stroke listing and make it white.
5- Drag the “path” name from the top of the Appearance palette to the Graphic Styles palette. As a graphic style you can quickly apply it to any path again and again, kind of like a preset.

Another solution – Brushes! But that’s another Tip.

Tip provided by Jeff Witchel, Certified Adobe Training Provider.

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